Why Coaching is Replacing Formal Training and How to Do It Right

Duration: 60 minutes

“Coaching” is getting a lot of attention these days. But is it just a flashy catch phrase or are companies really making a meaningful change in the way they teach employees?

Recent research suggests it’s the latter--- more and more companies are limiting, or in some cases abandoning all together, formal training in favor of coaching. Why? Training informs, coaching helps put new behaviors and skills into practice.

And it’s working. Studies show that companies who effectively coach, rather than train, have employees with higher job satisfaction and lower turn-over. Employees who are coached have faster time-to-proficiency rates for new skills and processes. When struggling to meet expectations, employees who are coached achieve a more dramatic and measurable turn-around than those who were merely sent for more training.

But coaching is not instinctual. It requires a keen understanding of how to guide pupils through the 4 phases of learning. Most trainer’s gut instinct is to show someone how to do something, demonstrate how to do it, and then send the learner off to do it on their own. True coaching asks the right questions to gauge understanding, desire, commitment and willingness to adopt the new skill. It guides someone through the process of learning in a way that feels self-directed to the learner. And in the end, self-directed improvements are stronger and last longer.

In this webinar, professional business coach Steve Smith will demonstrate the lasting benefits of coaching for dealing with change and developing employee performance.