Any hiring manager can tell you good talent is hard to come by, and just about any leader will agree good talent is hard to keep. In today’s job market, it’s no secret that job seekers and employees alike are looking for organizations that invest in their team. More often than not, this can be through professional development or coaching opportunities that set team members up for success and make them feel more confident about tackling their responsibilities. Going this extra mile can make a huge difference in retention and productivity, too. In fact, a recent article by BetterUp found teams that use coaching methods have decreased burnout by 35%, increased intent to stay by 68% and have shown employees to be 2.1 times more productive.

Perhaps that’s why team coaching has become increasingly popular over the years. After all, it’s designed to create a difference for both the organization and the individual. As the International Coaching Federation puts it, “team coaching empowers teams to work toward continued high performance and ongoing development, requiring innovation, flexibility, adaptability and goal alignment.”

As leaders, it’s our responsibility to ensure team members feel valued and equipped to do their work. While team coaching requires an investment, it fosters positive changes that can result in incredible value for your organization.

The benefits of team coaching

While employees may excel at their day-to-day activities, many struggle to understand how their role factors into the overall success of their organization. This is an issue often seen in teams, regardless of whether they work in-person, at home or even a mix of both. When employees don’t understand how they impact the team as a whole, they can easily feel discouraged, apathetic or like their hard work doesn’t really make a difference. These feelings can lead to turnover, subpar work and burnout.

Team coaching can help employees understand what key stakeholders need from the team and how those employees can partner with stakeholders to create new, innovative possibilities. In short, it can help them understand why they do what they do.

At a basic level, most teams focus on performance, results and meeting evaluation requirements. This, however, is the bare minimum that a team can complete and still be successful — it’s not the apex. The step above this is becoming a “value creation team,” which focuses on creating value for stakeholders. Value creation teams require a systemic lens and approach to ensure all involved parties are continually creating value for each other and none are over or under delivering. This sort of approach can be fostered through team coaching, which focuses on defining clear goals and methods of communication.

Team coaching recognizes the biggest challenges in nearly all organizations today lie not inside individuals, teams or even departments, but in the connections — or lack thereof — between these entities. Because of that, creating a successful team and a set of aligned values requires a lot of work to ensure each of those entities are communicating effectively. That’s where team coaching comes in. It helps establish open communication so organizations can define their goals and ensure all employees know what those goals are and how to achieve them.

In essence, team coaching can help employees realize that their unit was created for a reason. The team already has a purpose, and each individual’s work contributes to this overarching goal, which improves the organization as a whole.

Team coaching can also help address challenges like:

• Managing conflicting expectations of different stakeholders
• Having clear collective objectives and processes
• Running and transforming your organization
• Finding and clarifying a team’s purpose
• Working virtually and in hybrid models
• Navigating an increasingly complex and interconnected world
• Needing to work quickly and efficiently
• Creating connections between siloed sections of an organization

Choosing a team coaching program

In a 2022 LinkedIn survey, 59% of respondents surveyed from the workforce indicated they believe professional development opportunities to be the key to improving company culture. And, since jobs that mention culture receive a 67% increase in engagement on LinkedIn, we know positive team culture and professional development are traits that employees value.

With this in mind, it’s pretty clear that professional development opportunities like team coaching can go a long way toward creating a desirable work environment. However, like with any type of business development service, there are several different types of team coaching. Each one is designed to address slightly different obstacles within a team.

Leaders who are interested in hiring a team coach in the future, should start by asking themselves and their teams these questions:

• Where is the organization and team today?
• Where do they need to be in the future?
• How confident are you that the organization and team will meet any upcoming goals you’ve set?
• What does the team need to make those goals a reality?
• What is getting in the way?

All of these questions will initiate a proactive approach rather than a reactive one, which will better align your team with the right coaching solution for you. Having a deep understanding of what your team brings to the table and what may be in their way sheds light on how you can empower your team and address your stakeholders’ needs at varying levels.

Once you have answers to these questions, you can start collaborating with a coach to determine a solution that would be right for your team. When in doubt, know that any coaching option is a step in the right direction toward a positive company culture.

Impact

In the end, the numbers don’t lie. Companies that choose not to prioritize team development ultimately see a higher turnover rate among their employees. The previously mentioned 2022 LinkedIn survey shows a 35% increase between 2019-21 in how much employees care about how a company treats their well-being. We can only imagine what the statistics will say as we continue to progress in the current job climate.

Remember, there is no business without each individual stakeholder having their needs met, and that starts within the company. Like all other aspects of an organization, teams need to be evaluated and fostered if they’re expected to succeed. Leaders can jumpstart this process by asking for an evaluation of the overall company by a coaching professional, who can then recommend a program that’s a good fit. In the end, team coaching sessions can help employees feel heard, teams perform better, and the organization work more confidently and effectively to achieve its goals.