1. GlobalCorporateCollege.com
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Teaching Coaching Skills at the Front Line
By Anne Hach, Solutions Design Consultant for Global Corporate College
Improving Productivity with Coaching Skills
When considering the development tools that you can use to improve the skills of your global
workforce, supervisor coaching should be at the top of your list. Training front line managers and
supervisors to provide coaching to their teams and holding them
accountable for the ongoing development improves organizational
effectiveness and promotes a culture of continuous improvement.
The Trend Towards Decentralized Development
In today’s competitive economy, two strategies have come to
dominate corporate culture; doing more with less and being agile and
innovative. Effectively executing these strategies requires employees
at all levels of an organization to think and act differently. Growing
evidence suggests that the most innovative organizations are those
who have transitioned at least part of the training role to supervisors
and front line managers (Agarwal, Angst and Magni, 2009).
Successfully innovative organizations build skills by leveraging the
supervisor’s intimate knowledge of the required proficiencies,
proximity to application and opportunities for reinforcement. Thus the
development is more targeted and more effective. In addition,
coaching stimulates a positive, development-oriented process for the
coachee (Liu and Batt, 2010).
For this approach to be effective however, supervisors must be trained to use a coaching approach and
balance their role as coach with their responsibilities in relation to the subordinate’s performance. The
balance is critical to the success of the coach, the coachee and the organization’s ability to decentralize
development (Nichol, 1999).
Enhancing Employee Performance by Enhancing Coaching Competence
Coaching is one of the most effective talent development strategies available to organizations, yet it is
often overlooked as a tool to help front line employees reach their full potential. At its core, effective
coaching is an approach to development that encourages employees to build competence and
confidence by guiding their actions rather than directing them. Training front line supervisors to provide
coaching multiplies the return of training efforts.
”Coaching is one of the
most effective talent
development strategies
available to
organizations, yet it is
often overlooked as a
tool to help front line
employees reach their
full potential.”

2. Coaching Skills at the Front Line A. Hach, 2013 2
The role of coaching in talent development is defined by the coaching equation:
Potential-Interference=Performance Improvement
In this model, the role of the coach is to help employees identify what is interfering with their
performance. The interference may be behavioral or may be skills that need to be developed. Training
supervisors to support their teams with coaching skills exponentially enhances the performance of the
team. Yet, according to research by the American Management Association, fewer than 40% of
organizations provide coaching to non-executives. Using front line supervisors, who already possess the
knowledge, as coaches allows organizations to provide targeted, personalized development to a higher
percentage of their workforce.
The specific behaviors of an effective supervisor coach include:
 Engaged in the employee development process.
 Understands the required level of proficiency across relevant competencies currently expected for
subordinates’ and the required level to excel in the organization.
 Proactively provides constructive feedback to help employees perform to their full potential,
prepare for advancement, and or address associates’ performance problems.
It’s What We Do for You
Global Corporate College®, working with our global network is uniquely positioned to support the
human capital development needs of your organization. A public-private partnership with a delivery
network of leading accredited community colleges and universities, Global Corporate College® leverages
an unmatched breadth of programming, professional instructors, instructional designers and innovative
methodologies to achieve measurable results. This frame breaking combination of knowledge, practical
experience and trusted local providers ensures consistent excellent local service regardless of language,
location or learning needs. From entry-level workers to "C-Suite" executives, across a spectrum of
industries, locally or across the globe, Global Corporate College® is a preferred partner in corporate
education.
The local talent and state-of- art facilities of Global Corporate College® network schools provide our
clients flexible, decentralized, local solutions on an as-needed basis. Working through Global Corporate
College®, organizations are assured consistent, quality training support without the administrative
burden of procuring these services location by location.
Employee Potential - Interference
Enhanced
Performance

3. Coaching Skills at the Front Line A. Hach, 2013 3
Through the network schools, Global Corporate College® holds the largest body of intellectual property
for customizable non-proprietary curriculum. In addition to delivering your organization’s proprietary
curriculum, Global Corporate College has the flexibility to provide training using our market driven
content, customized to address your desired learning outcomes and contextualized to integrate your
culture and environment.
The college network has a proven bench of adult learning instructional designers and trainers with
expertise across a spectrum of industries and competencies. Instructors for corporate training
assignments are selected based on demonstrated competency in adult learning and particular industry
or content expertise. Global Corporate College® instructors will complete train-the-trainer programs
specific to assignments for your organization.
Global Corporate College® content and process experts are available to work with your organization’s
subject matter experts to design tailored training curriculum and related resources. We can develop
new content or modify your existing content to meet new learning objectives and employ your
preference of delivery modality (instructor led, on-line, web based, or blended, etc.). All design projects
can include pre and post assessment and a variety of “wrap around” tools for reinforcement of learning
to ensure behavioral change.
Works Cited
Agarwal R, Angst, C.M., & Magni, M. (2009). The performance impacts of coaching: A multilevel
analysis using hierarchical linear modeling. International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 20(10), 2110–2134.
Liu, X. & Batt, R. (2010). How supervisors influence performance: A multilevel study of coaching
and group management in technology-mediated services. Retrieved May 17, 2013 from
Cornell University, ILR School site: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/347/
Nichol, L.R. (1999). When the coach is the supervisor: dealing with the dynamics of power and the
organization. Retrieved May 16, 2013 from
http://www.businesscoachinstitute.com/library/coach_is_supervisor.shtml