Coaching the Employee Experience: Change in Role

In this series, we’re looking at how to use coaching to support a phenomenal employee experience during the transitions that employees encounter in their careers.  Coaching isn’t the only intervention of course, but it can help the employee to work with the psychological impact of change – what are they leaving behind, what are they struggling with in the “not knowing”, and how do they make a great new beginning.

So far, we’ve looked at transition coaching for people joining the workforce and re-joining it.

Let’s turn our minds to the needs of those who have a change in role.  By this, I mean people who remain in their current position, with:

• An increase in scope and scale of responsibility or
• A new business strategy leading to new goals or
• A new boss or
• A new location or
• A new policy that affects the way they work

Some of these may be self-selected, for example if an employee wants more challenge or they want to play to their strengths so shape the role to fit their learning requirements.  Others may be caused by the organisation or by other people moving on.

Either way, an employee in one of these situations may need support in figuring out what to let go of and what the new way of being and doing is; and there will be a good deal of uncertainty in the midst of all that, with many questions being unanswerable for a while.  By now, you’ll be recognising this as the transition that is going on internally, matching the change that is external.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this situation, it’s ideal if the manager coaches their team member through the stages, asking questions that help the employee to deconstruct the old, recognise the losses, celebrate the endings; find their way through the uncertainty and doubt; and make a good beginning.  Expecting the employee to just get on with it is missing an opportunity for growth and learning.

Of course, if it’s the boss that is changing, the employee will want to talk to someone neutral, so might choose an internal executive coach to help them to figure out how to get good closure with their old boss, and make a good start with their new boss.

In the case of a new location, that may also be better dealt with by an internal or external coach, as there may be many personal issues to sort out as well, such as where to live, children’s schooling, spouse’s needs etc.

Whoever the employee chooses to support them, there will be plenty to think about – and doing that with a sounding board will make the process more thorough, such that things don’t come back to bite the employee for lack of consideration.