How Managers Can Become Better Career Coaches
As the saying goes, “people quit managers, not companies”
Why would it be important for a manager to be a good career coach?
A big reason why employees quit is due to a manager they don't like. A bigger reason? The manager that does not support their career interests or inspire them to do more.
“75% of workers who voluntarily left their jobs did so because of their bosses and not the position itself.” Source - Gallup
While this can be a true statement, it can be an incomplete one. It doesn’t address the issue of why people cite bad managers as their main reason for leaving.
Let's define this. For example, Facebook’s People Analytics team did a study on employees that were about to leave. Their survey data revealed that there were three ways managers could have helped the employee experience:
Enable them to do work they enjoy
Help them play to their strengths
Help them create a career development path that factors in personal priorities
We can sum this up in two crucial words: career coaching.
If managers are to become part of the retention solution, they must become better career coaches. It’s not only HR leaders that need to take notice of this trend.
"Organizations where senior leaders “very frequently” coach have 21 per cent higher business results" - Source: Bersin by Deloitte.
Large organizations worldwide are recognizing this. In fact, the top desired skill for front-line managers is coaching, according to a recent survey in Chief Learning Officer Magazine.
Today, we share why career coaching is a critical skill that all your managers need to have to encourage employee productivity.
5 Ways For Managers To Become Better Career Coaches
Avoid micromanagement at all costs. The days of military-like dictation to underlings are over. Managers should emphasize delegation, taking a page from Netflix’s idea of “context, not control”.
The idea is that "high performing people will do better work if they understand the context" of the project. So, as opposed to giving people hard instructions on how to do a job, you want to be sharing with them the purpose and how it maps up to the company's biggest goals. Trust that your team will do the tasks needed to get to the bigger picture and they will.
Create responsibility frameworks. Every manager and report should have a responsibility framework split between them. This helps provide a level of accountability towards tasks. It also creates a standard where managers can measure performance in business metrics.
Respect frequent check-ins. One-on-ones are crucial, yet not always done well. Employees should lead the conversation, allowing for more organic, two-way dialogue to occur. This situation allows the employee to feel more comfortable asking for performance feedback. It also allows them to feel more comfortable bringing up concerns.
Make feedback about the employee, as well as the role. What we mean by role feedback is giving employees feedback on their work tasks. While this is valuable, good managers take this one step further.
They go above and beyond and give career feedback on the individual, too. For example, let’s say a manager notices that an employee is particularly social or good with people. This could mean that this person is displaying the interpersonal skills to become a manager.
Good coaching always considers both the individual and the role. This way, it feels like a holistic learning experience rather than a trip to the principal's office.
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
Admit that you don't know everything. For the best managers, taking feedback is also a part of their game. The best managers work in tandem with their reports rather than talking down to them. Good managers recognize that employees with specialized skills are subject matter experts.
It's a team effort to create organizations with engaged and motivated workforces. That's why we can't overstate how valuable it is when managers step in as career coaches.
They're the leaders that uphold your internal standards of career and leadership development. As an organization, you should never stop reminding them of that.
