Coaching through Covid-19

In trucking, a successful game plan for recruiting and retention includes coaching. A great coach can get the best performance out of an individual or team by providing just the right mix of guidance, instruction, and support.

Many of our Top Fleet Employers have seen the benefits of coaching programs first-hand, including higher employee retention, better workplace morale, and positive impacts on safety.

With Covid-19 presenting new challenges and changes to our workplaces, a coach or mentor can focus on ways to connect with employees who may be feeling isolated or unmotivated.

With leaner budgets, and in some cases leaner teams, having a coach can be a cost-effective way to improve morale, increase productivity, and support overall employee well-being.

Let’s take a look:

Adapting your approach

Traditionally designed to help achieve organizational goals, we’re seeing a shift in coaching to focus on the employee and their overall performance and success.

Being a coach or mentor is different from being a manager who assigns tasks and monitors the work. Coaching is simply the act of listening, asking questions, and providing feedback so employees can be their personal best. Although coaches can be external to the organization, you can look to current staff to act as coaches as well.

Coaching tends to focus on performance and short-term skills, but a coach can also be an invaluable guide for employees who are dealing with changes that may be out of their control.

Support on-boarding

Coaching is often part of an effective on-boarding process. Experienced employees, for example, can spend time with new hires and personally answer questions about company practices, safety procedures, and more.

Virtual work arrangements mean more challenges for new hires. On-boarding procedures haven’t changed much, but the experience certainly has.

First impressions matter. How you welcome new employees and bring them into your company has an enormous impact on how engaged they are and how quickly they reach their full potential and productivity.

Incorporating coaches and mentors in the onboarding process will help.

Coaching your coaches

All roles are changing as the effects of the pandemic continue. Your managers and senior executives need to be equipped with the skills needed to perform at their best, too.

This may require providing professional development to your current managers to ensure they have the knowledge and comfort level with addressing these new challenges we are facing.

Investing in your employees is always a good thing to do. As we cope with COVID-19, it is becoming simply the right thing to do if we want our teams and teammates to perform their best.