What is Performance Coaching?

And, how can it help me?

For many people working their way up the corporate ladder, it’s a lot of learning on-the-job. Executives and senior leaders often invest in professional development opportunities including leadership coaching. When it comes to developing the people that directly report to them however, many unfortunately leave it up to "HR" or worse- put the responsibility for developing their skills back onto the employee. Nimble Advisors trains and mentors managers on exactly how to drive the performance of their employees.

Would you like to improve how you develop your people? Let’s talk!

  • Performance development coaching is a kind of professional development designed to help managers and business owners effectively develop and upskill their employees. Leaders work one-on-one with a performance development coach who tailors employee development plans to the needs of the client's organization, team, and expandable employee skill set.

  • There is a distinct and important difference between performance development coaching and mentoring. A mentor is someone who works alongside or above their mentee. A mentor offers guidance and advice since they have often been in their mentee’s shoes before and "done that". A performance development coach, on the other hand, is a facilitator. They are not necessarily an expert in their client’s business, but they are familiar with the methods required to analyze employee performance, establish performance metrics, select appropriate tools, and expertly leverage human performance technology to drive employee skill development.

  • A performance development coach isn’t just anyone. This person should have specialized training in adult learning theory and human performance technology (HPT). Their unique training allows them to analyze your organization's goals and your team's performance so that they can craft a plan for developing the performance of your team members.

  • Like a personal trainer at the gym, a performance development coach is there to push you and help you drive your team's development until its performance becomes exemplary. They may do this through a variety of methods such as:

    1. Developing or updating job descriptions and job profiles

    2. Establishing exemplary performance metrics

    3. Benchmarking exemplary performance metrics outside of your organization

    4. Surveying your performance when developing your staff

    5. Holding you accountable to following an established model of performance development

    6. Using assessments and insights tools to ascertain your management strengths

    7. Observing how you interact with others at every level of the organization

    8. Performing one-on-one skill sessions with you to teach and practice performance development competencies

    9. Recommending books, podcasts, and articles for you to absorb and study

    10. Providing anecdotes from their professional life or past coaching experiences

  • There are certain work situations where Performance Development Coaching is not the answer. If you have an employee that displays severe or negative behaviors such as violence towards their colleagues, yelling, abusing, threatening, or simply ignoring repeated requests to stop a behavior- there are other interventions you should be looking at. Secondly, Performance Development Coaching is not designed to reverse extremely poor performance. If you have employees that exhibit a total inability to follow instructions, appalling customer service skills or telephone manners, or barely there writing ability you need to be looking at terminating them not engaging in developing them.

    1. Better Employees- We'd be remiss if we didn't start off with the most obvious. In this post Covid-era, employees are seeking work that matters, flexibility, and workplaces where they can grow. Having Managers who are capable of developing people in a manner that is objective, fair, and deliberate will make for better employees.

      2. Improved Communication— Having a structured methodology in place for developing people eliminates the confusion and subjectivity many employees feel upon arriving at a company and being judged based on a manager's perceived biases of them.

      3. Organizational Efficiency— Performance Development Coaches can often identify bottlenecks in your processes or systems while analyzing employee performance. Your organization will operate more efficiently by closing these efficiency gaps and your employees will feel like they contributed to improving the organization.

  • When we look at the benefits of adopting performance development coaching, we see that having managers capable of performing this very important skill is an integral part of a well-run business. We would argue that how well you develop your people can be your greatest competitive advantage.