In this competitive market place teams are expected to be high performing, deliver consistently, and exceed business goals, and all with an eye to supporting and developing the organisation’s cutting edge future strategy. It could easily seem overwhelming.

Coaching the team as a whole can help align and strengthen a team for success. Providing insight into individual members and the whole team team, coaching helps identify the strengths and development areas of the team and allows the team to ‘fix’ itself from the inside.

Team Coaching can deliver the following benefits:

• Defining a common purpose for the team
• Setting clear goals and objectives
• Facilitating better team communication
• Building trust within the team
• Builds team support and encouragement from the for whole team for each member of the team
• Team accountability for team results – sharing the hi’s and lows without apportioning the blame.
• Consistency in approach and communications from the team.
• working to the strengths of each team member

This list is by no means exhaustive. There are many benefits to be had from team coaching, all of which can be tailored to your organisation’s unique needs.

As we have previously mentioned you need to follow a few simple steps to make this sort of coaching work well:

• identify the specific needs of the team (a Team 360 review is an ideal way to achieve this)
• establish what you want the coaching to deliver
• communicate the program, and
• once it’s in place review it regularly to ensure that it’s delivering the full benefits.

Photo credit: atomicshed’s

Anything that enables people to share ideas, and enjoy the process, is a winner as far as I’m concerned. We’d love to know if you’ve done something different with Twitter. Drop me a line and let me know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4GvgaAO4DA

As a seasoned HR professional I can answer this honestly. No it doesn’t.

So not only is HR having to steal themselves to deliver disappointing news to some staff, they also have to keep those remaining on track to achieve success.

With the start of the new financial year, I know that HR will be looking at reduced training budgets and overall HR budget cuts. I know they will have had to often fight hard for these budgets too, and frequently reminded that they are not a profit centre but a cost centre and therefore they must expect to absorb the biggest cuts.

Having spoken with lots of HR managers recently this is certainly a recurring theme and one that, although they find difficult to deal with, they also find it hard to disagree with.

I’d like to challenge this.

Right now, organisations need to stay focused on their people. Those that are left are going to be feeling insecure. They will need reassurance if they are to help the business survive these tough times; and the team that will lead them through will be the HR team.

The expectations of HR right now are huge. They must deal sensitively but decisively with any exits, whilst developing a people strategy that will support the security and future success of the business. Oh, and don’t forget that budget that just got cut - they have to do it on a shoe string!  Of all the departments in an organisation, right now, HR is being expected to do more with less - much less!

HR has to be the champion to follow in tough times to keep employees engaged

To juggle all this, HR needs to be creative in their ideas, motivating in their reasons, and above all seen to be leading from the front. They must be the champions to follow.

But in all this it becomes an expectation that HR professionals don’t have any needs of their own. WRONG!! They do, they need support and a place to let off steam just like every other employee, even more so if you expect them to keep hearing everyone else’s woe’s.

Given the sensitivity of their position in the organisation, it’s often best if they have a trusted external support system. They need to network with other people in the same position as they are, who can empathise and more often than not, offer them new ideas, other perspectives and solutions to take back to the work place.

HR is a unique department, they handle your most precious asset through the up’s and downs of corporate life. But more than this, they develop your most precious asset into an even more valuable resource. They make your organisation a great place to be, so that it attracts and retains the best staff. This is your only competitive edge in a hostile market.Your

• HR team is responsible for developing the only real differentiator between you and your competitors - your employees. Worth thinking about! Make sure they also get enough development time.

As the discussion progressed it became clear that certain departments in organisations really only face one way, maybe not exclusively, but predominantly they focus either in or out. Operations for example focus on internal operations: getting the work done. Sales and Marketing focus outside: checking out competitors, the market place and working with customers to bring in the orders. The point of focus for both is on their deliverable.

Mostly, this is a good thing. We know that maintaining focus is core to a businesses success in many situations. However, this external focus may also have the potential to make them blinkered to what is happening inside the businessas a while and indeed, their own department.

Now, how did we get into this discussion if we were talking about benchmarking? Because all too often companies want to compare how they are doing against their competitors, how their products stack up against them and worringly, sometimes how their employees stack up too. With the volume and complexity of information out there this means that an HR manager could spend all week just looking at other companies information. (Don’t under estimate just how much there is out there!)

But beyond this problem of good use of time, as someone with an HR background, herein lies the problem for me: You are comparing apples with pears and that just doesn’t work. No two companies are the same and certainly no two employees are the same. So why would they think and behave in the same way?

So how should an HR manager deal with the data that’s available from outside their organisation? And then with the issue of whether they should be inward or outwardly focused - or, to be precise, how much they should be dealing with each? It’s all about balance.

Here’s the way I see it.

Despite the fact that HR’s responsibility is primarily about what goes on inside the company, there does need to be an awareness of outside factors, for example the wider economy and its impact on the job market, local resources, salary levels, employment legislation, and much more. They also need to consider the external brand and reputation of the company as a prospective employer. External focus should help inform decisions that affect the current and future performance of the organisation.

However, I believe that the HR focus should be on the internal organisation (but with an eye to the outside, as a sanity check). In order to keep delivering value to the organisation, HR must work in harmony with all departments to ensure they are meeting the needs of their customers, but their primary focus should always be internal.

Unlike some other departments, for HR internal and external focus are not as clearly defined. There will always be responsibilities which require them to balance and impress in both areas. To deliver HR needs to consider carefully the weight it gives to internal and external focus and strike a balance that meets the needs of their organisaton.

[Tip: HR managers should take an active part in local HR networks to help give them perspective on external factors and share experience with other HR managers to help them formulate the best strategy and business plan for their organisation.]

• No money - We all know that training should be maintained to keep motivation levels high, but the reality is that this is often one of the first areas to be cut when cash is tight
• No time - A reduction in staff numbers may mean people are being expected to do more. This makes it tough to justify a day, or even half a day, out of the office for training
• Lack of focus on training - Managers are focused on sales and delivery. An ‘all hands to the pumps’ ethos prevails which doesn’t leave much head-space for thinking and learning.

BUT, there are critical reasons for keeping the learning process going despite these issues. The last thing you need when you’re relying on a smaller employee-base is to lose some of your best and brightest. And it is the best and brightest who will have the ability to be more mobile when jobs are scarce. They need to see a career development path within the organisation, and be convinced that the company will support that development. Providing the continuous ability to learn and grow their skills is one way to do that.

History has shown that typically it’s forward thinking companies that come out on top when economic activity levels pick up. That means staying abreast of new developments in the industry and making sure your people are equipped to work together, manage and lead. Removing the opportunity for staff to learn severely limits the company’s ability to ramp up when demand increases, and even more, to become a leader in their market. The complacent may find that they are overtaken by smaller, nimbler companies.

Firstly, wherever you can - carry on using external trainers. They have the experience and the expertise to do the best possible job. Remember - you’re going to want them to be around when the upturn starts, so it makes sense to use their service as much as you can now.
Then, the challenge is to find ways of delivering more learning opportunities that have minimal costs attached to them.

A few ideas we’ve come up with are:

• In the areas of people skills and team working, it may be useful to partner with other similar size companies in the same area as you. Staff from each company could attend and with costs being shared proportionately. The Learning Collaboration in Cambridge is a good example of this.
• Skill up line managers to deliver training to small groups of their staff on key topics that will improve productivity. They may not be as proficient as professional trainers, but as Sam Wood reminded me, this has the added advantage of people getting to know their team mates better.
• Provide a library of books and DVD’s that people can use to increase their knowledge in their spare time. The company could make an initial investment and the collection could then be grown through setting up your own version of BookCrossings.
• Start lunch time learning sessions where staff can elect to deliver a session on their topic of choice. Even if the topic isn’t work specific, you’re giving staff the opportunity to see a different side of their colleagues, and the person delivering the session is able to share their energy and enthusiasm for something they’re passionate about. Great for upping the energy levels. Great for engaging staff.

You may also find a few ideas in this - Alex Dawson pointed me at a compilation of expert advice on dealing with training budget cuts on Training Zone.

[Tip: The training budget isn’t the only place you can look for training. Is there a small excess in any department budgets that could be used to help the line manager develop that particular team?]