Why Coaching and Mentoring Are the Foundation for Enduring Change

BY Mary Pieper | October 24, 2023

Many companies offer coaching and performance management or development opportunities to workers, but their employees aren’t necessarily using it.

Why? The answer can be summed up in one word: fear.

“Our brains are wonderful, but also kind of funny jerks because they can tell us that we’re not qualified for something,” said Rebecca Taylor, co-founder and COO of SkillCycle, during a thought leadership spotlight session at From Day One’s Manhattan conference. “Our brain can tell us that we don’t deserve to learn something. And it’s that level of fear that most commonly holds someone back.”

So, how can company leaders help employees overcome their fear so they can realize their full potential?

Taylor recommends organizations create a community around learning and make it part of someone’s typical experience within the company.

Burnout and What to Do About It

A lot of workers in today’s economy are experiencing burnout, which is both a cause and a symptom of fear, says Taylor.

Rebecca Taylor of SkillCycle led the thought leadership spotlight at the Edison Ballroom in Times Square. 

“What is causing that burnout for them, and what can we do to meet them where they are to help them get to the other side?” she asked.

Burnout is often a result of the constant change that’s happening in workplaces, according to Taylor.

“You’ve started to introduce so many new things, and people are just trying to process it all and try to figure out, ‘What is it that I'm trying to do? What is it that’s different now? What am I responsible for?’” she said. “So, it's about looking at how you can center your culture around the concept of performance management through the lens of learning, as opposed to just a metric or a task or something that someone has to do.”

For example, many workers have a lot of anxiety about their companies adopting AI, according to Taylor.

“They feel like they can't control it, they’re not sure what it means for the future for them,” she said. “How can we use a fear of AI as a learning opportunity to help people get used to the concept of it, embrace it, and see it as an opportunity versus something to fear?”

Taylor recommends HR and learning practitioners acknowledge AI will change employees’ jobs, but assure them they can meet the challenge.

“And the reason that this works, or the way that you can start to address this, is the concept of ever learning,” she said.

What is Ever Learning?

Ever learning is “something that you embed within your culture,” Taylor said. “It’s about taking those moments when someone is doing their job and finding where there is that opportunity to learn and making it a habit.”

The more employees make learning a habit, the more likely they are to develop the agility they need to not only adapt to new skills as technology changes, but also drive change from within rather than just reactively, says Taylor.

SkillCycle helps organizations establish ever learning within their culture through its coaching marketplace. Employees can meet one-on-one with a coach who challenges them and helps them understand what is holding them back from learning what they want to know.

“We always talk about how coaching is a very, very effective way to actually drive that change because that’s your personal accountability partner, that's your person who knows you, who trusts you,” Taylor said.

SkillCycle works with many organizations to bring coaching across every single piece of the employee lifecycle.

“We manage people’s development, we help people understand what it is that they might need to work on. And we really take it from an employee centric approach,” Taylor said.

Making the Financial Case for Ever Learning

All that sounds easy until you have to start asking your company to budget the money for coaching and personalized learning paths, according to Taylor.

“People are asking, ‘what’s the ROI?’” she said. “You have to prove that with every dollar that you spend, you’re going to make X amount of dollars afterwards.”

To frame the argument for investing in ever learning, Taylor recommends starting with a clear definition of success and getting sales staff and sales and finance leaders on your side.

Once a company agrees to contract with SkillCycle, “we work with everyone in HR and in leadership to say, ‘what is it that you need your people to be?’ We help to translate that,” Taylor said. “So, people say, ‘OK, how do I measure up against these expectations?’ And then we help them work with a coach to actually close the gaps of company expectations to that person's performance and those skills that they have.”

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, SkillCycle, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.

Mary Pieper is a freelance reporter based in Mason City, Iowa.

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