Concepts for Green Belt Coaching

The type of coaching provided to employees may differ from organization to organization, but the most common type is Green Belt coaching that caters to employees at the lower level of the organizational hierarchy. These employees may not be a part of the organization's decision-making machinery, but since they are the people who actually carry out Six Sigma implementations, it becomes necessary for the management to provide the proper coaching to them before actually starting the implementation process.

Common Problems Associated With Green Belt Coaching

Green Belt coaching may just involve the basics of Six Sigma, but the problem is that in most organizations, employees are already busy with their routine jobs. As such, they find it difficult to reschedule their work duties for additional activities such as coaching. This problem is not limited to any particular type of organization, but statistical data reveals that it is more widespread in smaller organizations that often do not have additional manpower to share the workload when some employees are busy attending sessions.

Using the productive time of employees for conducting sessions is often not possible for these smaller organizations because they exist in a competitive marketplace and cannot afford to miss crucial deadlines that can directly affect their core business. Management can very well ask employees to extend their work hours, but that does not help much because it is hardly unlikely that the employees will lend their full cooperation and support if they feel that they are being overburdened.

Successful Green Belt Coaching

Organizations may have their own reasons for not being able to conduct it effectively, but since coaching is something that can never be completely done away with, organizations need to devise effective plans that will help in getting the desired results. For example, if employees are feeling overburdened due to extended work hours, management can plan out an incentive plan to keep employees motivated.

Green Belt coaching requires employees to pass a test, after which they are officially referred to as Green Belts. The incentive plan can be based on their performance on the test, with the biggest incentives going to the team or department having the maximum number of successful candidates. Individual incentive plans may also be launched, but team-incentive plans are generally preferred because they increase rapport and cooperation between team members, something that is necessary for the successful implementation of all Six Sigma projects.

To ensure the best success rate, top management and project sponsors should lend their support and guidance to the employees all throughout the Green Belt coaching period. They should make themselves available in order to resolve employee problems or issues that they might be facing due to the ongoing coaching. It is only when all these factors have been considered, that an organization can hope to get the best results.

By Tony Jacowski
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