Professional growth counseling is the act of planning for the accomplishment of individual and professional goals within your organization. It is the cornerstone of succession planning and staff development and the key to ensuring the future success of your company.

Professional growth counseling is a shared effort that involves managers and their direct reports jointly committing to performance related self-improvement. Managers will conduct a thorough review of their employees overall performance with the purpose of identifying individual strengths and weaknesses.Once identified managers and their employees will jointly create a specific plan of action to build upon the strengths and overcome the weaknesses. Each employee will have participated in developing an individual pathway to success by establishing short and long term goals and objectives and being held accountable to achieve each goal and objective as part of their performance evaluation. Managers must ensure their employees not only understand this process but also freely commit to the concept of self-improvement. Equally important, employees must be candid and realistic in their own assessments and goal setting in order to grow on a professional level.

Counseling is a skill that can only be acquired and developed through practice. Managers must, in order to be effective counselors, be able to:

Clearly define the purpose for each counseling session

Fit their counseling style to the individual being counseled

Respect the values, beliefs, and attitudes of each of their employees

Establish open two-way communication

Listen more than they speak

Encourage their employees thorough actions while guiding them through overcoming their shortcomings

Show empathy when discussing problems

Remain objective

Know what information must be kept confidential

Effective counselors must also take great care to avoid the following typical errors:

Dominating the conversation

Giving unnecessary or inappropriate advice

Projecting their personal likes, dislikes, and biases

Stereotyping

Reaching rash judgments and conclusions

Losing control of their emotions

Failure to properly follow-up

In order to be effective in the art of professional growth counseling managers and supervisors must spend the time and effort required to properly follow-up each individual counseling session. They must provide support for their employees as they develop and implement their individual plans of action. They must observe each employee, assess their progress (or lack of), and provide steady and constructive feedback. Managers must be able to assess each individual employee plan of action and be prepared to modify it if necessary to ensure the continued professional growth and development of their staff.

Simply stated, managers must be able to observe their employee¡¦s performance, compare it to established standards, and provide the appropriate feedback. This will increase employee morale and efficiency and establish open communications among your company's workforce.

For additional information on finding affordable solutions to your company's training needs contact Joe Giordano, Owner of Consulting, Training, and Development Services, at (410) 860-6664.