Peer-to-peer coaching for improved employee engagement

The same principles you apply to ecommerce also apply to cultivating your top employees.

You shop online, right? Pay bills electronically? Most of us do. In fact, more and more, online commerce is changing how retailers can expect to thrive in today’s economy. Business models are changing as a result.

Apart from the convenience of not having to get out of your jammies to buy clothing, tech gadgets, groceries, pay bills or watch a movie, there is one more distinct advantage online retail holds over shopping at brick-and-mortar stores: customer reviews.

Customer reviews are the great equalizer to the wild, wild west that is online shopping. Let’s face it, we’re suspicious of “dude on the internet, trying to sell me stuff.” As we should be. People need to feel comfortable before they will hand over their personal information and, gulp, credit card information. Brand recognition and loyalty is vital to delivering customer acceptance. Security is king.

How do we as consumers get that security? Peer-to-peer reviews. They’re part and parcel of any common, credible online shopping site. Today, it’s rare to find any ecommerce site that does not include warts-and-all customer reviews. It’s about transparency, accountability and credibility.

Want to know if something really works, or won’t fall apart? Chances are someone will tell you exactly what their purchasing experience was with the product or service you are considering. If not, I bet you, savvy shopper, won’t buy.

Buyer’s remorse is bad for everyone. Would you like to know if your employees would buy you again? You can ask them. They might tell you. They also might tell you only what reflects best on themselves. In contrast, among their peers, they’re probably having a number of crucial conversations — which you’re not privy to.

Peer to peer coaching

Naturally, top-down business communication is important for establishing goals and maintaining accountability. But there exists another often untapped goldmine in employee communications: Peer-to-peer influence. Workers receive information, instruction and culture touchpoints from many different sources. Often, the best way to engage with employees — where they are the most receptive and likely to retain information — is when it comes from their peers.

Organizations of almost any size rely upon diverse project groups, with colleagues from different disciplines and seniority, finding ways to work effectively together to meet their objectives. Sound familiar? When you factor in workforces that are spread across geographically separate regions, the need for peer-to-peer communication only grows.

Often times, we work on cross-functional teams with other peers — when a manager is not even involved in a project. In this case, feedback and learning opportunities get lost when there is no process for peer-to-peer coaching and feedback. Such relationships are also good for network building — a vitally important factor for career growth.

That’s why many businesses are investing in mentoring and peer-to-peer coaching for efficient talent development and overall company success. The principles are simple:

• Nurturing identified core talent leads to higher engagement.
• Engaged employees lead to higher retention.
• Engaged employees are also more productive.
• More productive employees lead to company success.

If you have a sound strategic plan in place, your engaged employees (the ones you want to nurture most) are the key to administering and receiving peer-to-peer coaching and mentoring. They’re why you either will or won’t compete successfully in your marketplace.

Engage and empower your best employees

Depending on who you ask at Rallyware HQ, they might have different opinions on the secret ingredient that makes our Rallyware for Employee Engagement solution so successful. Since I’ve got the floor (or your screen) right now, I’ll tell you mine: peer-to-peer coaching and mentoring. We make peer coaching and mentoring excel in ways designed to take your company forward with the highest level of engaged workers.

Our customers use Rallyware for Employee Engagement for collecting ongoing feedback within a community of employees. Communications within the system can be private or public, so peers can either submit a message privately or share praise publicly — while gamification incentivizes people to engage in positive relationships — a win-win for peers and the company.

It’s got to be fun

Gamification works. Every engagement program calibrates point values and virtual rewards in a manner that maximizes participation and drives tangible results.

It also makes it easier on managers. We provide a mobile-ready dashboard for easily tracking real-time metrics. Leaders can track individual and group performance. With Rallyware, the ROI of every engagement initiative will help you uncover insights into which tactics are most effective at improving employee engagement.

If you find yourself shopping for highly engaged employees within your own organization, our tools can help you in that search. You probably already have a good handle on who your best mentors or coaches may be, but we can help you expand that reach by identifying other highly engaged employees and help you spread their influence among their peers.

You have many messages to communicate within your organization. Some are best delivered from leadership and across sub-organizations within your enterprise. Others are optimally facilitated in smaller team meetings by managers and supervisors. Others still are best — and most often — shared among peers. We’d like to help you influence those conversations. Let’s talk soon.

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