Behavioural coaching is the best way to boost productivity in your back-of-house teams

Back-of-house teams play a critical role that in driving organisational success: they’re your internal engine room for getting things done and getting your products and services out there for your customer service teams to sell.

We know how important behavioural coaching is for customer-facing teams – and we’ve explored lots of critical customer-experience micro-behaviours leaders could leverage in their coaching (have a look at last year’s Top 10 winner or our Auscontact Service Excellence Award finalists if you want some pointers). But what about our back-of-house teams? Too often we see these teams left in the cold when it comes to coaching – or we see coaching that focuses solely on task-based feedback rather than behavioural change.

The success of back-of-house teams lies in their ability to optimise their performance, collaborate effectively, overcome procrastination, and embrace workplace diversity and inclusion. All of these things can be boiled down to coachable micro-behaviours which will have a real impact on productivity when coached and applied with relevance.

That’s why we champion the ACDC coaching approach. ACDC is a powerful coaching methodology because it centres on micro-behaviours, which are small, observable actions that individuals can see, hear, and assess. By homing in on these specific behaviours, coaches can provide targeted guidance and feedback, allowing team members to make tangible progress and to drive meaningful change. ACDC coaching ensures that coaching conversations are actionable and result-oriented, leading to measurable improvements in performance and productivity.

Let’s look at an example in practice:

‘Collaboration’ is a broad topic – ask a team member to ‘collaborate better’ and it’s likely they’ll say ‘sure,’ then walk away shaking their head. In other words, you’ll see no change in what they’re doing because they don’t know what to do differently.

If instead, through your ACDC coaching conversation, you asked ‘what specifically will you do to collaborate better?’. This may take some teasing out – but let’s after some discussion, you and your team member came up with the micro-behaviour to ‘encourage and seek input from team members during meetings’ as something to work on. Suddenly something nebulous (better collaboration) becomes clear and concrete.

“‘Encourage and seek input from team members during meetings’ could sound like this: ‘What are your thoughts on this idea? I’d really like to hear your perspective.’ It’s observable and actionable and absolutely would improve collaboration if it were demonstrated. ”

Here’s another one:

Time management is an evergreen development opportunity for most people. Some ideas for repeatable micro-behaviours that would positively address this could be:

• Creating a priority list for the week ahead on a Friday, so there’s less overwhelm on a Monday.

• Using your calendar to block out focus time through the week.

• Respond to emails at set times throughout the day, rather than as they come in.

All of these are observable, repeatable micro-behaviours that a leader can coach to and follow up on.

When team members develop these micro-behaviours, they enhance their individual and collective effectiveness, leading to improved productivity, streamlined operations, and engaged teams. With ACDC coaching, leaders facilitate this process, giving their back-of-house teams the necessary tools, support, and guidance to overcome challenges, maximise their potential, and achieve long-term performance success.

Don’t forget your back of house teams when you’re building a coaching culture into your organisation! Targeted coaching on specific micro-behaviours, empowers back-of-house teams to thrive. By addressing key areas of improvement and fostering a culture of continuous learning and development, organisations can unlock the full potential of their back-of-house teams, driving overall success and growth.

Watch our discussion with a back-of-house leader putting this into action here.

Want to learn more about how you can use ACDC coaching with your team? Get in contact with one of our consultants here.