Great coaches are worth their weight in gold. A great coach can have a massive impact on a team, helping them win games, go up the league, and perform better than they have in the past.
Managers often find that retaining coaches is more challenging them finding them.
Naturally, the higher-up professional leagues you go, teams are competing for coaching talent. Clubs need to offer the right sort of packages to win them. But retaining them, often proves more challenging.
In this article, XPS takes a closer look at the most effective ways to retain the best coaching talent you can hire.
4 Ways to Retain Great Coaches
#1: Consistent schedules
In sports, more than in any other sector, coaches and staff know that “stuff happens.” Things don’t always go to plan. Unfortunately, this can mean that coaches are constantly being messed around, having to adapt at the last minute, or cancelling plans they’ve made.
An occasional scheduling issue isn’t a big problem. Every coach knows to expect the unexpected.
However, when there’s a chronic and persistent lack of preparedness and planning, coaches often find themselves dealing with:
- Practices running over (not good for players, either);
- Unexpected meetings being the rule, rather than exceptional;
- Coaching staff never able to plan anything outside of work.
The problem is, this can lead to staff burnout. And if this is bad for coaches, imagine how athletes feel?
Of course, a coaches schedule is demanding. But if your coaches are working 7-days a week, with crazy hours, that benefits no one. Not a coach, and definitely not players on the team.
Instead, aim to address this problem with consistent scheduling and planning. It’s the best way coaches and players can avoid burnout. XPS is an effective solution for that problem. Giving managers, coaches, and players a clearer plan of the weeks and months ahead. Making training schedules more consistent.
#2: Avoid micromanagement
When head coaches or managers micro-manage their coaching staff, there’s a good chance they aren’t doing their own job very well, and are probably contributing towards burnout amongst the team.
When you’ve hired coaches to perform a particular job, the last thing they need is to be micro-managed. Especially when these are successful high-performance coaches.
XPS can make this easier. Instead of head coaches and managers needing coaches to submit everything, they can see the plans being made, executed, and data from every exercise. Giving managers a top-level overview of how a team is performing, without needing to email, phone, and have meetings to check everything over.
#3: Supporting coaches
Support isn’t micro-managing. For coaches to succeed, they need support, not micro-managing.
What does effective support look like (regardless of the sport and level a team is at)?
- Providing a coach with the tools, resources, and time to perform at their best, so players they are training can take their performance to another level
- As head coach, stepping in to support coaches who’ve been undermined or subject to abuse, either from players, fans, online, or referees
- Taking the time to assess a coaches strengths and weaknesses — which is where XPS comes in handy — so they can receive any extra training needed
- When a team doesn’t perform well, or loses a game, going over why it happened, rather than simply blaming one or more coaches
- Avoiding favoritism, or anything else that makes a coach feel undermined.
#4: Paying a coach what they’re worth
As coaches climb up sports leagues, salaries become more competitive. Professional teams know they need to pay the best to win the talent war. And that’s the same with coaches, strength and conditioning experts, and other fitness professionals.
If you aren’t willing to pay what experienced professionals with track records expect, then they are going to go elsewhere.
Naturally, salary ranges need to be in-line with what a team can afford. However, if coaches aren’t paid enough to feel valued, they won’t stay around for long. Coaches won’t feel like putting in everything they’ve got, or sharing tactics and strategies with the team.
Key takeaways for managers:
- Ensure schedules are consistent
- Don’t micro-manage
- Do provide support (resources, tools, organizational, emotional, etc.)
- Give high-performance coaches autonomy
- Pay coaches what they’re worth
Stick with these tactics, consistently, and coaches will make the effort, and work hard to ensure a team succeeds.
Would your team, club, youth association, or sports association benefit from XPS and its wide range of features? Contact XPS Network if you want to find out more, or Sign-up for a Free Trial today.
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