People Management- Formula for Success

If a HR manager of any organisation is thinking of jumping onto the team-based-management bandwagon, they should first take heed of the lesson many chief executives have learned the hard way: they must give their employees a solid incentive for making teams work and teach them the skills they'll need to earn those incentives.

Take the case of this hypothetical company, Damodaran Industries. The HR manager Sushil Rao had enough foresight to do both: giving incentives and teaching new skills. When he first took the step to help restructure his company, which makes seating and table products for private aircraft, Sushil made an unusual proposal to employees: teams would be paid 25% of sales on the specific product they made, and they would distribute those revenues among their members as they saw fit. They would be responsible for hiring, scheduling, customer service, quality, and even their own cash flow.

That first year, Sushil tried the new system on just one team, promising employees that they would not earn less than they had the previous year. As it turned out, average annual wages increased three-fold. Once employees began to see that if they worked more effectively as a team they would make more money, they had enthusiasm for working in this new way, and they made a commitment to learning. The following year, four more teams were organised similarly.

Indeed, learning was critical to the new system's success. Sushil, who has a background in organisational design, developed his own training programme to teach employees effective communication, team-building skills, and business processes. Employees were required to attend 13 hours of training every quarter for a full year.

Sushil supplemented the training with team coaching. He also made assessments of teams' weaknesses, often suggesting that a particular team repeat a training session. Team leaders were required to put in even more training time, attending three-hour courses at a local community college on hiring, time management, and cash flow.

The training and coaching have paid off. While costs per employee have remained steady, sales were up 50% last year, and the company's margins are at about 20% -- twice the industry standard.

Ref: TheManageMentor

Coaching And Therapy

Coaching, an important aspect of employee development helps employees to enhance their performance. Coaching and therapy as terms ought not to be used synonymously. Many coaches, especially the new ones, are either unaware or simply ignore the differences between coaching and therapy.

Meaning

Coaching enhances an employee’s performance by systematically transforming the individual actions or behaviours into a learning experience under the able guidance of a coach. Therapy on the other hand is treatment aimed to improve the undesirable symptoms to the point of being curative.

The differences

• Therapy, principally deals with changing a client’s behavioural patterns, whereas coaching assumes that the client is already functioning well but needs to enhance his performance.
  
• Therapy works on the client’s past that reflects on his present and tries to correct it. Coaching is oriented towards the future goals of the individual and helps him achieve them.
  
• While therapy aims to remove the emotional pain of the client coaching emphasises on overcoming obstacles and acquiring new skills.
  
• A therapist tries to find the causes or symptoms of a problem whereas coaches emphasise on problem solving techniques.
  

A coach should be very careful while dealing with his clients. The clients might show symptoms of a psychological problem, which need a therapist. These symptoms help him decide whether the client needs therapy or coaching.

Coaches should refer the client to a therapist immediately after determining that he needs therapy. This has to be done carefully as it is a sensitive issue. While appointing coaches, organisations should ensure that they are efficient. Appointing their own managers, as coaches would help because they are aware of organisational and employee needs.

Ref: TheManageMentor