Let’s face it, even the best employees occasionally require coaching. Training in its purest form is intended to assist you as a retail manager to get the most out of your retail workers. You need regular coaching, not because the worker is incompetent, but to continuously help them improve.
Here are five pointers to help you perform your best when training and to get successful results from your own employees.
- Prepare Yourself
Never begin a coaching session without notes. You want to have your plan prepared and in order ahead of time. Business coaches that “shoot from the hip” rarely find any change in behaviour of the employees. Prior to your session, pick your preferred outcome to set a game plan. Also, be prepared with specific examples of behaviour. Employees get frustrated when they’re given generic feedback. It isn’t fair to them and seldom do they change because of this. The keyword is specific.
- Prepare the Employee
The truth is you’re more excited about coaching than the worker is. You need to excel your brilliant retail intellect on them and have the worker walk away saying how amazing you are. While on the other side of this table is a worker who’s dreading the conversation. Initiate the coaching session by expelling why you’re there and then affirming the worker before beginning the coaching.
Let them know that the purpose of coaching is to keep them in your retail store and in your staff, not fire them. True, you do have to convey that if the behaviour doesn’t improve it will cause termination, but how you’re investing in training together ought to be a sign you would like them in the store.
- Focus on Behaviour
Never discuss attitude. Attitude is subjective and so easily “arguable” by an employee. By way of instance, your idea of a positive attitude may not fit the workers. Additionally, you can get yourself in some legal trouble if the worker ever sued. Judges hate to hear about mind-set. Instead, focus on behaviour. Even if it’s mind-set that you’re trying to coach, focus on the behaviours that exhibit that. By way of instance, not smiling to clients or gossiping with other workers.
- Create a Plan of Action
This is a significant thing to do right. Begin with the ideas of your employees. Ask them what they believe should be done. It generates buy in and the probability of the worker actually following the plan radically increases. Bear in mind, you can’t motivate employees, but you can create an environment which stimulates them into action – that is what coaching is supposed to do.
- Follow up
In the end, the main step is to specify a time for follow-up to examine progress. Coaching left open-ended isn’t profitable. Set a time dependent on the issue of what you’re asking the worker to address or change. For example, if it’s a full-time employee you see multiples times throughout the week, then you may try 30 days.
But if it’s a part time employee that you will see less frequently, you may try 60 days. You will need to set up a timeline that shows the shift in behaviour is progressing. A worker can do anything for a week, it is sustaining it for a month which counts.
Now you have some basic knowledge to help you become a good business coach for your retail employees.