Tag Archives: management

Coaching: An Essential Element of Managing Your Employees

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Topic: Coaching, Training
Publication: Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice                          Article: Employee Coaching Relationships: Enhancing Construct Clarity and Measurement
Authors: J.B. Gregory, P.E. Levy
Reviewed by: Mary Alice Crowe-Taylor

Executive coaching has been the subject of much academic research. Employee coaching is distinctly different, as defined and measured by Gregory and Levy. These researchers argue that employee coaching is the coaching of subordinates by their supervisors. You may ask, “Isn’t that just synonymous with managing employees?” No! Coaching is only part of the managing that superiors do. And how well it is done can make all the difference in managing effectively.

To assess the quality of a supervisor’s coaching, these researchers created the Perceived Quality Employee Coaching Relationship (PQECR) scale using two employee samples. It captures subordinates’ views on their bosses’ coaching along the four dimensions of: genuineness; effective communication; comfort with the relationship; and facilitating development of the employee. It can be used to help managers and supervisors develop their coaching ability.

These researchers do advise third party administration of the PQECR so that supervisors can get honest responses from their employees. By defining employee coaching and providing the PQECR, Gregory and Levy hope to increase the scientific rigor of the domain of employee coaching and provide another tool for the manager’s toolbox.

J. B. Gregory & P. E. Levy (2010). Employee coaching relationships: Enhancing construct clarity and measurement. Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research, and Practice, 3(2), 109-123.

 

Thank you! Why do these two words mean so much?

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Topic:  Citizenship Behavior, Work Environment
Publication: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Article: A little thanks  goes a long way: Explaining why gratitude expressions motivate prosocial behavior (JUN 2010)
Authors: A. M. Grant, and F. Gino
Reviewed by: Sarah Teague

 

In recent years, employees’ jobs and job tasks have become increasingly interconnected, necessitating an increase in teams and groups in the workplace. This integration means that employees must interact with many different people at work on a regular basis and places a high value on interpersonal skills, even for non-service jobs.  Modern organizations need employees who can function well in teams and work together to help achieve a common goal. As such, it is important for these organizations to understand how to promote prosocial (helping) amongst their employees.

One simple way to increase prosocial behavior is to express gratitude. That is, a simple “thank you” often does the trick … but WHY does this work? Grant and Gino (2010) proposed two competing explanations based on the dimensions of agency and communion. The agency perspective suggests that expressions of gratitude can enhance an individual’s feeling of competence (e.g.,), while communion predicts that gratitude increases feelings of social worth

The current article sought to determine whether expressions of gratitude make the helper feel more confident about his/her helping abilities or make him/her feel more valued.

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Another Shot at the Transfer Problem

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Topic: Training
Publication: Journal of Management (JUL 2010)
Article: Transfer of training: A meta-analytic review
Authors: B.D. Blume, J.K. Ford, T.T. Baldwin, and J.L. Huang
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

Organizations spend massive amounts of money on employee training and development every year with the expectation that what is learned in training will be transferred to and used on the job.  But there’s a problem: it has been well established that employees often do NOT transfer what they learn to the job.  In the continuing pursuit of solutions to this “transfer problem”, Blume et al. present a meta-analysis that explored predictors of transfer of training.

Confirming the existence of the “transfer problem”, Blume et al. found that post-training knowledge (usually measured with a post-test) is only a modest predictor of transfer of training.  Utility reactions, which refer to trainees’ perceptions of the usefulness or relevance of the training content to their jobs, were also only modestly related to transfer.  Other measures of training effectiveness that had small but meaningful relationships with transfer included post-training self-efficacy and motivation.  However, finding out how much employees enjoy their training experience is NOT a good indication of how effectively they will transfer their learning to the job.

While there were many individual and organizational characteristics that lead some employees to transfer their knowledge more effectively than others, the best predictors of transfer of training were cognitive ability, conscientiousness, a work climate that facilitates transfer and voluntarily participating in training.

Importantly, Blume et al. distinguish between closed skills and open skills.  While closed skills are performed similarly or exactly like they are taught in training (e.g., computer program), open skills refer to sets of principles that can be applied in many different ways (e.g., leadership skills).  That is, there is no one “right way” to perform open skills. Interestingly, Blume et al. discovered that most of the predictors investigated were more predictive of transfer for open skills.  The exception is cognitive ability, which was found to be much more strongly related to transfer of closed skills than for open skills.

Blume et al. conclude that there is “no magic bullet” for predicting transfer of training and thus the transfer problem must be attacked from multiple angles with multiple strategies.  The authors note that strategies for increasing trainees’ motivation prior to training and preparing coworkers and supervisors to support employees in transferring their learning to the job have high potential for improving transfer of training.

Despite their practical suggestions, Blume et al. suggest that the most effective way for an organization to enhance transfer of training is to integrate learning into its culture.  In other words, new (and possibly expensive) processes are not necessary to enhance trainees’ transfer.

 

Blume, B.D., Ford, J.K., Baldwin, T.T., & Huang, J.L. (2010). Transfer of
training: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Management, 36(4), 1065-1105.

How Important is The Store Manager?

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Topic: Organizational Performance
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (MAY 2010)
Article: Store manager performance and satisfaction: Effects on store employee performance and satisfaction, store customer satisfaction, and store customer spending growth
Authors: R.G. Netemeyer, J.G. Maxham III, D.R. Lichtenstein
Reviewed By: Allison Gabriel

How many times do you frequently interact with a store manager when picking up your morning coffee? How about when you run to the store to grab some last minute groceries for dinner? The fact is, most of us are used to interacting with service employees, with the assumption that the store manager is in the background informing them of how to interact with customers. Research typically supports this view, believing that store manager’s actions impact their employees, and that these employees subsequently impact customer outcomes (e.g., customer satisfaction) and, ultimately the store’s performance. However, is it possible that store managers have their own impact on customers beyond that of their employees?

Netemeyer and colleagues examined this research question in a sample from a women’s clothing and accessories retail chain. The impressive sample contained information from 306 retail store managers, 1,615 retail store floor employees (i.e., the people we typically interact with), and 57,656 stores. Talk about an impressive sample!

The central question was this: will manager performance and satisfaction impact customers more than employee performance and satisfaction? Additionally, the researchers looked at whether or not manager performance and satisfaction impacted the performance and satisfaction of employees. Overall, it was found that managers’ job performance and satisfaction not only influence their employees’ performance, but also impact customer satisfaction in conjunction with bottom-line store financial performance. This finding has huge potential for organizations – not only should they be monitoring the performance of their front-line service employees, but this shows that managers can really set the tone for employee performance and impact customers positively in the long run. After all, who said manager should stay behind the scenes anyway?

Lichtenstein, D. R., Maxham III, J. G., & Netemeyer, R. G. (2010). Store manager
performance and satisfaction: effects on store employee performance and
satisfaction, store customer satisfaction, and store customer spending growth .
Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(3), 530-545.