Coaching for Peak Performance

Table Of Contents:

• What Is Peak Performance?
• How to Train Your Manufacturing Employees
• What Do Performance Coaches Do?
• How Training Impacts Employee Engagement
• Improve Workforce Engagement

It is absolutely essential for employees to come to work prepared and focused each day in the manufacturing industry. Precision is crucial to keeping your business functioning safely and efficiently without interruption. Proper training can ensure your employees perform at their peak and maintain a productive work environment.

Not sure how manufacturing workers train their employees or how you, as a supervisor, can coach for better performance? Keep reading to find out.

What Is Peak Performance?

Effective performance coaching is a vital aspect of improving employee performance. The ability to coach and provide quality, achievable feedback can determine whether or not employees succeed. Before you can start coaching for peak performance, you need to define what peak performance means.

There can be different definitions of peak performance for you, your supervisor, company employees, and the company as a whole. Generally, to coach for peak performance, you need to encourage the following:

• Goal setting: Proper goal-setting can motivate employees to perform and make progress independently. Teaching your employees how to set achievable goals can make a significant impact on your company’s success.

• Accountability: Employees must know they are required to take ownership of their work and, more importantly, be motivated to take ownership of their work. There should be some sort of accountability policy in place. If there isn’t,  that should be step one.

• Comfortability: If your workers feel comfortable and safe in their work environment, they will have better success in reaching peak performance. Before coaching your employees, make sure they are comfortable taking on responsibilities in your work environment.

• Feedback: Ensure your company gives feedback regularly or conducts periodic performance reviews. In addition, if there isn’t already a policy in place for addressing work performance issues in an unbiased and comfortable way, create one.

How to Train Your Manufacturing Employees

Employee training plays an essential role in the success and safety of your business and employees. Conducting periodic training can ensure your employees are updated on current safety practices, improving workplace safety. This practice also bolsters awareness, engagement and productivity.

So, how do manufacturing workers train their employees effectively? The following tips can help you coach for peak performance in your workplace:

• Teach in more ways than one: Studies indicate there are more than 70 different learning styles. Your employees may prefer to listen to a presentation, watch a demonstration or read an article. You can incorporate all of these methods into your training to ensure everyone absorbs the information.

• Review company mission and goals: Rather than asking, “How can I coach for better performance?” ask yourself, “What motivates my employees to come to work?” Understanding why your employees support your company and want to achieve company goals can help you understand how to coach employees. Remind your employees that the company’s success leads to their success and vice versa. Employees who like their employer work harder, miss fewer days and make fewer errors.

• Capture their attention: Adding interactive and hands-on elements to your training can help engage your employees. Giving out prizes or other incentives, asking questions, and having employees perform practice runs can ensure your employees pay attention and enjoy the training.

• Ask for feedback: After the training, send out an anonymous survey. Ask employees what they liked and disliked about the training and how they would improve it. Keeping it anonymous can result in honest answers and more opportunities for you to conduct better training in the future.

• Repeat the process: Training should be conducted periodically to foster your employees’ growth. This way, you can ensure your employees are up-to-date on policies and procedures and your business is working as efficiently as possible.

What Do Performance Coaches Do?

By definition, a coach is someone who trains or teaches someone. In terms of the workplace, performance coaches are often supervisors or managers. They assess the needs of their employees and develop goals and skills to coach a team for high performance.

Performance coaches often help employees reach new goals and perfect current skills. Many different types of performance coaching tactics can be used in coaching for peak performance. Here are several key tips on how to coach employees effectively:

• Build respect and trust: Before you can start coaching for performance, you need to ensure there is mutual respect and trust between the coach and employees. Both parties must trust each other and have a mutual goal for the other to succeed. As a supervisor, you must make it known that you respect your subordinates on the same level as your other colleagues and coworkers to gain respect and trust as their coach.

• Work together: Ask your employees for their feedback and how they think processes could be improved. You may be surprised at how valuable their input is. Your employees have a unique perspective and may be able to think of improvements that never crossed your mind. Work with your employees as a team to foster companywide progress.

• Create goals: After discussing potential areas for improvement, create SMART goals to achieve the success your team outlined. Outline how achieving these goals will help the company and employees. Then, discuss reasonable timelines and specific, manageable steps to reach these goals.

How Training Impacts Employee Engagement

So, how do training improvements relate to employee engagement? Unsurprisingly, the two go hand-in-hand. Training and coaching for peak performance may seem like an employee-focused practice, but it benefits a company just as much.

The more training an employee has, the better they can perform at their job. The better they perform, the more they are recognized and rewarded. The more they are rewarded for their performance, the more they are engaged and motivated to maintain that high performance.

When each employee at your company goes through this process and achieves high performance, your company’s productivity and profits will grow in tandem. In addition, employees that are more engaged are more likely to stay at your company.

Rely on MANTEC for Improved Workforce Engagement

If you’re ready to empower your employees and learn how to coach for better performance, you can get started today! MANTEC has more than 30 years of experience helping companies achieve their goals and coach employees for peak performance and engagement.

If you want to improve your business’s processes, reach out to MANTEC online or call us at (717) 843-5054 to learn more about how our programs can benefit your company.