An effective coaching programme benefits everyone in the organisation.

Employers and workers face continuing challenges in the post-pandemic era. Quiet quitting is emerging. Employee motivation is declining. And, in inflationary times, compensation is not rising as fast as the cost of living, leaving employees forced to accept supplementary forms of compensation. It all comes together in ways that require a new perspective on the workplace relationship.

An increasing trend among many corporations is the adoption of innovative employee benefits that, while relatively low-cost for employers compared to traditional salary increases, can be significantly high impact for the rank and file as well as for the overall corporation.

The value of across-the-board coaching

For my company, Olam Group, with more than 46,000 employees spread across 60+ countries, these post-pandemic dynamics are, in many ways, just the tip of the iceberg.    

Olam was long known as a high-performance organization where performance outcomes are very visible and evident. We knew we needed to continue our growth and attract talent, but not just “attract,” but also “retain.” Olam’s business characteristics are such that performance across roles depended largely on tacit knowledge and expertise. In an enterprise where it typically took five to six months for a new hire to be fully effective, we needed to bring that timeline down to less than half and in that period ensure the transfer of implicit knowledge and insights to perform.

Unless we could achieve that goal, even within a five-to-six-month time frame, apart from business impact, motivational fatigue if not complete burn-out would become increasingly likely. We were not going to get where we needed through increased pressure. We needed a holistic change in our learning and development process.

Insightful people within Olam saw value in coaching, offered initially to only a few key executives. But as the benefits became clear, the opportunity for coaching became more widely available.

Guiding versus directing

To be sure, every organization needs to integrate coaching in their own way. At Olam, we learned quickly that being directive in coaching doesn’t work. It must be about leading through guidance, helping people improve their confidence and skills.

There is a certain kind of attitude required to accept coaching and achieve the full scope of its value. One must be open-minded and willing to adapt in order to have a successful coaching experience.  When team members are offered coaching as a benefit and encouraged to examine its personal and professional growth potential, they become motivated to view coaching as a pathway to success.

But it has to start somewhere and, for Olam, that was at the top. What makes Olam successful is the quality of the leaders we’ve been able to develop over the past 28 years. Our leaders are not just strong business professionals, they are open to new possibilities and focused on our people. As such, they were willing to make coaching not only an executive perquisite, but a key responsibility for managers throughout the organization.

Often when coaching is introduced into an organization, the mindset is that it is designed to solve a problem. People ask, “Is there something wrong with me?” Once executives within Olam personally realized the value of coaching, however, they were able to encourage their team members to participate. Now, more and more people in the company volunteer for coaching.

They appreciate that, no matter how good they may be, there is always room for growth. Even among our leadership, coaching has been integrated to the point where managers are trained to be coaches for their direct supervisees. As a result, there is more of a shared problem-solving attitude and a conversational approach which promotes overall success.

Through this program, we have seen individual and group performance increase, engagement levels rise, all while changing and enhancing the culture at the company.

Measuring outcomes

Our outcomes are not unique. In a recent 2022 International Coaching Federation (ICF) Global Consumer Awareness Study, 34 percent of professional coaching participants said they sought a coach to optimize their individual and team work performance.

The ICF survey additionally revealed team members reported feeling more supported, respected, cared for, valued, trusted, and treated as equals by managers who adopted a “coach approach.” Over time, these feelings prompt team members to feel comfortable being more creative, productive and focused on development. Such an outcome fundamentally shifts the team’s dynamic, which in our case was most significant in terms of increased resilience.

The pandemic put pressure on everyone, but even routine business cycles have their effects, especially for a business like ours. Volatility, supply chain disruptions, profitability pressures all can have very negative impacts. In an entrepreneurial organization like Olam, we strive to foster grit and resilience.

Through coaching, both leaders and team members feel it is safe to convey their uncertainties and discuss them openly. An overall attitude of being resilient as a leader fosters team member resilience. Instead of reflecting and amplifying anxiety, coaching diminishes negative stress. The result is an environment in which everyone can be collaborative and solutions oriented.

Implementing professional coaching as an employee benefit helped us shift the trajectory of a company creating a new culture that welcomes dialogue, engagement and collaboration. By extending this benefit to all employees, and not limiting it to executives, we believe we are investing in the quality of our people and the long-term success of the company. After all, a key point of coaching is to ensure that leaders, managers and direct reports are working together to develop strong and capable teams, especially in the face of difficulties.

Coaching is all about enabling people to find their own solutions. Our supervisors understand the process of coaching and the value it brings. When a team member comes forward with a problem, we are not instructing. We now question the team members, guiding them and helping to consider various options that could be solutions to the problem. Sometimes this means stifling the impulse to tell someone what to do. Guiding and watching does take time. But this kind of coach approach enables the individual to draw on inner strengths and lessons when the next challenge arises.

Coaching as an employee benefit opens doors for improvement and necessary growth and, when done properly, can cultivate the next generation of leaders for the company. Today, coaching as a skill and a process runs through the entire Olam organization. It is both an employee benefit and a company advantage.

As we continue to grow, so will our people, our culture and our ability to weather whatever stands in front of us in the future.

Joydeep Bose is the Managing Director and Group CHRO of Olam International, based in Singapore. He is also a Board Member of the ICF Global Board for Coaching in Organizations at the International Coaching Federation.