Expert HR Advice: 6 Ways to Enhance Manager Coaching
In many companies, leaders nowadays try to lead effectively, even though they have received little or no training. A study shows that 59 percent of managers with one to two employees receive no management training at all. And of those who lead three to five team members, 41 percent receive neither training nor coaching. As HR departments strive to make the best use of human capital in the company, this training gap highlights an important potential for increasing growth and efficiency through management coaching.
What role does the HR department play in coaching?
Traditionally, HR coaching primarily focuses on supporting leaders in dealing with specific problems and challenges. Companies often hire external consultants or coaches to promote the development of their leaders. However, HR managers have the unique and important opportunity to expand their role in coaching leaders.
In coaching, the HR department goes beyond simply explaining the effects of a leader's behavior on others – it becomes a partner and focuses specifically on their development. Individual coaching can help leaders manage stress, resolve conflicts more effectively, and achieve personal or business goals. Additionally, supplementary training through coaching can make the work environment more pleasant and effective for both management and employees.
If management coaching is so important, how can the HR department help? What role does it play in management coaching? We asked this question to our team of HR experts. Often, managers do not know what to watch for or how to react when a problem arises. At the same time, the HR department invests a lot of time in solving problems that could have been avoided if the manager had been trained and coached beforehand. We wanted to find out how the HR department can support managers in recognizing problems early and drawing attention to them. Here are our insights on how the HR department can coach managers.
How to Coach Leaders: Developing Coaching Techniques
To get tips on coaching leaders, we asked our experts the following question:
"How do you coach leaders so that they act more mindfully and don’t constantly have to solve problems caused by themselves?"
We specifically asked how they would implement this in the face of resistance from management and leaders. Here are their answers.
Kate: We need to do two things. First, we need to create a certain level of awareness among managers. That means giving them enough information to know when they should reach out to HR. This awareness needs to be triggered by terms like 'uncomfortable', 'sick', 'cancer', 'breast', 'baby', 'illegal', 'hostile', 'accident', and 'deceased'. When a manager hears these words, they need to know that we are there to help and that it might be difficult to handle the situation alone. That’s why we need to train managers, strengthen our role as partners, and provide them with the necessary support. With this support, they can recognize when there is a real crisis and may even be able to prevent some issues.
Secondly, we need to give leaders the necessary freedom and time to actually focus on their leadership tasks. Leading employees is challenging – really very challenging. Employees want our trust and understanding, so leaders need to take the time to build trust and start conversations with questions like 'How is it going?' and 'How can I help you?' These questions promote an important dialogue on a wide range of topics, including performance, employee engagement, company culture, and productivity. And, probably most importantly, they help to identify problems early, before they escalate.
Tammy: As with many HR topics, promoting leadership development is a key competency for HR professionals. Coaching techniques and persuasion methods are essential in this regard. To gain the approval of leaders purely from an ROI perspective, business analytics and business cases should be at the center of the argument.
The fundamental acceptance of coaching must, as with many initiatives perceived as 'soft' or 'HR-typical,' come from the leadership level. Developing advocates can, when necessary, support the effort to persuade top management. At the middle management level, acceptance of coaching must be promoted through a joint initiative by HR and the leadership: team members are explained the business reasons for behavioral changes and are asked for support in implementing the necessary cultural change. For individuals, direct communication is usually most effective, especially when leadership clarifies that a particular business practice is required, not just recommended.
In the worst case, if a certain approach actually causes work for another group or harms an individual, it is essential that the HR department works together with upper management.
Jon: All too often, employees are promoted to leadership positions because of their outstanding individual achievements; however, they lack the necessary tools and training to be effective leaders. It is important for leaders to understand that not everyone comes to work for the same reasons, that employees require different leadership styles, and that it is crucial to address performance issues thoroughly and promptly. I encourage leaders to be present, actively listen to their employees, and keep their commitments. When a leader has been promoted or moves into an existing leadership role, I consider a team handover meeting to be useful, where the new leader shares their expectations, vision, and goals with the team to facilitate the transition.
Tamara: When it is difficult to get approval for coaching (usually for time or budget reasons or because the need is denied), you have to get creative. This can mean holding individual meetings with managers instead of group sessions. Providing information and resources via email and/or newsletters can also be helpful. It can also be useful to provide managers with data and feedback from employees that highlight recurring weaknesses and show why coaching is necessary and positively impacts employee retention, which in turn affects company performance. Coaching and training are more cost-effective than constantly having to fill positions because employees leave due to poor leadership.
Katrina: Develop an onboarding program for managers before they make their first hire. I think this strategy is good for several reasons:
First: Most (if not all) managers have never taken a course on good leadership skills. Such courses are rarely offered outside of MBA programs or PhDs in organizational psychology. Develop a program based on your values, your processes, and your strategies. It must be tailored to you – to how the managers work with you. Teach them your way of working and the recruiting process – the big picture. Most importantly, it should become an integral part of training before anyone becomes a manager or hires employees.
Overall, this not only fosters better relationships between HR managers and talent teams from the start, but also highlights the value of continued education and leaves a lasting impression on the recruiting teams. Employees will proudly go to their next three employers and talk about their management training.
Sarah: Coaching is better than correction. Positive feedback and honest suggestions for improvement early and regularly lead to more success, better results, and stronger relationships than any corrective or disciplinary measure. Leaders usually understand this, so it is not difficult to convince them. The challenge is teaching them how to coach and document coaching conversations in a non-intrusive way. I share with them some simple and effective methods that help them with this.
Steve: When leaders feel like they constantly have to put out fires, they are not effective. When they think their only job is to solve inevitable problems, they fall behind, and that is a negative attitude toward work. I believe HR (which itself falls into this trap) needs to rethink and become more proactive. There are three ways to do this:
(1) HR must be proactive itself and model the behavior it expects from leaders. You can't preach being proactive if you are not proactive yourself.
(2) Always expect the best from others. Instead of looking for mistakes, take a step back, recognize the strengths, and build on them. Focus on your employees' strengths rather than trying to "fix" their deficits and weaknesses.
(3) Give your employees the opportunity to complete their tasks. This proactive approach gives them the permission to do their work well. They will meet the expectations of others. They always do!
Trust in employees is lacking in the workplace today. We have a great opportunity to change the perspective of HR, leaders, and managers by fostering a proactive culture.
Carlos: "I feel like I spend all my time putting out fires." Many leaders share this feeling, or a similar combination. They find themselves caught in a whirlwind of problems, all of which take up their time, demand their attention, and hamper their ability to lead their teams.
Putting out fires is one thing; preventing them or addressing them early, while they are still small enough to manage, is a rewarding task.
Here are three ways to do exactly that:
1. Implement regular check-ins
Problems that leaders face often arise because early warning signs were overlooked. To prevent this, leaders should schedule regular check-ins with their employees.
Regular check-ins create a consistent rhythm for both employees and leaders and allow for continuous communication on both sides. This way, the dialogue can extend beyond the most urgent daily tasks and focus on long-term planning and forecasting. This long-term planning helps the team identify challenges early and ideally address them proactively.
Without regular conversations, employees cannot anticipate when the next opportunity to communicate with their manager will arise. This makes every communication an urgent exercise. This sense of urgency suppresses rational decision-making and planning, which help managers identify and address problems early before they spiral out of control.
Create a schedule. Encourage your team to prepare for discussions about current and future issues and to work together to develop solutions.
2. Building relationships
Often, the people we spend most of our time with remain a mystery to us. We work with people – with infinitely complex personalities full of incredible talents and abilities – and yet our interactions with them often focus on the specific tasks and duties of a job description.
We need to get to know the people we work with better, and leaders need to know enough about their employees to give daily interactions a human dimension. It's not about every employee knowing everything about everyone else; rather, work relationships based on mutual respect and trust are the foundation for highly effective teams.
You don't want to be overwhelmed by everyday problems? Know your employees and encourage their networking. People with shared interests at work support each other and actively contribute to a better team and a better organization.
3. Planning and Preparation
Every leader knows that planning and preparation are crucial for success. However, most do not place enough emphasis on it at the team level; that is, they do not expect their employees to invest as much time in planning and preparation as they do themselves.
Employees in direct customer contact are not always expected to plan, but this task should not be left solely to managers. Every employee is responsible for planning their day and week and preparing for the most important tasks.
Managers should encourage their employees to do this and also expect it. Not only because it helps them maintain an overview, but because it is an essential skill and practice that enables every team member to identify and solve problems early.
Every manager and every team deserves the chance to do the work they do best. This is not only good for the employees but also makes economic sense.
Dealing with problems is probably always part of the daily work of managers and leaders. However, being unprepared or caught by surprise is not necessary. The key is to improve the areas that prevent problems from arising in the first place.
Learn more about performance management
We hope that you found these insights into management coaching helpful. Follow our blog to make sure you don't miss the next question in our panel discussion. In the meantime, we recommend further reading to improve your skills and expand your knowledge of best practices in human resources.
- The comprehensive guide to performance management
- Better ways to conduct employee evaluations
The consensus among HR experts is clear: to foster growth and efficiency, HR must proactively coach managers and shift their focus from reactive "firefighting" to proactive problem prevention and relationship building. This requires leadership to be more mindful, present, and consistent in their communication. For HR to successfully implement this culture shift—especially against resistance—it must leverage data and embed coaching into the operational flow. IceHrm's Performance Management features provide the ideal platform for this transformation. By enabling regular, scheduled check-ins (as advised by Carlos), facilitating documentation of coaching conversations (as advised by Sarah), and providing a framework for managers to give focused, strengths-based feedback (as advised by Steve), IceHrm helps managers become better coaches, strengthens manager-employee relationships, and ensures that the entire organization operates more effectively and mindfully.