Amid the prevailing shortage of skilled workers, employers are increasingly investing in their own employer branding. The goal is to retain employees and become more attractive to outside talent. Surprisingly, however, despite these investments, employee satisfaction figures have remained relatively constant. This is confirmed by several studies, including the 2018 Gallup Engagement Index: only 15% of all employees enjoy going to work, 71% merely trade their time for money and feel only a weak bond with the company. Another 14% have already mentally quit, meaning there is no bond at all.
The Problem
Conventional employer marketing measures such as employee discounts, free fruit and drinks, as well as flexible working hours or the option to work from home, do not seem to bear fruit — at least not in the long term. Why? Because employees’ real needs are — usually — not recognized and met.
In the long run, this mismatch between needs and (purchased) benefits that are supposed to increase employee satisfaction but simply don’t is fatal. The measures used so far cost employers a great deal of money over the years, yet the desired effect fails to materialize. On the contrary: employees continue to feel that their needs are not being seen. As a result, high psychological strain leads to numerous absences (e.g., turnover and sick leave). On top of that come costs from severance payments and productivity losses. No wonder, since studies have shown that over 30% of a company’s success depends on employee satisfaction. The company is therefore not using its budget optimally but wasting it.
In addition to financial losses, high dissatisfaction among the workforce damages the employer brand and thus causes a massive loss of appeal — a devastating verdict in the war for talent. Moreover, in this battle, companies must do without what is arguably their most powerful weapon: motivated employees as in-house promoters. Recall the final stages of the candidate journey: applicants have become employees. Through employer branding measures, these employees can become enthusiastic about their employer and turn into promoters.
The Reason for Dissatisfaction
Of course, it is important for employees to benefit from the perks mentioned above. However, these and other measures contribute only to a limited extent to increasing employee satisfaction in the long term. To boost motivation and willingness to perform over the long term, much more fundamental things need to change. In every case, employees want:
- Recognition and feedback from supervisors and the team.
- Real teams with genuine cohesion.
- The trust of colleagues and supervisors in them and their abilities.
- Transparency, e.g., regarding processes within the company.
- Clear agreements they can rely on.
- Communication on equal footing.
- Celebrating successes together.
These and other points usually cannot be bought with money, because they depend on behavior. Employees have certain tasks to fulfill and are paid accordingly for their time. In this dynamic, companies often lose sight of one thing: employees are more than just workers. Behind the role of the employee is a real person with values, feelings and needs. Regardless of their function and the type of work they do, all employees want to be seen, heard and valued. These points are often where the major deficit lies that is responsible for the lack of satisfaction.
Employers must recognize these real needs and learn to meet them with appropriate measures. For this to happen, awareness of the problem should be created at all levels of the company. Rigid, inflexible structures and outdated values still often prevail in companies. These must be broken up and renewed. Coaching provides exactly the external impetus needed to bring about the desired behavioral changes in the company in the long term — for the well-being of everyone.
Coaching as a Decisive Measure
What needs to change, then, is the behavior of management as well as that of employees. Coaching for managers and employees helps identify existing problems in the company and provide appropriate solutions. In principle, coaching is suitable for everyone working in the company. Participation is particularly advisable when the first signs of strain become apparent. These include stress, poor time management, lack of motivation, difficulty concentrating, interpersonal problems, sleep problems and other personal issues that affect work performance.
Coaching for Managers
In coaching, managers learn, among other things:
- to strengthen their confidence as leaders.
- to increase or maintain satisfaction within the team.
- how to truly value their employees
Coaching for Employees
In coaching, employees learn, among other things:
- how to prioritize their tasks properly.
- how to deal with overload, time pressure and increased stress.
- to uncover their own strengths and weaknesses.
Even if there are no obvious warning signs, coaching can make sense, because it is often small things that turn into bigger obstacles over time.
Goal
The content of the coaching depends on the individual challenges of each participant. Fundamentally, coaching is about a process of insight that leads to new behaviors (e.g., better time management or a more empathetic feedback culture). Coaching also aims to:
- identify and prevent dissatisfaction early on.
- ensure better handling of responsibilities within the team.
- break down communication barriers.
- prevent burnout and boreout.
- strengthen the ability to concentrate.
- ensure a healthy balance between family and career (work-life balance).
- prevent sleep disorders and concentration problems.
To a certain extent, coaching provides external support and shows ways to overcome challenges sustainably with one’s own resources. Applying these learned methods is up to employees and managers. They must practice these methods and internalize the behaviors — at all levels of the hierarchy. This is the only way to improve conditions in the company in the long term.
VIVELIA – An Established Coaching Provider
The Berlin-based company VIVELIA - Coaching for better work provides coaching for employees and managers. Together with clients, individual challenges are analyzed and corresponding goals defined in approximately 3-5 sessions. Session by session, new approaches are developed that clients can apply in their (professional) everyday lives between coaching sessions. In this way, VIVELIA’s coaches and the client jointly initiate a process of insight that helps them develop and implement solutions on their own when facing future obstacles. Clients do not learn new skills. Rather, the coaching aims to help them recognize and expand their existing resources and use them independently to solve problems. The previously defined goals can thus be achieved in a very short time. Clients can choose to attend coaching sessions via chat, phone, video or in person.
VIVELIA’s statistics show that coaching is a promising measure:
- 43% of clients experience less stress.
- 89% of participants are more motivated and 84% more satisfied at work.
- Almost all clients (98%) feel more productive.
Conclusion
Employer branding constantly strives to retain and motivate a company’s employees. However, most benefits do not go far enough, because employees have needs on a much deeper, human level that are too often not even recognized, let alone met. Coaching helps initiate a process of insight from the outside. This enables clients to overcome existing obstacles on their own in the future. Only if participants continue to apply these learned methods beyond the coaching can structures and behavior in the company improve in the long term.
As a result, everyone employed by the company benefits, as they are more motivated, more balanced and more willing to perform. Employees therefore do better work and are sick less often, which in turn benefits the company as a whole — a classic win-win situation.
Sources:
XING, Michael Mayer, Are Your Employees Happy? Why Companies Need New Strategies for Their Employer Branding, 04/17/2018, URL: https://coaches.xing.com/magazin/sind-ihre-mitarbeiter-gluecklich-warum-unternehmen-neue-strategien-fuer-ihr-employer-branding-benoetigen, last accessed: 03/26/2019
VIVELIA – Coaching for better work & Psychotherapy