A standard organization of 2,000 agents invests roughly $4M annually in coaching. Part of that is spent on coaching optimization, with a primary focus on tools and methods to better engage the person being coached.
However, coaching your coaches is just as important as coaching your agents. And the impact is much greater. After all, improve the coaching skills of one frontline manager and you’ve just improved the performance of multiple agents. That is 12-15 times the impact according to most benchmarks.
Coaching is both an art and science. It takes time to learn and master your craft yet there is always room for improvement. Many frontline managers, on the other hand, are leading teams for the first time in their careers. So, they too need guidance, encouragement, and tips.
And let’s not forget that these coaches – who are generally millennials themselves - are also looking for growth and purpose at work.
With that in mind, I’d like to present some ideas we picked up from our global customers over the years about how to manage managers – or coach the coaches, if you will. Here are ten best practices that will have a major impact on your coaching:
- Build an onboarding plan for new frontline leaders that covers the first 30, 60 and 90 days. Together, define key activities and what success looks like at each of these critical milestones.
- Define team-level KPIs and goals, make them clear to the relevant coach and confirm their understanding of the measurements.
- Use a systematic approach to coaching your coaches. In a triad model, for example, the supervisor and manager review the goals and preparation process before the supervisor-agent coaching session. Next, the manager observes the supervisor coaching an agent, which is followed by a discussion of the session. The manager might also offer to coach and agent while the supervisor observes and provides feedback afterward.
- A manager should never take over a coaching session they are observing. Instead, all feedback should be provided only once the agent has left the meeting. This will aid in creating trust and confidence in the process while strengthening the relationship between agent and supervisor.
- Allow time for self-reflection on previous coaching sessions. By reviewing the session, the coach can fully internalize your feedback and consider what to change in the upcoming session.
- Measure both the effectiveness and the efficiency of coaching. Pay attention not only to improvement in performance among agents who received coaching, but also look for indicators of coaching efficiency. For example, if you see progressively less coaching feedback per agent, that’s a great indication that coaches are providing focused, practical guidance at each session.
- Allow your great coaches to become mentors for your newer coaches once they are out of their “nesting” period. This not only creates comradery amongst leaders, but also provides another voice of advice for new coaches.
- Train your coaches to distinguish between “skill” and “will” performance gaps. Investing a lot of time focused on an agent’s skill level when it’s really their motivation (their “will”) that needs improvement leads to poor results on multiple fronts. Not only will your coaches feel disappointed by the lack of progress, but it’s a waste of precious coaching resources.
- Guide coaches to be willing to receive feedback on their coaching style directly from agents. There is no one better to articulate what type of coaching will be most impactful to them than the agent themselves.
- Make it fun. Reward and recognize great coaches - such as when their team hits its KPI goals - with proven game mechanics like bonuses, perks, points, or badges.
At NICE, we’ve incorporated functionalities supporting all these practices into our performance management solutions. Contact centers using NICE Performance Management (NPM) can quickly undertake initiatives such as identifying skill and will gaps, one-on-one and peer coaching, and of course coaching the coach - all within a single, unified framework designed for promoting deep and sustainable change.
Learn more about how NICE Performance Management can help your organization realize its highest aspirations.
About Author
This guest blog was written by Jodi Reuven and Charlene Gillam.
Charlene is a 15 year veteran of NICE with more that 20 years of Contact Center Leadership Experience. Her expertise includes enabling organizations to mature performance management, coaching and training programs for both the contact center and back office.
