How can you align coaching programs with remote workers' needs?
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Coaching is a powerful way to develop your remote workers' skills, performance, and engagement. But how can you design and deliver coaching programs that meet their specific needs and preferences? In this article, you'll learn some practical tips and best practices to align your coaching programs with remote workers' needs.
Before you start coaching your remote workers, you need to understand their goals, challenges, and expectations. You can use various methods to assess their needs, such as surveys, interviews, self-assessments, or 360-degree feedback. The more you know about your remote workers, the more you can tailor your coaching programs to their individual situations and aspirations.
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Dimitra Dimitropoulou
Senior Human Resources & Marketing professional on a mission to help people and businesses grow | Always Hiring 👩🏻💻
Beyond the initial assessment of your remote workers' goals, challenges, and expectations, it's equally important to conduct periodic check-ins, starting at around 3 months and repeating as needed. This ongoing assessment ensures alignment between you as the coach and your remote workers, fostering continuous support in their evolving aspirations. I find that a combination of interviews, quick surveys, and 360-degree feedback provides the most valuable insights.
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Shashikant Gosavi
Faculty in Civil Engineering at Walchand Institute of Technology
I feel its a saying that you identify pain points of your customer and accordingly decide your plan of action. Direct response to relavant pain is not explicitly available. However that kind of survey help a lot. Remote training is tricky in terms of engagement of Trainee. You have to be impactful and impressive to keep them engaged. Other more important part is giving small well planned outcome based assignments to encourage experimentation and exploration. Assessment tools are designed to confirm learning outcomes and its attainment. Both summative and formative assessment are important. Industry based training with case studies also add inspiration among trainee. For trainer its another area to explore by peer learning and OER.
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Farogh Ahmed
Executive Housekeeper (CHHE) American Hotel & Lodging educational institute)
we can do this by setting clear and realistic goals and timeline of coaching. we can also use tools like checklist to help them plan and manage their time and task.
Remote coaching requires different formats and tools than face-to-face coaching. You need to consider how to deliver your coaching sessions, how often, and for how long. You also need to choose the right technology and platforms to facilitate communication, collaboration, and feedback. For example, you can use video conferencing, chat, email, or phone calls for coaching sessions, and use online tools like Google Docs, Trello, or LMS for sharing resources, tracking progress, and giving feedback.
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Tamara Wrenn
I encourage and guide women to successfully navigate midlife, focusing on maternal health, menopausal transitions, and overall wellness.
The coaching needs of remote workers exceeds the frequency of coaching or the modality used. My perspective differs from the traditional approach. I work as a wellness coach with clients who have hybrid work situations, which come with unique challenges. One common issue they face is balancing their nutritional needs with temptations while working from home, commonly referred to as over-snacking. These non-traditional distractions can be challenging, but I've been able to help them implement effective work strategies. This includes identifying potential challenges in advance and creating a list of solutions to handle temptations when they arise, such as changing their environment by walking around or stepping outside briefly.
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Onyinye O.
Snr Sys Analyst | Technical Writer | Event Organizer | Product Manager | IT Governance Founder of @ She Initiative | WTM Ambassador | SDG 1, 2, 3, 4 & 10 Advocate | Public Speaker | Tech Event Organizer
Remember its not one size fit all. Customize coaching programs; Tailor coaching programs to address the individual needs and goals of remote workers. Not all remote workers will have the same requirements, so personalization is crucial.
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Katharine Crane
I help you put the heart back into your social media.
Find the video tool that works for you. I prefer Zoom, others like Teams or Google Meet. What I have found as a game-changer for coaching calls are the add-ons you can get. I use Read AI, which gives a full rundown of the call, and it's also transcribed. This means you can be in the moment and not have to write notes, as it takes notes, outlines the conversation and makes not of the tasks set.
One of the most important factors for successful coaching is trust and rapport between the coach and the coachee. This can be challenging to build in a remote setting, where you may have limited or no physical interaction. To overcome this, you need to communicate frequently, openly, and empathetically with your remote workers. You also need to show genuine interest and curiosity in their work and personal lives, and respect their boundaries and preferences. Additionally, you can use techniques like active listening, mirroring, and paraphrasing to show that you understand and acknowledge their feelings and thoughts.
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Christine Costanzo
Enablement Enthusiast |E-Learning & Training Guru | Content Creation Consultant |
Creating a personal connection with remote employees is essential to foster collaboration and build alignment. A successful coach invests their time and effort in getting to know their employees on a deeper and more personal level. This involves actively listening, demonstrating empathy, and understanding the challenges, aspirations, and goals of the employees. Coaches can establish trust and demonstrate their commitment to employee development. It is crucial to emphasize the need for open and transparent communication between coaches and remote workers. In sessions, remote employees should feel safe to share their concerns, limitations, and aspirations. Emphasize sessions are a safe space to express themselves without fear of being judged.
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Melissa Ragan
You need to be willing to be vulnerable to establish trust and rapport. Being honest and open and sharing your experiences and challenges helps.
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CHIKE EMMANUEL
If you can think of it, then it can be done.
One of the ways to create openness is to indeed be open yourself as a coach - share personal experience to help the coachee relax that you also trust them with your own information.
Remote workers may face different distractions, interruptions, and uncertainties than on-site workers. Therefore, you need to provide structure and flexibility in your coaching programs to help them stay focused, motivated, and resilient. You can do this by setting clear and realistic goals, expectations, and timelines for your coaching sessions and outcomes. You can also use tools like calendars, reminders, and checklists to help them plan and manage their time and tasks. However, you also need to be flexible and adaptable to their changing needs and circumstances. You can do this by offering options, alternatives, and support when they face challenges or difficulties.
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Tariq khan
QHSE Executive Nebosh IGC/Nebosh diploma level 6)Internal auditor ISO 9001:2015 QMS/ 14001:2015 (EMS) 18001/45001:2018 OSHMS)@ Dubai Industrial City (Labor camps, Commercial buildings, Retail, DHA, warehouses)
Support must be at the core of coaching programs. Remote workers often face unique challenges in terms of isolation and communication barriers, which necessitate customized coaching approaches. By offering flexible, tech-literate, and personalized coaching, The Organizations can help their remote workforce succeed in a remote workplace.
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CHIKE EMMANUEL
If you can think of it, then it can be done.
You can also use accountability partners, pair them up and allow people remind each other of sessions and activitiesm Create a communal spirit that makes the entire process an exciting network of learners in a journey to greatness.
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Onyinye O.
Snr Sys Analyst | Technical Writer | Event Organizer | Product Manager | IT Governance Founder of @ She Initiative | WTM Ambassador | SDG 1, 2, 3, 4 & 10 Advocate | Public Speaker | Tech Event Organizer
In my experience, Remote workers often value flexibility. Allow them to schedule coaching sessions at convenient times and accommodate different time zones if your remote team is globally dispersed.
Remote coaching can be more engaging and effective if you use a variety of methods and techniques to suit your remote workers' learning styles, preferences, and personalities. You can use different approaches, such as directive, non-directive, or collaborative coaching, depending on the situation and the goal. You can also use different techniques, such as questioning, feedback, reflection, or action planning, to help them explore, learn, and apply new skills and knowledge. Moreover, you can use different media, such as text, audio, video, or graphics, to make your coaching sessions more interactive and appealing.
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Roe Gabriel
Information Systems at Sḵwx̱wú7mesh úxwumixw Squamish Nation My goal is to automate, educate, elucidate & update information systems in order to make work life easier for everyone.
I totally agree, the more tools the better. Video, some people are flowchart people. Sometimes it’s just written documents that they prefer. LMS, oneNote or Evernote or similar tools can be set up like on online library. These days too, bots are popular or NS co-pilot that connects with Chat GPT or similar. We need to break the old school model. People learn in different ways. Some collaboration, some people like self paced LMS and definitely have a bit of everything. You can also go with what’s popular. YouTube how to guides are great. See who can find the best one. Or maybe create an internal one. Different team members can create different parts.
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Jana Schöllkopf
🤙🏽 Wie du deine Selbstständigkeit richtig ins Rollen bringst für mehr Sinn, Freude & Umsatz | Mentoring für Visionäre
Coach and client need to fit. There are topics and employees that benefit from a coach that is upfront and very challenging and there are people and situations in which a more collaborative approach makes sense. Therefore being able to get to know the coach upfront is so important. Also a mix between Coaching (asking a lot of questions) and methods that are delivered like in a training can be very successful, especially when combined with the homework.
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Michael Panza COSS, COSM
EHS Manager at Worthington Industries Delta, OH
I strive to keep a core consistency to my methods of delivery, I like to call it my "style" of training. This authenticity adds value to the environment your attempting to create. That being said, I also focus a significant amount of effort into blending learning through discussion, micro-learning video opportunities, and learning through doing into each session/ course. This variety of learning avenues, especially when coupled with a strong mentoring program I spoke about earlier, can ensure the process doesn't get stale and serves the needs of a diverse team who won't all learn exactly the same way.
Finally, you need to evaluate and improve your coaching programs based on the feedback and results of your remote workers. You can use various methods to measure and monitor their progress, performance, and satisfaction, such as quizzes, tests, surveys, or interviews. You can also use tools like dashboards, reports, or analytics to track and analyze their data and outcomes. Based on the evaluation, you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of your coaching programs, and make adjustments and improvements accordingly.
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Onur Basat
Talent & Employer Branding Professional
Considering the remote workers always hve to own their time dedication and motivation to tasks, we can expect them to get into the driver seat of their advancements. In my experience I've found online coaching as an external service extremely helpful to build that rapport between an external coach and the employee. EZRA as a platform is very useful for this kind of service, especially for management levels.
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Troy Kroll
Training, Org. Development, & People Professional
We must always be accepting of constructive criticism and likewise we need to seek areas of improvement while always remaining adaptable to the needs of all involved. "If you do the same thing forever, you won't do it for long" - meaning, if you're not improving you're falling behind and eventually losing value or relevance.
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Ashwinder R Singh
Presently, CEO-Residential, Bhartiya Urban and Co-Chairman CII | Cofounder & CEO ANAROCK | CEO-Residential, JLL India | 📚 Author 🏠
Hey folks, check these out: 1. Remote Work Essentials: Nail the basics, from time management to virtual communication and work-life balance. 2. Mental Health and Well-being:Beat isolation and stress. Learn stress management and find that sweet work-life balance. 3. Leadership in Remote Environments:If you're leading a remote team, we've got you. Learn to lead like a champ in virtual settings. 4. Tech Skills Enhancement:Tech-savvy is the way to go. Master remote tools, stay secure, and keep up with tech trends. These programs are here to make remote work a breeze, whether you're a newbie or a pro. Let's rock the remote work world together!
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Onyinye O.
Snr Sys Analyst | Technical Writer | Event Organizer | Product Manager | IT Governance Founder of @ She Initiative | WTM Ambassador | SDG 1, 2, 3, 4 & 10 Advocate | Public Speaker | Tech Event Organizer
1. Address work-life balance: Remote workers may struggle with work-life balance. Coaching can help them set boundaries, manage their time effectively, and reduce stress. 2. Offer emotional support: Remote workers can experience feelings of isolation and loneliness. Coaches should be understanding and support remote workers emotionally. 3. Develop self-discipline: Remote work requires self-discipline and time management. Coaching programs should focus on helping remote workers enhance their self-discipline, set goals, and stay organized. 4. Recognize achievements: Recognition and rewards can motivate remote workers to continue their professional development.
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Josh McAfee
Senior Advisor to America's leading credit unions
Focus on those skills and business needs that transcend working format. Remote work has certainly changed the dynamic and the resourcing requirements, but business still has fundamental realities and constraints. Effective communication has never been more important—I would make a strong case that we have a greater need for verbal and written communication and have never been at a greater deficit for competency. Cultivating those core and universal skills with an expectation of excellence gives a wide berth for more specialized, technical development that takes a full root.