David James Reeves M3.

18 Coaching and training your work team

14/05/2012

1. SOFA Re-use is a furniture and appliance re-use project which collects donations of furniture and appliances. These donations are then sold on to members of the public and people in need at a discounted price. SOFAs charitable aim is to alleviate hardship, the charity does this through: Providing a furniture re-use and collection service for the residents of Charnwood and surrounding areas. Offering training and work experience to unemployed people to help to facilitate their return to work.

2. A training need within an organisation is defined as the gap between the skills an employee has and the skills they require in order to perform their role. To meet SOFAs charitable aim through the second method outlined by providing training and work experience, SOFA offers two volunteer roles, these are office volunteers who are responsible for sales and administration tasks and van and warehouse volunteers who are responsible for collecting, storing and delivering furniture.

3. A training need for van and warehouse volunteers would be manual handling training. This would equip them with the knowledge of how to correctly lift items of furniture and heavy items in a way which would significantly reduce or eliminate the risk of injury incurred by moving such items.

4. Training in the workplace can be broadly defined by two categories, these are on the job training and off the job training. On the job training would be defined as training administered to an employee within their role. Examples of on the job training could include induction or work shadowing. Off the job training can be defined as either training conducted in the workplace but away from the job role for example E-learning or through training administered at another site for example, attending a training course at a local college.

5. On the job training would be conducted by showing them how to conduct a lift, and then having them carry out a lift, giving them feedback if they are lifting the item incorrectly.

6. Manual handling training would also be administered through an E-learning programme consisting of a DVD, and an online assessment and certification process. The DVD would outline the importance of using the correct manual handling techniques through highlighting the risks and also the correct method for lifting items of various sizes and weights and also how to go about a group or two person lift. There is an online assessment at the end so volunteers would need to actively participate in the training by taking it on board so they gain the certificate, they cannot simply sit through the DVD and ignore it.

7. Learning styles are ways in which individuals prefer to learn and fall in to three categories these are visual, auditory and kinesthetic and can be summarised by the acronym VAK. Visual learners prefer to take information onboard through looking at pictures and diagrams. Auditory learners prefer to take information through listening. Kinesthetic learners learn through doing.

8. When designing training programmes, it is normally good practice to incorporate all three aspects of VAK to cater for all three learning styles. In the examples outlined for training volunteers in manual handling, all aspects of VAK are catered for because Elearning through the DVD provides pictures and diagrams coupled with an audio commentary so this method would cater for auditory and visual learners coupled with on the job training, the fact that the role is inherently hands on would cater for kinesthetic learners.

9. When designing training for one individual, learning styles can be catered for by conducting a diagnostic test prior to training to determine the individuals learning style. Any proposed training activity should then be tailored to incorporate the learners preferred learning style as much as possible, for example if a learner exhibits a preference toward visual learning then any proposed training should be designed to incorporate diagrams and/or visual aides such as Powerpoint slides to convey concepts where possible.

10. Learning styles are not hard and fast ways in which individuals take information. Most learners can learn in all three ways. A defined learning style is merely the preferred way in which an individual will take onboard information.

11. Volunteers at SOFA sometimes suffer from low self-esteem. As a result of this, a method that would be appropriate to administer feedback could be the feedback sandwich or the happy sandwich. When a negative point needs to be conveyed, the person giving feedback always opens with a positive comment, passes the negative comment and ends with a positive comment. This method of giving feedback is shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: The Happy Sandwich

12. As an example, the warehouse supervisor might say, That was a good effort between the two of you to lift that desk, I noticed when you picked the television up you leaned over and you should have bent your knees and then used your legs instead of your back to pick the item up but all in all good work.

In order to convey; Bend your legs so you dont crane to pick up heavy items.

13. Effectiveness of training in general in the workplace would be determined by referring to mechanisms within the workplace for evaluating performance such as KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and SLAs (Service Level Agreements) prior to and after the training having taken place. The effectiveness of any training or development will be reflected by the extent of the positive difference when the two values are compared. In SOFA, donors are given feedback forms which they are asked to complete. Correct and proper manual handling techniques would be covered by the question, Were your items handled with care? If the vast majority of donors answer yes to this question and if the number of accidents recorded is minimal then manual handling training will have been effective.

14. Keeping records for training is important so an organisation knows which members of staff are competent to carry out certain activities. At SOFA, training records are kept in a learners file. These include which aspects of training a learner has received, the date on which the training was conducted and any comments the learner wished to provide. Some of the training such as induction is mandatory, some is only relevant to volunteers which perform specific functions. The log also includes diagnostic tests for instance to a test to determine an individuals level of confidence.

15. The purpose of coaching is to improve an individuals performance by using questioning and guided conversation to unlock their full potential. The purpose of a coach is not to instruct but to act as a facilitator, so the coachee is encouraged to form their own solutions through raising their level of self awareness and also through reflection.

16. Individuals volunteer at SOFA for a variety of reasons and have unique, individual objectives to work towards. The training coordinator will work with each volunteer to help them.

17. For the purposes of this assignment we will look at the coaching need of equipping a volunteer wishing to return to work. This coaching need would include developing the right attitude, developing soft skills such as dealing with people and removing barriers to work such as low self-esteem. This is summarised by Timothy Gallweys formula: Performance = Potential - Interference

18. The coaching need should be outlined as it has been for this example. Who will be conducting the coaching should then be considered. The manager wishing to implement the coaching should think about their own level of aptitude and their attributes as a coach.

19. In general, a coach should: Have respect for the coachee, valuing them as an individual. Have respect for the coachees aspirations, skills and experience. Provide feedback which is honest, constructive and challenging. Set goals which are appropriately challenging. Be aware of their own views so as to ensure that they do not have an impact on the

coaching process. Have a good knowledge of coaching tools and how to implement them, for instance

Flow or OSCAR.

20. If they do not have these attributes, they should delegate coaching to someone who does. This could be an employee or an external provider. In the example, SOFAs training co-ordinator has the correct attributes.

21. An appropriate training model should then be chosen and followed through with the coachee. Because SOFA receives volunteers from a broad range of backgrounds with varying levels of confidence and self-esteem, Flow would be the most appropriate coaching tool to use initially because this tool has mechanisms built in to cater for the coachees emotional condition.

22. Flow as a coaching tool was developed by positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. The condition of Flow occurs when an individual is so immersed in an activity, time passes quickly and they become oblivious to what is going on around them. In order to achieve a state of flow, the coachees level of perceived challenge and level of perceived skill must be high. The diagram in Figure 2 shows the required conditions in order to achieve flow along with the likely resulting emotions if these conditions are not met.

Figure 2: A Diagram of Flow

23. Conditions which are likely to lead to Flow can be created by the following steps: 1. Setting goals. 2. Improving the coachees concentration. 3. Building the coachees self-confidence. 4. Giving and encouraging the coachee to receive feedback. 5. Making the coachees work more challenging.

24. In the example, volunteers would discuss career paths that interested them, a review of the volunteers skills and experience would then be conducted. The gap between the intended career path and this review would determine what goals were set. The coachees concentration and self-confidence would improve simply as a result of taking action toward a goal. An example of a goal could be to think about what skills would be needed for their chosen role and think about what they can do whilst volunteering at SOFA to gain those skills.

25. Feedback is important because it is motivating. Feedback also creates funneling towards a desired goal, masking out undesirable behaviour and moving towards a more desirable outcome. This is critical when preparing individuals for work in a fiercely competitive job market. Feedback allows coachees to see the progress they have made towards achieving their goals, which has a motivating effect.

26. Feedback in the Flow coaching model must be given as quickly as possible. This stops the coachee from developing bad habits and hastens their way to achieving their desired outcome.

27. Effectiveness of coaching as with training would be determined by whether or not there is any improvement shown through normal workplace mechanisms for tracking performance such as KPIs and SLAs and also through reviewing how far they have got toward achieving the goals set out initially. The OSCAR coaching model derived by Gilbert and Whittleworth includes a mechanism for evaluating effectiveness because it includes a review as the last step in the process it outlines.

28. Effectiveness of coaching in this example would be determined by if the coachee has met the goals they defined initially although the example given of finding a job may not be a suitable indicator in this climate there could be other indicators derived from what the coachee has achieved along the way, indicators such as: Has the volunteers self-esteem improved? Have they gained confidence? Have they gained work skills? Do they have the right attitude for work?

29. If in this example a volunteer can look back, see some improvement and say, yes, that has bee worthwhile! effectiveness could be determined by their outlook rather than any hard and fast performance indicator such as a KPI. 1,965 words.

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