Millions of Gen Zers are tossing their graduation caps into the air this month and will soon enter the workforce. And these young people — who started college on Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic — are now starting their first jobs during another challenging moment. After two years of widespread layoffs, workers are more stressed and burned out than ever, with 20% thinking about quitting daily.
How can Gen Z workers get the support, mentorship and training they need to succeed in their new careers from managers who are overwhelmed and overworked? It’s a tricky situation with no easy solution.
We know that more than 50% of managers are burned out and are at least twice as likely to quit compared to employees or executives. So, providing managers with coaching is one powerful way to support new employees. When we empower managers to become better at their jobs, that directly impacts their teams. However, one-on-one coaching is expensive, which is why it’s mostly reserved for executives. That’s one of the reasons why artificial intelligence (AI)-powered coaching holds so much promise.
Evidence suggests that AI coaches will be one of the most effective training tools managers need to become better bosses. An AI coach can ingest vast amounts of data, provide expert advice, and deliver nudges and reminders. With a perfect memory, it can do all of this while ingesting and analyzing a company’s leadership and training content, policies, and procedures. Thus, an AI coach can provide highly personalized, company-specific, in-the-moment support to managers and their teams. And it learns more and more about the manager’s unique challenges as time goes on, tailoring advice and tactics to particular situations.
Coaching Managers Pays Off
When managers are happy, employees are happy. In fact, a McKinsey study found that the top factor in employee satisfaction is their relationship with their manager. A Gallup poll came to similar conclusions, finding that when managers and their employees actually apply their strengths to their work, employees are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs. The study also found that managers are responsible for 70% of the variance in team engagement, meaning their individual managerial approach significantly impacts team performance.
Highly trained human coaches can of course deliver immense value to managers. But finding good coaches is hard, and there are many sub-par coaches in the field. Good coaches are expensive and the one-to-one model cannot scale. There simply aren’t enough coaches to personally support every manager.
On the other hand, AI coaching is always available, infinitely scalable and continually adapts and tailors its approach to each individual’s unique situation. By monitoring the daily interactions of each manager, an AI coach can pinpoint skills gaps, anticipate team challenges, and offer suggestions on how to communicate about challenging situations. In fact, one of the most empowering ways managers can use an AI coach is to practice tough conversations around topics such as layoffs or performance issues
Yet, AI will likely never completely replace human coaching. There is a nuance to human interaction that goes beyond a strict advisory capacity to also support emotional wellbeing. AI coaches, however, can augment human relationships through highly accurate and personalized advice. AI coaches, like their human counterparts, can also offer suggested goals and keep managers accountable to those objectives.
Train the AI Coach
When experimenting with AI coaching, companies should make sure the AI platform their managers use can ingest a huge variety of data. Some of the information an AI coach could consider includes: company policies and mission statements; learning and development (L&D) content libraries; results from previous employee surveys or performance reviews; personality types and skill profiles of the manager and teammates; and key performance indicator (KPI) goals. Any type of content that could help inform the AI tool on team dynamics, current roadblocks, and potential goals will improve its performance. The AI coaching platform should also provide regular goal-setting, nudges, and check-ins – because coaching without accountability is easy to ignore.
When managers get the support they need to become better bosses, they can grow into conscious leaders, guiding their teams with awareness, empathy and authenticity. They can learn to slow down, ask questions and really listen to their employees. For Gen Z, receiving one-to-one mentorship will be critical to their development at work. With so many challenges thrown their way the last four years, Gen Z workers need compassion and support to learn to navigate the interpersonal dynamics of the workplace.
AI coaches could help managers develop the nuanced human skills they need to become the mentors their youngest employees crave.
