What’s the most important thing to today’s employee? Their growth. Our research shows us that the number one reason that employees leave an organisation is a lack of career development opportunities. We’re seeing Top Employers putting an emphasis on mentoring and coaching their people with the aim of continuous development.
Last year, we certified 750 organisations around the globe as Top Employers, and after these annual certifications have been announced, we visit each of these companies for an in-depth feedback session. It’s during these discussions that we get to see and hear what’s going on. In the last two years, in the UK we’ve heard a lot of companies talk about their mentoring, coaching, training, and apprenticeship programmes. What’s interesting, is when you start to dig into the subject, it always turns into an enormous conversation. This is what we are hearing.
The value of coaching: The importance of coaching as a style of managing people seems to be on the rise in the UK. We currently see an average of 32% of employees receiving coaching, with some organisations proud to say 100% of their people are coached.
Companies are investing in coaching, and to ensure that it’s a success they need to put formal programmes in place. Coaching is laid out as an expectation in manager’s job descriptions and annual expectations, they are trained how to coach, and then this coaching is measured using employee feedback at least once a year – usually multiple times. Coaching is a real way to guide performance, combat difficulties before they become problems, recognise positive performance, and to ensure frequent communication with each employee.
Eligibility for mentorship programmes: For 2013’s certification, 32% of employees went through mentoring programmes. For some companies that’s still the 1% enrolled in graduate programmes. For others, this is an area that’s growing hugely.
University fees in the UK have gone up, and enrolment is down, so more companies are looking at different ways to develop good people. The eligibility for entering mentorship programmes is changing and more high-potential employees are being offered mentoring to make sure companies get, keep, and most importantly, develop their future management. This seems to be a shift away from the traditional small intake of graduates programmes.
Training: This one isn’t necessarily a new one, but it’s still growing. Companies that want to get the most from their people invest in training. This training is delivered in multiple different ways, from traditional classroom sessions, to e-learning, to gamification. Increasingly we are seeing companies get their training accredited, or partnering with educational institutions to create and deliver their training. With the downturn in university enrolment, some of our Top Employers are seeing courses in their specialist field cut and as a result we are seeing more apprenticeship programmes being put into place. For some of these organisations, bringing in employees who are younger and less experienced in the world of work means that they need to hire, on-board and manage these people differently, so extra programmes are being added to support this too.
What’s the one common thread that we are hearing in all of these discussions? The world of work is constantly changing and evolving, and organisations that want to get and keep the best employees need to think ahead, to stay ahead.
Does this gel with what’s going on in your organisation? Have you been extending your mentor programme….rolling out a new emphasis on coaching….or perhaps you are doing something completely different? We love hearing from you so leave a comment below and tell us what’s going on in your company.
