This employee coaching form template will help you streamline your coaching process — so you can track employee development seamlessly.
If you invest your company’s dollars in employee coaching or training, you’ll want to know how well it works, right? Having a standardized planning and execution process in place will help you measure the return on investment (ROI) of your employee coaching program.
This is where an employee coaching form comes in. It will help you streamline your coaching process — so you can track employee development seamlessly. Let’s delve deeper into what an employee coaching form template is and how to use one for your training needs.
An employee coaching form is a detailed document used for planning and delivering coaching sessions within an organization. It outlines the goals of the coaching program, how you will accomplish them, and the methods of measuring participants’ progress and success.
A well-designed coaching form transforms your employees from passive to active learners. It sets their expectations early — so they know the objectives they’re working towards and prepare ahead of time.
At the end of the program, employees use the form to assess their performance, identify areas for improvement and provide feedback on the overall coaching process.
Importance of using employee coaching formsAt first, investing in employee coaching forms seems like an overkill. But a well-designed coaching form:
An employee coaching form provides one consistent structure for your coaching sessions. Anyone tasked with coaching employees in the organization will rely on the document to guide them through the process — instead of designing a new plan from scratch.
A standard coaching framework lets you deliver a consistent employee experience across different sessions. It shortens the learning curve for the employees too — as they will spend less time adapting to different coaching methods.
An employee coaching form lets you document learner progress to see how they’ve improved and identify knowledge gaps.
Let’s say an employee signs up for a 4-week coaching program, and you record their performance each week using employee coaching forms. At the end of the program, you will use the notes recorded in the employee coaching forms to assess the employee’s performance over the four weeks.
Based on this information, you can recommend the next steps, and the employee’s manager can draw up an objective development plan to address skill and knowledge gaps.
Gone are the days when coaching programs ran entirely at the trainer’s discretion. Now, with an employee coaching form, everyone (employees and stakeholders) knows what to expect from a coaching program ahead of time — including content and timelines for each session and rubrics for assessments.
By clearly articulating coaching objectives, processes, and timelines, the form ensures that the coach and the employee understand what needs to be achieved and how it will be done. This clarity sets the stage for accountability, leaving no room for ambiguity or misinterpretation.
Employees will refer to the coaching form as the program progresses to see how well its execution aligns with the original plan. Say the coach indicated that they’d conduct formative assessments but use summative tests; the employee can ask why they’ve deviated from the guidelines. Or they can record their observations in the feedback section of the form.
The specific elements of an employee coaching form vary depending on your organization’s goals and coaching methodology. However, it typically includes the following information:
This section should provide an overview of the coaching program and the basic information about the participant(s). Anyone who reads it should clearly understand what the program is about. Include details like:
Say you’re organizing a communication coaching program for entry-level managers; your coaching form’s information section might look like this:
Program Title : Thinkific’s Communication Skills Program for Entry-level Managers
Date : September 1, 2023
Overview : This coaching program for entry-level managers aims to enhance communication skills essential for effective leadership. Participants will develop active listening, leadership communication, and conflict resolution skills.
These skills will empower managers to engage their teams and promote a positive communication culture.
Department : Marketing
Employee : Faith U. [Entry-level manager]
Coach : Daniela O. [Communications Team Lead]
The goal is what you want to achieve with your coaching program. It should be employee-centric — tied to the skills the employee needs to thrive in their current role or reach the next level of their career.
An actionable goal follows the SMART framework. This means it is:
The goal concisely communicates one clear idea. The more specific the goal, the easier it becomes to create a plan of action.
Consider these two examples:
Which of these examples is specific? The second one! It goes straight to the point and communicates a single idea.
The goal is easy to track. In other words, there are quantifiable parameters for measuring your success.
The easiest way to make your goal measurable is by attaching a timeframe. For example, your goal can be: Participants would have planned and executed at least one marketing campaign in three months.
The goal is realistic and attainable. While it’s important to set ambitious goals, they should align with what’s possible — don’t push your employees off a hill.
As you set your goal, consider how much time and resources you have. For example, don’t say, “Participants will launch five marketing campaigns in three weeks,” when planning a single campaign takes about six weeks.
The goal aligns with the employee’s vision for their career and overlaps with your overall organizational objectives. For example, if the employee has no interest in becoming a manager, there’s no reason for them to attend skill development training for soon-to-be managers.
A relevant goal makes the coaching program mutually beneficial. The organization will be happy to invest its resources, and the employee will be excited to participate in the program.
The goal has a specific timeframe or deadline. This creates a sense of urgency and provides a clear target for the coach and employees to work towards. It also prevents procrastination and allows for better planning and prioritization.
Coaching session notes are where you document important observations from your discussions with the employee. You’ll refer to these notes when it’s time to assess the employee’s progress at the end of the program and recommend the next steps.
It’s tempting to try to capture every detail of your coaching sessions. But this process is time-consuming and will distract you from your primary focus. Instead, break your coaching session into segments and record three to five key observations from each.
In practice, you’ll have something similar to this:
Coaching Session Note: Marketing Strategy Coaching Program
Session date: September 1, 2023
Coach: Daniela O.
Coachee: Faith U.
Segment 1: Current marketing assessment
Observation 1: Faith relies on traditional advertising methods such as print media and billboards. This indicates a limited knowledge of the digital marketing landscape.
Observation 2: Faith’s marketing messaging centers on product features and specifications rather than customer benefits.
Segment 2: Target market analysis
Observation 1: Faith is yet to define her ideal customer profile (ICP).
Observation 2: Faith has discovered a gap in the market that can help her gain market share for her product.
Segment 3: Strategic planning and execution
Observation 1: Faith needs to deepen her knowledge of key performance indicators (KPIs).
Observation 2: Faith’s budget allocation for marketing activities is imbalanced. She allocated most of the budget to traditional advertising, while digital marketing and other innovative strategies received limited investment.
Tracking learner progress is how you measure the effectiveness of your employee coaching program. There are three major ways to do this:
Use formative or ongoing assessments to evaluate the employee in real time. For example, ask open-ended questions at the beginning of a coaching session to know how much knowledge the employee has about the subject matter. This helps you tailor your coaching content to address relevant knowledge gaps.
At the end of each session, ask the employee to complete a simple feedback form to share what worked well and what needs improvement. These insights will help you deliver a better coaching experience in the future.
Learning should not end in the classroom. At the end of each coaching session, assign mini-projects to the employee. This will help them apply their knowledge to solving real-world context problems independently.
Free printable employee coaching form templateCreating a well-designed coaching form from scratch is time-consuming, so we’ve done the hard work for you. Our printable coaching form template lets you easily organize and manage employee coaching sessions.
You can use the template as it is or tweak it to suit your organization’s requirements.
If misused, your coaching form will have little or no impact on your coaching process. Here are four things that will help you maximize the benefits of this document:
As a small business with few employees, you might be able to manage employee coaching with paper forms. But as you scale and invest more time in employee training, physical forms become inadequate — they are expensive, difficult to manage, and prone to damage.
At this point, it’s time to switch to online forms. You’ll enjoy benefits like:
You can fill and access electronic forms online, making it convenient for coaches and employees to complete them at their own pace and from any location. Some documents also support offline access — meaning participants can fill them out even if they do not have access to the internet.
Online form builders have analytics dashboards where you can view important data for your employee coaching form. For example, you’ll see how many people have viewed and filled out the form and demographic information about form respondents — like gender and location.
This makes it easier to follow up with employees. Say you discover that only half of the participants filled out your form; you can reach out to those who are yet to and help resolve any blockers.
Online coaching forms automate the time-consuming aspects of your coaching process.
For example, instead of asking employees to pick up and submit the form in person, you can share it with them via email or QR code. And when it’s filled out, they will submit it remotely.
You can also integrate the form into your learning management system to gather real-time feedback during coaching sessions. For example, PaperForm lets you embed online coaching forms into Thinkific for seamless data collection.
Elevate your employee coaching expertiseDownload the “Employee Coaching Template and Models” resource now and empower your team to reach new heights of performance.
Find answers to common employee coaching questions.
Yes, you can tweak the form to match your specific coaching requirements.
Yes, it is. Coaches in all industries can tweak and use our coaching template.
Yes. Thinkific’s learning management system will help you onboard, train, and develop your workforce. You can integrate your employee coaching form into your Thinkific dashboard to manage your coaching process from a central hub.
Plan to review and update your coaching forms at least once a quarter.
Employee coaching forms can form part of your performance evaluation process. But you should not rely on them entirely to assess your employee’s growth and performance.
Daniela Ochoa is the go-to Content Marketing Specialist at Thinkific Plus. With years of experience in marketing and communications, she is passionate about helping businesses grow through strategic customer education, content marketing, and online learning at scale.
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