Before you come to planning any form of coaching for an individual, you need to work out what you are striving to achieve as well as the key areas of development. This means talking to the individual, finding out what they believe their strengths and weaknesses are and making observations. Listening and asking the right questions, both in one-to-one and group settings, is important for a coach as this helps to connect you with the team/individual, earning their trust.

When you can easily compare an individual’s current skillset with where you want them to be, this will help to create a tailored plan to help them reach their goals, whether that is to take on a new responsibility, learn a new skill or to help a new-starter get up to speed.

Successful workplace coaches are always able to link the purpose of coaching to the needs of the business, which is almost always to improve productivity and streamline processes to achieve better results. This is the reason for the implementation of any new strategy, programme, process, or a new employee.

Direction is the key reason for coaching in the workplace because it gives teams and individuals objectives to work towards. Without direction, you risk employees simply going through the motions which, eventually, leads to a lack of motivation and productivity.

Coaching also provides accountability; giving responsibility to everyone to drive them forward. Being held accountable for an area of the business motivates to not only meet targets and deadlines but to complete the work to a high standard, taking pride in the project. This drive pushes members of staff to take ownership of an area, regardless of whether it is big or small, and to work with others in the team to achieve their objectives – thus improving teamwork and communication.

One of the core reasons for effective coaching in the workplace is to have a role model present who can inspire future leaders to come forward. Without this leadership and structure in place, which employees can reference in terms of their own career path within the company, the business risks missing out on members of staff that could step up into senior roles as they simply fail to reach their potential – at least in their current place of work.

Great coaches inspire their teams to go above and beyond, becoming confident within themselves in a professional and personal sense. When an employee has received such a level of support and grows in their role, they form leadership qualities and can begin to help others in the team – having these leaders, regardless of seniority, in the team is essential for any business hoping to be successful.