Professional Development as a Performance Incentive

In today's tough economic times organizations are cutting back on whatever they can, and training programs tend to be the first to go. Organizations want to focus on pulling through the tough times, not on developing their employees. But just because they’re spending less does not mean there’s not a price to pay.

This price comes in terms of employee performance when the good times return, but also in terms of employee incentive and morale. Employees want their organizations to provide them with training opportunities so they are able to develop themselves within their profession. If an organization doesn't provide these opportunities, employees will leave to find a company that will. A high turnover rate means more cost and less productivity. When employees are dissatisfied, they also tend to deplete the sense of community in an organization, leading to an apathetic approach to work life. This approach finds individuals no longer striving towards organizational goals, which is a great internal weakness for the success of the company. Managers need their employees to be working together towards large organizational goals instead of working independently towards their own individual goals.

In essence, training provides more than increased productivity. It acts as an additional incentive for employees to stay with a company because they are able to develop and improve their own management skills. It also enables employees to develop their sense of community within their organization because their managers have shown that they believe in them enough to invest in their skills. The morale of the employees increases because they now feel more secure about their future with their company.

So what are you waiting for? Now is the time to coach and mentor; organizations need to capture the knowledge of their employees and pass it on for the development of others. We know the times are tough, so try forming a peer coaching group within your organization and meet bi-weekly to talk about and reflect on your management experiences. After 3 sessions, re-evaluate if your time is worth it. What have you learned? What have you gained? You'll be surprised at how far a little talking, coaching, and mentoring can bring you and your organization.

What we've been up to!

We have just finished a series of webinars that we ran throughout June and the beginning of July. They were a lot of fun to organize and participate in! I really felt we were able to share some of our knowledge at CoachingOurselves with the participants. Our webinars titled "Introducing CoachingOurselves" were about who we are, how we got started, and what we do. We had great turnouts with highly engaged participants. We also ran a "Social Learning for Management Development" Webinar that was very interesting! It was all about social learning, the naturally occurring process that makes up the majority of our learning in the workplace, and how it can be captured for management and leadership development. Soon we will be publishing some of our recorded webinars on the site for individuals to view them at their own convenience until we start up another series in August. Our first one back is another "Social Learning for Management Development" Webinar on the 12th of August.

We ran our first virtual CoachingOurselves workshop for individual managers. Those who attended worked through a CoachingOurselves topic as a group and participated in discussions, adding their own insights and personal experiences. It went really well and was a great experience for all who were involved. There are plans to run another CoachingOurselves workshop for individual managers in August.

We are currently working on putting up our partner page on the website. This page will display all of our partners from around the globe. It is these partners that will be traveling to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in the fall for the CoachingOurselves Partner Conference.

We are also updating the "Our Team" page on the website. The CoachingOurselves team has grown and we want everyone to appear on our website so you can know who we are.

Recent Marketing Success Story: holding webinars in order to reach out to our customers, keeping them informed and up to date in the world of learning and development