Talent Development Leaders face ongoing tension: they’re tasked with developing employees at all levels while balancing the need to scale these efforts across the organization without ballooning costs or losing the personal touch. With stretched teams, limited time, and a constant need to prove the ROI of development programs, leaders are often left asking: how can we personalize coaching, scale it, and make sure it fits seamlessly into daily workflows?
Digital coaching tools promise to solve these challenges, but finding the right tool requires deeper exploration into how these platforms support the most important aspects of development. For example, personalization, contextualization, ROI, and scaling development without compromising the quality of coaching that each individual receives.
According to research from the Institute of Coaching, more and more organizations are using digital platforms to leverage AI and automation to provide individualized learning paths and feedback in hopes of scaling their ability to empower their leaders to practice a coaching approach to create behavioral change and stronger performance outcomes.
Additionally, some digital coaching tools like those highlighted by ClarityFlow can help make it easier for leaders to facilitate aspects of the coaching experiences. However, finding the right tool that balances these features while maintaining quality and measurable impact requires careful exploration.
And what about AI?
Is AI Just a Buzzword in Digital Coaching?
AI gets thrown around in almost every conversation about modern tech solutions. Many platforms tout the benefits of AI, but what does that actually mean for digital coaching? Is it just automating routine tasks, or does it go deeper to provide real, actionable insights that improve both individual performance and organizational outcomes?
For many digital coaching tools, AI is often used to automate broad processes—such as matching users with coaches based on generic categories like role or department—or to populate standard content tied to predefined objectives. While these functions offer some degree of efficiency, they don’t necessarily translate into personalized, context-specific learning or meaningful behavioral change.
However, AI’s real potential in coaching lies beyond these broad applications. Instead of merely automating the scheduling of conversations or delivering pre-packaged content, AI can do so much more:
Personalized Learning: AI can analyze real-time data about people and team dynamics to adjust coaching recommendations on the fly. Instead of serving up broad, predefined advice, it can respond to the nuances of the employee’s current project, mood, or collaboration patterns. This means employees receive relevant coaching insights when they need it most, not just when it’s scheduled.
Contextual Learning: AI can go beyond broad role-based triggers to offer specific, actionable coaching nudges that reflect the individual’s current situation. Imagine receiving a coaching prompt just before a meeting with a difficult teammate or after a key performance review to improve your communication or leadership skills in real time.
Micro Coaching Tips that Fit into Busy Schedules: Think 1-2 sentence tips delivered right in the flow of work, taking seconds to consume rather than minutes or hours. Short coaching nudges make it easier for team members to understand and apply.
Scaling Without Compromising Quality: One of the main concerns for Talent Development Leaders is ensuring that scaling coaching doesn’t mean sacrificing quality. AI can help by offering scalable personalization, where every person receives meaningful development regardless of their role or department.
By using AI to connect data, contextualize learning, and offer adaptive insights throughout one’s day, coaching becomes more than just a scheduled conversation or a library of content. It becomes a continuous, evolving process that enhances the individual’s daily work experience and, ultimately, drives better organizational outcomes.
Without the right digital coaching tool, leaders risk losing out on the ability to scale personalized coaching effectively, potentially stalling employee development and hampering organizational performance outcomes.
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- Close the gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Personalize growth to individual strengths and needs
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- Develop human skills fast enough to solve business problems
- Prove the ROI of your development programs
What Do Organizations Really Need from Digital Coaching Tools?
Talent Development Leaders are constantly balancing their teams’ needs with their organization’s broader goals. However, their mission often involves more than just professional growth—it’s about ensuring every employee feels supported, valued, and empowered without overloading managers or sacrificing quality. So, what should the right digital coaching tool provide? These challenges point to three essential needs that the right digital coaching tool must meet.
1. Personalization at Scale
Key Question: How can a tool deliver personal coaching to each team member, no matter how large the organization is?
Leaders know that to truly engage employees, coaching needs to be personal. It should be tailored to each person’s unique strengths, goals, and current challenges.
But here’s the catch: How can personalization happen at scale without becoming generic or overwhelming? Every employee deserves to feel seen. Leaders want to empower everyone, but not at the cost of their own bandwidth. The challenge is finding a tool that can deliver genuine individualized insights without burnout for the leaders themselves.
2. Contextual Learning That Drives Growth
Key Question: Can the tool provide real-time coaching or advice that’s both actionable and relevant to the employee’s current challenges?
Research from McKinsey highlights that organizations must shift their development strategies to meet employees’ real-time needs next to long-term goals. Adapting learning paths is a key to overcoming today’s talent challenges and driving meaningful growth.
Leaders can’t wait for quarterly reviews or annual development plans to provide feedback. They feel the pressure to continuously drive growth, ensuring their teams get actionable insights when needed—not weeks or months later. Tools that deliver immediate, real-time feedback help employees apply new skills and behaviors in the moment.
The frustration? Many leaders see development stagnate between these formal reviews, as traditional coaching feels like a box-ticking exercise rather than something that can impact daily work. Digital coaching platforms have the power to transform how teams work together—if it’s done right.
3. Proving Impact and ROI
Key Question: How can the tool show a direct link between coaching and tangible improvements in business outcomes?
Research shows that many organizations struggle to prove the value of their development programs. According to Korn Ferry, a significant percentage of talent development budgets go to waste when they fail to deliver measurable outcomes tied to business performance.
With tight budgets and high expectations from senior leadership, Talent Development Leaders are under constant pressure to prove the ROI of their coaching programs. Data-driven insights are no longer a nice-to-have—they’re essential. Leaders need tools that demonstrate clear links between coaching investments and improvements in performance, engagement, and retention.
This challenge is tied to concern that, without measurable success, leadership won’t see the value in continuing these development programs. Talent leaders want to defend their budgets with data that justifies every dollar spent.
The right digital coaching tool does more than just track completion—it demonstrates real, measurable growth that ties directly to your business’s bottom line.
How Can Digital Coaching Impact Performance?
Personalized learning in the flow of work is now crucial for building agility in organizations. Contextual coaching helps address immediate challenges so that team members can apply learning at the point of need, which drives more effective skill development and performance improvement. This insight supports the idea that coaching must be integrated into the flow of daily work rather than scheduled at arbitrary times.
Josh Bersin’s insights on the future of learning emphasize the need for tools that go beyond just content delivery and provide “in-the-moment” learning opportunities. He mentions how AI enables digital coaching platforms to deliver insights at the precise moment they are needed, reinforcing the notion that timely feedback improves employee engagement and learning retention. This supports the idea that AI-powered “nudge coaching” and nano-learning increase learning relevance in real-time work situations.
AI can play a key role in delivering personalized learning that is contextual to the employee’s current tasks and interactions. This directly ties into how tools like Cloverleaf use AI to analyze team dynamics and offer insights that strengthen collaboration and productivity.
Harvard Business Review has researched the effectiveness of “nudges” in shaping workplace behavior. By delivering small, timely pieces of information (like coaching nudges), team members can make better decisions in critical moments. This supports the idea of micro-coaching, where digital tools provide relevant guidance at the right moment, allowing employees to apply these insights to their immediate work.
Research reinforces that context-specific coaching powered by AI is essential for real-time development. Effective coaching happens when it’s most actionable—during meetings, project reviews, or feedback moments. Tools that use AI effectively can deliver insights precisely when needed, tailored to these critical moments in an employee’s day. This ensures coaching is personalized and immediately actionable, helping employees adjust behaviors in real time.
Proving ROI through Behavioral Change With Digital Coaching
Digital coaching platforms must move beyond just tracking usage and completion rates to show evidence of real behavioral change and skill development over time. Talent Development Leaders are under pressure to justify investments in coaching and learning programs.
The challenge isn’t just getting employees to consume content but also ensuring they apply what they’ve learned in a way that drives meaningful business results. Unfortunately, many traditional metrics, such as completion rates or basic engagement data, don’t offer a clear link between coaching and improvements in competencies or performance.
The Struggle with Measuring ROI:
Leaders often face skepticism from upper management when trying to prove the value of learning and development programs. ROI is too often misunderstood as a purely monetary return, but the real value of learning lies in the development of competencies that lead to better business outcomes. According to insights shared on LinkedIn by L&D experts, ROI in learning should be about competency development, not purely financial metrics. The difficulty lies in measuring how learned competencies are applied and how they impact performance, engagement, or retention across the organization.
How Digital Coaching Tools Can Help Determine Proof Of Impact:
The right tools do more than just track engagement—they provide measurable data on behavioral change. Platforms that focus on tracking improvements in specific skills over time help connect coaching investments to real business outcomes. For instance, Cloverleaf’s Automated Coaching™ provides subtle nudges that team members can apply immediately, reinforcing new behaviors during daily tasks. These micro-interventions help employees retain up to 90% of what they’ve learned , which is much more effective than waiting for scheduled sessions .
Tools that measure growth in competencies such as communication, teamwork, and collaboration give Talent Development Leaders a clear picture of how coaching improves individual and team performance. Leaders who prioritize competency-based development tools expand new ways to defend their budgets by linking coaching directly to employee performance and team dynamics improvements. Rather than tracking only participation or completion rates, tools that highlight specific behavioral changes over time provide the most compelling proof of ROI.
Leaders may want to consider platforms beyond surface-level engagement metrics when evaluating digital coaching tools. The most effective tools provide insights into how coaching is changing behavior and driving business outcomes. By investing in tools that prioritize competency development and track the application of learned skills, Talent Development Leaders can confidently prove the ROI of their initiatives though improved performance, retention, and team dynamics.
Using Technology To Scale Coaching Without Sacrificing Personalization
Scaling coaching across an entire organization presents a unique challenge for Talent Development Leaders. With limited resources and a diverse range of employees—from entry-level staff to senior leadership—there’s a risk of losing the personal touch that makes coaching meaningful. The dilemma often faced by leaders is: how can we provide personalized coaching to everyone, without blowing up the budget or sacrificing quality?
Organizations need to provide effective coaching to everyone, not just top performers. Yet, with the increasing demands of growing workforces, it’s easy for digital coaching to become diluted with generic advice that fails to resonate with individual needs. The reality is that every employee has unique strengths, challenges, and goals, which makes one-size-fits-all approaches ineffective.
How Digital Coaching Tools Can Help:
1. Automate Coaching At Scale:
Automated coaching solutions use data from assessments and team dynamics to offer real-time, tailored coaching moments. It’s responsive to individual needs while allowing organizations to scale their coaching efforts efficiently, ensuring no one is left behind. Instead of overwhelming leaders with individualized coaching tasks, Some digital coaching platforms can automates these processes, providing context-specific insights tailored to every employee’s role and challenges, regardless of the size of the team.
2. Centralize Assessments and Insights:
In many companies, different teams use different assessments, which can create siloed experiences and inconsistent coaching across the organization. Digital coaching tools that consolidate various assessments into one platform provide a more unified experience for employees. This also allows the organization to maintain the personal touch while delivering coaching at scale. These platforms “create a shared experience of growth” by providing personalized insights to both managers and employees based on the same set of data. This unified approach eliminates silos and encourages cross-team collaboration.
3. Empower Self-Sufficient Learning:
Digital coaching solutions can empower employees to take ownership of their development. By delivering real-time, personalized insights directly, individuals can self-serve their coaching needs without waiting for a manager or formal coaching session. This reduces the burden on managers and HR leaders and enables employees to proactively seek development opportunities, making the coaching process more efficient rather than relying on time-consuming one-on-one interactions.
Scalability and personalization don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Leaders can scale coaching across the organization by choosing a platform that centralizes tools, cuts costs, and enables shared learning while maintaining the personal connection that makes coaching so effective. With the right tools, everyone in the organization can receive tailored coaching without overextending the organization’s resources.
How to Choose the Right Digital Coaching Tool for Your Organization
Selecting the right digital coaching platform goes beyond just picking a tool that does it all. It’s about matching the platform’s strengths to your organization’s specific needs. Here’s a breakdown to help you choose the right solution:
1. Match Your Needs to the Solution
Key Question: What aspect of development needs the most attention? A tailored approach to your organization’s unique needs will help you filter options.
The first step is to clearly define your coaching objectives:
Is your priority leadership development, or do you need a solution that scales across all employees? If you’re looking to enable a culture of continuous learning that impacts everyone, a platform that delivers personalized coaching to employees at every level is key. Alternatively, if leadership development is your main goal, look for tools tailored to high-potential individuals or executive coaching.
Do you need real-time learning or more structured coaching sessions? As discussed earlier, real-time, context-specific learning is crucial to adapting behaviors on the go. Platforms that provide in-the-moment advice will help employees apply insights immediately, especially during meetings, team projects, or feedback sessions.
2. Consider Integration with Workflow
Key Question: How seamlessly will this tool integrate into our team’s current tech stack to ensure coaching happens within the flow of daily work?
Integration is vital for ensuring smooth adoption and sustained use. Ask yourself:
Does the tool fit into the platforms your team is already using? Seamless integration means the coaching insights don’t disrupt the workflow but enhance it. As mentioned, tools that embed coaching into daily work drive higher engagement and adoption across teams.
Is the tool user-friendly and adaptable to different work environments? Adoption of a tool that is too cumbersome or difficult to integrate into existing platforms can reduce the effectiveness of even the best coaching tool.
3. Look for Proven Impact
Key Question: Does the platform offer more than just participation metrics? Look for insights into how coaching is improving performance, retention, and engagement across your team.
ROI is always top-of-mind for Talent Development Leaders. It’s not enough for a tool to show engagement or completion rates—you need to track real behavior change and performance improvements:
Can the tool provide data-driven insights into long-term behavior change? As mentioned earlier, tracking how coaching impacts communication, teamwork, and collaboration will help you link development efforts directly to business outcomes. Platforms that measure growth in these competencies can give you tangible evidence to prove the value of your investment.
Does the platform allow for continuous improvement? Tools that offer feedback loops or allow you to see the direct effects of coaching on employee performance will help you make adjustments and optimize the coaching process over time.
By addressing these specific questions, teams can feel more confident in selecting a coaching tool that scales and drives real impact, integrates smoothly, and delivers measurable value over time.
Empowering Your Team with the Right Tool
Talent Development Leaders need more than just coaching tools—they need solutions that give them confidence that their teams are receiving the development necessary to succeed. The right digital coaching platform isn’t just about delivering insights; it’s about enabling real-time learning that scales effortlessly while still providing personalized support to every employee.
Choosing a coaching tool can feel overwhelming, with the vast array of options and features available, but this decision is an opportunity to transform team performance and foster a culture of continuous learning. By selecting a platform that integrates into daily workflows, delivers real-time feedback, and tracks measurable behavior changes, leaders can ensure that their teams aren’t just going through the motions but are growing in meaningful ways that impact the entire organization.
The landscape of people development is shifting, and the future lies in scalable, real-time coaching that’s personalized to individual needs. Digital coaching tools allow organizations to deliver continuous learning that adjusts to each employee’s strengths and challenges, transforming coaching from a high-cost, limited-access experience into a resource available to everyone.
For today’s Talent Development Leaders, a disruption is reshaping how we think about people development strategies. Employee growth is not solely limited to yearly workshops or exclusive coaching for senior leadership. The conversation is now focused on scalability, personalization, and continuous learning—concepts that may sound familiar but have only recently become truly feasible thanks to technological advancements.
Leaders in this space understand the stakes: retention, engagement, and performance all hinge on effective development programs. Yet many established models, even those grounded in popular platforms like BetterUp, Torch, and Coachello, often struggle to evolve beyond traditional variations of scheduled learning frameworks. While these platforms are robust and helpful in certain applications, they lean heavily on episodic coaching or leadership-centric models, which sometimes miss the nuanced needs of an entire organization.
What’s the Missing Piece?
If you’re already invested in people development, you’ve likely noticed the growing array of tools and platforms designed to support your efforts.
So, why explore further?
Because the way we approach development is shifting rapidly, and your organization’s needs are evolving just as quickly. The future isn’t just about scaling what already works; it’s about reimagining how development can happen in the flow of work, in real-time, for everyone—from individual contributors to the C-suite.
The tools available today—whether it’s BetterUp’s well-being-focused coaching(Josh Bersin), Torch’s integration of mentoring(Torch), or Leadr’s personal development plans for leadership—offer a range of solutions designed to meet different aspects of people development. (SourceForge)
But here’s the question: How are these platforms addressing the broader, systemic need for behavior change? There’s a difference between development that’s personalized in theory and personalized because it is unique to the person, contextual, and in real time within in the flow of work.
Speaking of that, what does everyone even mean when we talk about things like:
Coaching for Everyone
Sure, many platforms promise scalable coaching, but is it really reaching everyone in a meaningful way, or is it still reserved for high performers and leadership?
Learning in the Flow of Work
We hear this phrase everywhere, but how often is it executed well? Is development truly woven into work, or does it still require stepping away from productivity to make time for learning?
Personalization
All platforms claim personalization, but how deep does it go? Is the content tailored based on role and department, or does it adjust dynamically based on real-time team interactions and individual needs?
Measuring Impact
It’s easy to track engagement or satisfaction scores, but are you able to clearly see how development impacts business outcomes like retention, team performance, and communication?
AI in Coaching
AI sounds great, but how is it actually being used? Is it helping match users with coaches, or is it going a step further—delivering real-time, adaptive coaching insights based on day-to-day challenges?
Is there more to development than scheduled coaching sessions or leadership-focused programs? As we look to the future, the challenge isn’t just about providing access to coaching—it’s about integrating development into the everyday moments that shape team dynamics, decision-making, and performance.
Automated Coaching™ is designed with this in mind, offering more than LMS style learning, content libraries, role based suggestions, or episodic mentoring. It provides real-time, micro-coaching nudges, customized to your team’s unique dynamics and each individual’s specific needs.
If your current tools have been effective, that’s fantastic. But consider this: Are there advanced capabilities that today’s technology can unlock to make your talent development efforts even more impactful
By the end of this article, you’ll see not only how platforms like BetterUp, Torch, and Coachello contribute to the development space but also why Automated Coaching’s approach is different. It’s a new standard for people development—deeply personal, immediate, embedded, and scalable.
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- Close the gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Personalize growth to individual strengths and needs
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- Develop human skills fast enough to solve business problems
- Prove the ROI of your development programs
What Are The Actual Barriers Blocking People Development?
It’s easy to assume the barriers to effective people development are surface-level—limited budgets, lack of time, or employee disengagement. But for many Talent Development Leaders, these challenges often mask deeper, systemic issues that are much harder to spot. What if the real obstacles aren’t what we think they are?
Leaders often focus on getting the right tools or securing leadership buy-in, but the true barriers could be how development programs are structured and delivered. For example, we might blame low engagement on lack of motivation, but the root cause could be the disconnect between training and application in the real world of work. Is your development program really embedded in the day-to-day workflow, or is it an isolated initiative? Are you scaling growth for everyone or only offering personalized coaching to a select few?
The real problem may not be in common approaches to measuring success but in how deeply development is embedded into the culture and workflow of an organization. Understanding these underlying barriers is the first step in creating solutions that work in theory and practice.
1. Truly Personalized Learning
While many platforms promise personalized development, most rely on generalized, role-based content that doesn’t account for the individual’s contextual needs, strengths, or challenges. This one-size-fits-all approach results in development that is actually impersonal and disconnected from the day-to-day experiences of employees.
2. Disruptive Learning Opportunities
Development often happens in isolated bursts—through annual workshops or sporadic coaching sessions—leaving employees without the continuous reinforcement they need to apply new skills or change behaviors over time. Without ongoing learning, development is confined to one-off event rather than an embedded growth process. Employees need learning delivered in manageable doses that align with their daily responsibilities to drive growth.
3. Limited Resources
Scaling development across an entire organization is no easy feat. Due to time constraints, budget, and resources, most organizations struggle to offer individualized coaching at scale. The challenge lies in extending meaningful development opportunities to everyone without sacrificing quality.
4. Proving Impact
Leaders often struggle to connect development programs to measurable business outcomes like retention, performance, or collaboration. Satisfaction surveys or engagement metrics might provide some insight, but they don’t capture the real impact of people development efforts, making it difficult to justify ongoing investment.
What People Development Software Are We Talking About?
BetterUp: A Market Leader Focused on Well-Being and Leadership
BetterUp is a leading platform in well-being and leadership development. It focuses on combining personal growth with professional effectiveness. The platform offers flexible learning paths with 1:1 coaching, allowing users to work on personalized goals while improving mental fitness.
Torch: Mentoring and Coaching For Leadership Development
Torch is a platform that focuses on leadership development through a blend of 1:1 coaching and mentoring. By leveraging behavioral science and feedback loops, Torch aims to align leadership coaching with key business outcomes.
Coachello: AI-Powered Coach Matching and Asynchronous Support
Coachello focuses on providing AI-driven service to match team members with ICF certified coaches to offer asynchronous coaching through familiar workplace apps.
Cloverleaf: It’s Not A Chatbot Or Human Coach. It’s Automated Coaching.
Automated Coaching™ offers personalized, on-demand coaching at the moment it’s needed, tailored to who you are and where you are. Team members receive immediate insightful nudges that are specific to their current needs, team dynamics, and individual strengths. Available in workplace tools to impact areas central to quality teamwork and performance.
What Makes Each Platform Different?
If the barriers to people development revolve around personalization, continuous learning, scalability, and proving impact, it’s essential to understand how each platform tackles these challenges. By exploring how BetterUp, Torch, Coachello, and Cloverleaf approach these key pillars, you’ll be able to evaluate which solution best aligns with your organization’s needs for effective development.
1. Personalization
BetterUp offers 1:1 coaching, matching users with a coach based on detailed assessments. This ensures that each leader receives guidance tailored to their unique leadership style, needs, and goals. These assessments allow for a customized experience, although the content, delivered through the platform’s video library and assessments, is often triggered by role-based changes.
Torch provides 1:1 coaching where users are matched with a coach based on job experience, demographics, and individual preferences. Its algorithm ensures a 96% success rate for coach matching, allowing participants to connect with coaches who meet their specific needs and goals. While the focus is on leadership coaching, the platform also incorporates learning materials based on behavioral science and user feedback.
Coachello’s AI-powered platform recommends coaches for 1:1 coaching based on an intake self-assessment, allowing for a coaching journey that aligns with their development goals around specific soft skills. Participants can also select coaches manually based on preferences.
Cloverleaf provides accurate, layered insight that are based on each person’s unique psychometric data and the specific individuals a team member interacts with daily. Each coaching moment is not only customized to an individual’s strengths but also contextually relevant to their current team dynamics and relationships.
2. Continuous Learning
BetterUp integrates a program-driven approach with ongoing learning opportunities. The platform offers 1-2 minute videos and monthly content updates through both self-guided learning paths and instructor-led sessions so that users receive fresh content relevant to their roles. This structure provides a steady flow of new ideas from a content library to emerging and established leaders. BetterUp’s model allows users to choose when they engage with content, whether through individual coaching, group sessions, or self-directed pathways.
Torch allows participants to access both asynchronous coaching and live 1:1 video sessions through various formats, such as drop-in coaching, one-on-one sessions, and group mentoring. Torch also tailors development programs to each organization’s unique values and competencies, aligning coaching with business strategy.
Coachello offers 6-8 session-based coaching programs, which focus on objective-driven paths. Participants follow development journeys with clear, outcome-based goals that help them progress in areas like leadership or personal development.
Cloverleaf integrates coaching into daily tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, and calendars, ensuring employees receive real-time, situational coaching without needing to leave their workflow. With unlimited, daily access to short, actionable tips (1-2 sentences), employees get immediate insights tailored to their specific tasks and team dynamics. Whether preparing for a meeting or working with teammates, coaching is timely, specific, and always available, making learning a seamless part of everyday work.
3. Scalability
BetterUp has delivered over 2 million coaching sessions since its inception, making it one of the largest people development software available. User can experience a blended assortment of coaching based on their specific leadership assessments and according to their role. The platform delivers coaching either in-person or via video, providing flexibility in how sessions are conducted.
Torch provides a configurable platform to help organizations design coaching and mentoring programs. It offers multiple coaching formats—1:1 coaching, group mentoring, and collaborative learning—which can be expanded across leadership levels, from emerging leaders to executives.
Coachello can connect a broad range of employees, from emerging leaders to senior executives, with 1:1 coaching opportunities. They use AI-driven technology to match participants with coaches efficiently.
Cloverleaf starts at ($13 per user) with unlimited access for each person to make development for everyone a real possibility, not just high level leaders or departments. By creating a common language through psychometric assessments and coaching insights teams can address challenges collectively and unify personal development into a shared experience.
4. Proving Impact
BetterUp frames its approach to proving impact by focusing on three primary business outcomes: Performance, Retention, and Well-Being. Its impact is centered around leadership development and mental health outcomes and its link to broader business success.
Torch measures impact by providing pre-built reports that track metrics like sentiment, satisfaction, and engagement, while using impact surveys and peer feedback to assess the influence on work performance. With additional tools like retention analysis, user-level engagement reports, and 360-degree feedback.
Coachello measures impact by using sentiment scores, surveys, and business insights to track progress in areas such as retention, performance, sales growth, and career transitions.
Cloverleaf measures growth in competencies of communication, teamwork, and collaboration. The platform also monitors engagement and usage, helping leaders understand how often coaching is used and which assessments are being taken.
Aligning The Right Tool With Your People Development Needs
Each platform—BetterUp, Torch, Coachello, and Cloverleaf—offers unique ways of delivering personalization, continuous learning, scalability, and impact measurement, but how they meet these needs differ significantly.
BetterUp focuses on 1:1 coaching matched through detailed assessments to support personal growth and mental fitness. Its model is structured around scheduled sessions and content libraries concerning development goals. It may work for organizations that want dedicated coaching, but it may still be challenging to accelerate behavior change and learning into the daily workflow.
Torch provides a combination of mentorship and coaching to align leadership development with business outcomes. The platform focuses on organizations that measure progress using sentiment and feedback surveys, but its emphasis may lean more toward structured leadership programs rather than scalable spontaneous learning moments.
Coachello uses AI to match team members with coaches to facilitate asynchronous coaching via workplace apps. Consider whether its asynchronous nature aligns with your team’s requirement for in-depth, interactive coaching or the ability to scale to each person.’
Cloverleaf offers something different: deeply personalized, automated coaching embedded into daily workflows through tools like Slack and email. Cloverleaf personalizes coaching based on psychometric data and the specific team dynamics, providing coaching at the moment it’s most relevant. This makes it particularly powerful for organizations looking for continuous, scalable development integrated into everyday work.
Automated Coaching Is A Different Approach To People Development
Automated Coaching is a different approach for organizations needing scalable, continuous, and deeply personalized development for people at all levels. Its affordable, unlimited access model, combined with psychometric-based insights, ensures that development is accessible to everyone while driving measurable behavioral change in key areas like communication, teamwork, and collaboration. Cloverleaf offers a unique, shared learning experience that transforms how teams communicate, collaborate, and grow.
Take the Next Step Toward Developing Your People
Want to offer personalized, real-time development for your entire team? Cloverleaf makes coaching accessible to every employee, every day—empowering them with insightful, context-specific coaching delivered right within the tools they already use. No more waiting for scheduled sessions or high-cost coaching reserved for leadership—Cloverleaf drives continuous learning in the flow of work.
Talent Development Leaders play an essential role in helping their team develop soft skills (human skills) by sharing time-testing learning and concepts. This information provides foundational knowledge and skills that are essential for employee growth. However, one of the ongoing challenges in learning and development is ensuring that the valuable insights gained from these sessions are retained and effectively applied in everyday work.
We have access to more information than ever before, yet the changing nature of work, pressing problems to solve, and focus on productivity can quickly outpace the ability to retain new learning. Even before these more modern challenges made it harder to focus and acquire knowledge, there were models about learning that showed a typical erosion of knowledge days after learning. The human mind can only process a limited amount of information, most of which never makes it to long-term memory.
Does Learning and Development Need To Adapt?
Learning methods provide so much valuable information, but how do you make it stick? Training often involves ongoing sessions, but what about when these are not available or happening? Learners may forget or struggle to apply.
This was famously measured and proven by one of the most influential early experiments in psychology. Between 1880 and 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus studied how much information can be retained after specific intervals of time. He found that within 20 minutes of studying new information, 40% is already forgotten, rising to nearly 70% by the end of that first day (Murre & Dros, 2015). This study has since been replicated numerous times, all with similar results, and that is after studying information with intentional attempts to remember it.
The approach to development is ripe for change so that it can align with how our brains process and retain information.
Enter the concept of micro-nudges, an approach to learning and development that seamlessly integrates into the daily workflow of employees. Micro-nudges are brief, focused prompts that facilitate continuous learning and improvement without the cognitive overload associated with traditional methods.
Nudges can leverage contextual, situational prompts to encourage behaviors and actions that align with organizational goals and individual development paths. Providing small, digestible pieces of information right when they are most relevant enables a more natural and effective understanding and application of new knowledge.
HUMAN SKILL PROGRAMS ARE HITTING LIMITATIONS...
5 THINGS THIS FREE RESOURCE WILL TEACH YOU
- Close the widening gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Overcome the tension of pausing productivity for development opportunities
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- The evolution of human skill development
- What Automated Coaching™ is and how it works.
Why Are Micro Nudges More Effective For Employees?
Micro-nudges represent a tailored solution to the challenges traditionally associated with learning and development, particularly the problems of information overload and rapid forgetfulness post-training. By addressing these issues head-on, micro-nudges enhance the learning experience, making it more effective and impactful.
Consider what it’s like to use some of the most popular strengths and behavioral assessments such as Myers-Briggs®, DISC, CliftonStrengths®, or Enneagram. Most assessment results are delivered as an overwhelming, one-time data dump in the form of a 30-page PDF report.
Most people will say they gleaned a key epiphany about themselves but can’t remember their result type. One epiphany is helpful, but 99% of the value is lost.
This happens so often that the trade has a nickname for this problem—the backseat effect—whereby detailed assessment reports are never fully internalized and tossed into the backseat of one’s car. Not because the reports aren’t thoughtfully constructed or lack insight but because they are simply too much information to handle at once.
A better approach entails using automated micro-nudges, where actionable insights are delivered in small doses over a long period of time. For example, Automated Coaching™ uses this approach by delivering assessment-derived recommendations via organizational communication channels (e.g., email, Slack, Teams) on how employees should approach their tasks or interactions with teammates.
Nudges can transform hard-to-retain information into an integrated learning process that aligns with the principles of how people best learn and adapt.
Are Nudges The Solution To The Challenges Of Human Skill Development?
1. Soft Skill Development Is A Dynamic Process
There is an assumption that soft skill development is sequential and upward, whereby individuals start at a lower level of competency and progress towards a pinnacle destination. While this scaffolding approach works for technical skills, it breaks down for soft skills.
The process of soft skill development is fluid—you start in situ, with varying levels of competence across an ever-evolving list of knowledge, skills, and abilities that matter in some contexts but not others (Day & Dragoni, 2015). Therefore, when it comes to developing human skills, it must move from a static experience to a dynamic experience.
Nudges provide timely, situational guidance that allows individuals to apply and refine these skills in real-time, adapting to the evolving demands of different workplace scenarios.
2. Soft Skill Development Must Be Highly Personalized
Organizations typically approach soft skill initiatives as if everyone is similar with respect to their psychographics (e.g., traits, strengths, cognitive abilities, worldviews, etc.) and their interest in development in general (e.g., motivation to learn, leader identity, self-efficacy). While designing for the mean is efficient, it’s not effective. The goal, instead, should be to assume variability across individuals (Rose et al., 2013) and, in turn, move from overgeneralized insights to personalized insights.
For example, Automated Coaching counters this problem by offering personalized insights tailored to the unique psychographics of each individual, such as their traits, strengths, and cognitive abilities. By integrating data-driven insights into personalized nudges, learners receive specific, relevant guidance that respects their individual differences and developmental needs.
3. Soft Skill Development Must Be Actionable
Soft skill development typically happens as a one-time initiative (e.g., workshop, training, coaching session, etc.) where participants are inundated with recommendations. This approach is misaligned with information processing theory, which suggests that human beings can only process and retain a limited amount of information in one setting (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968).
Nudges address this challenge by breaking down information into smaller, manageable insights delivered at the point of need. To fully optimize developmental resources (e.g., time, money, energy) necessitates an approach that moves from being overwhelming to one that is digestible and actionable.
Nudges Can Make Human Skill Development A Light Lift For Leaders
In total, the problem is that soft skill development is currently a static, overgeneralized, and overwhelming experience but should instead be a dynamic, personalized, and actionable experience.
Micro-nudges are promising given that research suggests that learning and behavior regulation are optimized when the experience is customized to individuals’ characteristics and needs, situationally adaptive, integrated within one’s flow of work, and available on demand (Maity, 2019). Human beings can’t accommodate these features at scale, but technology-derived micro-nudges certainly can (Kurzweil, 1990).
Those in charge of assessments need to be realistic. People can’t internalize information like super-computers. The goal should be to deliver digestible nuggets of information at the right time and in the right place. Addressing individuals’ specific needs and contexts, micro-nudges help transform the approach to soft skill development from a burdensome task into a series of manageable, impactful interactions that promote sustainable growth and meaningful engagement in the workplace.
Proven Behavior Change Through Coaching Nudges
One of the most compelling validations for the use of micro-nudges in talent development comes from recent research findings associated with Automated Coaching™. Studies have shown that micro-nudges significantly boost self-reflection, enhance the desire for self-knowledge, and improve the capability to handle complex challenges.
Impact on Self-Reflection and Self-Knowledge: Micro-nudges are specifically designed to prompt individuals to think critically about their immediate actions and how these align with their longer-term goals and professional growth. This continual engagement not only reinforces learning but also fosters a deeper understanding of one’s strengths and areas for improvement.
Enhancing Capability to Handle Challenges: By providing real-time, contextual feedback, micro-nudges empower employees to apply soft skills in various situations, from resolving conflicts to collaborating effectively with diverse teams.
Contextualized Nudges Make Scaling Human Skills A Real Possibility
One of the most significant advantages of micro-nudges is their ability to provide real-time, contextualized feedback. This type of feedback is crucial because it ties directly into the immediate tasks or challenges employees face. By integrating learning directly into the flow of work, micro-nudges ensure that training is not only more relevant but also immediately applicable.
Moreover, micro-nudges allow for a dynamic learning experience that evolves with the needs of the employee. Automated Coaching is designed to deliver information in a way that the human brain best processes and retains data: little by little and just at the right time.
The effectiveness of micro-nudges is also evident in their capacity to encourage behaviors and actions that align with organizational goals and individual development paths. By providing small, digestible pieces of information at critical moments, micro-nudges enable a more natural and effective understanding and application of knowledge, which is vital for personal growth and organizational success.
In today’s rapidly evolving workplace, businesses constantly strive to improve employee performance and foster a motivating coaching culture. One emerging trend in achieving this goal is the use of Automated Coaching.
But why is Automated Coaching™ so valuable? As businesses aim to provide targeted and impactful coaching, they face challenges in developing effective training programs tailored to employees’ needs.
By leveraging data-driven insights and personalized coaching, organizations and teams can effectively identify skills gaps, develop tailored training programs, and drive learning and development initiatives aligning with organizational goals.
Let’s dive into what Automated Coaching™ is and discover why it’s quickly becoming an essential component of leadership development in the modern workplace.
Key Takeaways:
- Despite numerous L&D initiatives, employee behavior is only modestly impacted.
- Optimized learning occurs when the experience is customized, integrated into the workflow, and available on demand.
- Automated Coaching™ offers relevant, real-time prompts for improved emotional intelligence, communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution.
- Employees require smaller, well-timed insights that can be processed and applied daily for growth.
- Automated Coaching™ can scale to provide development opportunities for all employees.
The Problem with Traditional Learning and Development Initiatives
Leadership and development (L&D)—the process of helping employees increase performance and well-being in organizational settings—is a $366B industry. L&D is everywhere, with larger organizations having in-house L&D departments/positions, Universities offering L&D-specific degrees (e.g., master’s degrees, executive education), dozens of the world’s largest consulting firms specializing in L&D offerings, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses and solopreneurs engaging in L&D through individual and team-based coaching and consulting.
The problem, however, is that despite the sheer magnitude of L&D interest and initiatives, meta-analytic evidence suggests that its impact on employee behavior is relatively modest.
The source of the issue is that learning and development typically manifest as a one-time initiative where participants are inundated with recommendations. This approach is misaligned with the fact that human beings can only process and retain a limited amount of information in one setting. Further, L&D is typically delivered as a pre-packaged and static offering, which overlooks that individuals are different and that their priorities, careers, and lives are constantly in flux.
Research suggests that learning and behavior regulation are optimized when the experience is customized to users’ characteristics and needs, integrated within one’s workflow, and available on demand. Human beings can’t accommodate these features at scale, but technology certainly can. This is where Automated Coaching™ can make a substantial impact.
HUMAN SKILL PROGRAMS ARE HITTING LIMITATIONS...
5 THINGS THIS FREE RESOURCE WILL TEACH YOU
- Close the widening gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Overcome the tension of pausing productivity for development opportunities
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- The evolution of human skill development
- What Automated Coaching™ is and how it works.
Automated Coaching: The Evolution in Self-Directed Growth and Development
Traditional coaching entails the dyadic relationship between coach and coachees, which involves a process of collaborative goal-setting, constructing solutions, and fostering the coachee’s self-directed growth.
With Automated Coaching™, the goal is pre-defined (i.e., enhancing self-awareness and other-awareness), and the automated coaching system generates solutions that foster the coachee’s self-directed growth. In turn, Automated Coaching™ provides relevant, in-the-moment prompting and insight that individuals can directly apply to increase emotional intelligence, strengthen communication, identify opportunities for collaboration, and work through conflict successfully with teammates.
Cloverleaf uses assessment data to provide digital nudges to everyone within a team or organization to improve performance, increase managerial effectiveness, strengthen cross-functional collaboration, and inspire personal development.
A consolidated dashboard provides insights into employee strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. From validated personality and strengths assessments to daily coaching, this approach can help organizations improve collaboration, strengthen performance, and better understand the needs of their teams.
How Automated Coaching™ is Revolutionizing Daily Growth and Development in the Workplace
One of the advantages of Automated Coaching™ is that it can be “pulled” at the coachees’ convenience and that it can be “pushed” every day, as many times as the system is programmed. Thus, unlike other L&D opportunities, Automated Coaching™ can facilitate coachee growth on a day-to-day basis. This approach aligns with several theories in organizational behavior.
First, according to social learning theory, human beings can only attend to, process, and retain a limited amount of information. Said differently, people can’t internalize information like super-computers. If organizations want their employees to grow, they must deliver smaller, digestible, well-timed insights that they can process and apply daily.
Second, research is being conducted in clinical psychology on using “micro-interventions”–small and short interventions void of human contact–that help patients with anything from anxiety to addiction.
These microlearning interventions align with what’s called metacognitive prompt theory, which suggests that you can nudge people to be more aware of their situation through purposeful reflection, which leads to more heightened self-regulation and behavior change.
Cloverleaf has researched this phenomenon, and the results are promising. The extent to which users engaged with the automated coaching program positively impacted several important outcomes, including an enhanced desire to learn more about themselves and their work, improved interactions with team members, and an overall better mood while at work.
Will Automated Coaching™ Replace Or Support Traditional Coaching Practices?
Automated Coaching™ will supplement, not replace, traditional coaching. Prior research illustrates that, when done well, coaching increases coachee performance and well-being.
Automated Coaching™ give coaches a more efficient method for staying connected with their coachees. It also gives them richer material to discuss with their coachees. In an ideal world, employees have access to both.
Unfortunately, many don’t experience the benefits of coaching, given the cost, lack of access, or time commitment. Technology can help close this gap by lowering costs and making coaching more scalable and widely available to diverse groups.
Is Automated Coaching™ The Same Thing As Artificial Intelligence?
Automated Coaching™ is broader than artificial intelligence (AI). However, where appropriate, AI can play a fundamental role in helping make Automated Coaching™ more adaptive and impactful.
We are far from “strong AI,” whereby machines are fully autonomous with general intelligence. Indeed, AI is making substantial process over the last decade, making it easier for organizations to incorporate into products like Automated Coaching™. However, applying “weak AI,” whereby specific algorithms are embedded to solve particular problems, is more representative of what coaching and Automated Coaching™ have the potential to incorporate in the short term.
How Can Leaders Rethink What's Possible With Coaching for Today's Workplace
Traditional coaching strategies have shortcomings that can be felt across an organization. However, scaling the development of team members is more tangible today.
As outlined here, there are four significant challenges to traditional coaching models that hinder their effectiveness in the workplace:
- It is often limited to the coachee’s perspective
- Providing a human coach is costly
- Relevance and timeliness are limited due to scheduling
- Proving impact that affects organizational results
As such, innovation is needed to address these challenges related to organizational training and development. Automated Coaching™ overcomes the challenges leaders are familiar with in delivering coaching to their employees.
Automated Coaching Is:
- Scalable
- Timely
- Measurable
Unlike traditional coaching models, Automated Coaching™ can scale to increase access to development opportunities for everyone in an organization. This means that employee coaching is no longer limited to a select few but can widely extend throughout a company.
What’s more, Automated Coaching™ provides employees with a greater number of coaching moments than traditional practices. Instead of relying on monthly sessions where individuals hopefully gather a handful of understanding, Automated Coaching™ integrates into the user’s workday to offer in-the-moment, relevant insights and tips.
Additionally, Automated Coaching™ offers a unique advantage in the form of user feedback, allowing individuals to provide input on the coaching tips they receive. This immediate feedback response enables users to obtain better insights and more applicable coaching tailored to their specific growth. Therefore, Automated Coaching™ can adapt to the needs of each individual, making it a powerful tool for employee development and organizational performance.
Final Thoughts
As businesses seek new ways to streamline training and deliver impactful coaching, Automated Coaching™ provides a unique solution. With the ability to adapt to the specific needs of individuals, it is a powerful tool for employee development and organizational performance.
The future of leadership development lies in this customized, on-demand coaching that can enhance skills and increase performance, transforming the workplace for years to come.
Coaching in the workplace is a powerful tool that can help employees reach their full potential and maximize their performance. It provides employees with feedback, guidance, and support to help them reach their goals.
Coaching is one of several investments companies can make toward developing their people. This concept often falls under the broad umbrella of learning and development. This can include mentoring, training, and career planning.
What Is Coaching In The Workplace
Coaching in the workplace is a collaborative and empowering approach where the leader acts as a “thinking partner.” This strategy helps employees self-discover to reach their goals and objectives. Therefore, coaching differs from giving orders or dictating how the employee should work. This approach allows employees to take ownership of their development and feel more motivated and engaged.
Key Takeaways:
- Leaders who coach are thinking partners to collaborate rather than dictate.
- A coaching approach can help employees take ownership of their development and feel more motivated and engaged in their work.
- Asking questions can help leaders coach teammates more effectively.
- A coaching culture can support a positive environment and foster growth
- Each situation and employee is unique.
How Is Coaching Employees Different From Traditional Management
3 Ways Coaching Is Different From Other Management Strategies:
- Coaching focuses on discovering rather than controlling
- Leaders who coach are thinking partners to collaborate rather than dictate
- A coach is goal-oriented rather than process oriented
One big difference is that coaching focuses on helping employees develop their conclusions to reach their goals, rather than simply managing their tasks and work output.
This means that a coach will work with an employee to identify areas for improvement, set goals, and create a plan to achieve those goals by serving as a thinking partner rather than commanding and controlling every step.
Coaching is a more collaborative and empowering approach. Therefore, leaders who act as coaches work with employees as partners rather than giving them orders or dictating how they should work. This approach helps employees to take ownership of their development and feel more motivated and engaged in their work.
Coaching leads to success because it facilitates psychological capital, a positive psychological resource that coachees can apply to their day-to-day work experiences. – psychologytoday.com
Traditional management often solely focuses on improving the team or organization’s performance. Coaching focuses on helping individual employees self-discover and reach their potential.
A coach will help employees to set and achieve goals, whereas a manager will focus on maintaining processes and procedures.
How To Implement Coaching In The Workplace
Companies continue to increase their investment in coaching as a leading form of developing their talent. Recent studies indicate that 9 out of 10 companies plan to increase their investment in coaching over the next 12 months.
Coaching can happen with trained professionals contracted from outside your organization, or they could be dedicated professionals that work inside the organization (often in HR or Talent Management groups), or it can be managers acting as coaches by using a coaching approach.
A recent Harvard Business Review Article advocates that successful leaders are great coaches by discussing this concept and urging for leaders to act as coaches.
You can introduce Automated Coaching™ to your team by incorporating the Cloverleaf Team Dashboard into your daily workflow. This will help you and your team gain helpful insight about one another and coaching tips to increase understanding, collaboration, and performance.
HUMAN SKILL PROGRAMS ARE HITTING LIMITATIONS...
5 THINGS THIS FREE RESOURCE WILL TEACH YOU
- Close the widening gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Overcome the tension of pausing productivity for development opportunities
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- The evolution of human skill development
- What Automated Coaching™ is and how it works.
How To Develop Skills To Be A Better Coach As A Leader
While coaching may come more naturally to some leaders than others, there are effective ways that everyone can try to hone their coaching skills to be a more collaborative teammate.
Below are some of the best questions and prompts for leaders to ask when they are seeking to help coach a team member.
- Tell me about your goals and objectives.
- What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- Describe the challenges are you currently facing.
- What resources or support do you need to achieve your goals?
- How can I best support you?
- What do you think should be our next steps?
- What are your thoughts about how I help you to improve?
- How do you feel about your current progress?
- How do you think this situation could have been handled differently?
- What are your thoughts on your role in the team?
It’s essential to be flexible, adaptable, supportive and encouraging in your coaching approach.
When coaching team members, leaders should ask questions that focus on the following:
- Identifying goals and objectives
- Strengths and weaknesses
- Challenges
- Resources or support needed to achieve goals.
Asking questions that empower employees to take ownership of their development, reflect on past experiences, and learn from them and their role in the team can also be insightful.
Examples Of Successful Coaching Moments At Work
Unfortunately, it isn’t enough to believe coaching is valuable. Managers and leaders need not only to know how to coach but also to match the coaching technique and approach with the needs of their people. And people are complicated with needs that are unique and varying.
Below are several examples of coaching scenarios to help you better understand how each situation is unique and why the needs of each team member are different.
1. A SALES MANAGER STRUGGLING TO CLOSE DEALS
An experienced sales manager has been struggling with closing high-value deals. The manager’s leader works with them by asking questions to help identify their specific challenges, such as a lack of confidence in their pitch or difficulty building trust with potential clients.
Together, they set goals to improve the sales manager’s communication skills and create a plan to practice and build their confidence. Through regular one-on-one sessions, the leader seeks to help the manager discover practical ways to close more deals and exceed their sales targets.
2. A NEW EMPLOYEE IS STRUGGLING TO ADJUST TO THE COMPANY CULTURE
A new employee is having difficulty adjusting to the company’s culture and workflow. Their leader identifies a project they can work together on to help better understand their strengths and weaknesses.
The leader helps the new employee to create specific goals by asking them what actions they believe are most important to help support the team’s overall objective. The leader also provides consistent input on the employee’s progress by focusing on the goal rather than the process of completing it.
3. A Team Leader Faces Communication Challenges During Remote Work
A team leader is responsible for managing a remote team. The team leader’s boss asks questions to help clarify what is currently working and where there are challenges. Identifying these pain points has helped the team leader discover which areas to address first.
There are tremendous impacts of incorporating coaching in the workplace. Still, organizations often only roll out models or methodologies for coaching. They may even provide some basic training on effective coaching. However, this often stops short of providing valuable tools that help managers and leaders coach the individual needs of their employees.
Why Is Coaching So Important In The Workplace
Coaching in the workplace can significantly impact employee performance and development because it empowers them to self-direct and discover ways of working that lean into their strengths.
Leaders can help team members better understand their strengths and weaknesses and prioritize personal development in the workplace, leading to greater job satisfaction and employee retention.
Additionally, coaching can support a positive work culture and foster a sense of growth and development among the employees, which can significantly benefit the organization.
5 Benefits Of Utilizing Coaching In The Workplace
1. Improved Performance
Coaching can help employees identify areas of improvement and set goals for themselves, which leads to improved performance. Coaching also helps employees stay focused and motivated to reach their goals, providing the necessary support and feedback to help them get there.
2. Increased Morale
Coaching in the workplace can help create a positive working environment and increase morale. Employees who receive feedback and support from their leader are more likely to feel motivated and engaged.
3. Improved Communication
Coaching helps teammates develop communication skills and express their ideas and thoughts effectively. Strengthening this skill can help build strong relationships between team members, even in remote collaboration environments.
Coaching can help employees learn how to manage and resolve conflicts at work effectively. Reducing stress and creating a more productive work environment make for a happier workplace.
5. Increased Retention
Coaching can help employees feel valued and appreciated. This can help improve employee retention rates and create a happier and more productive workplace.
Coaching in the workplace is an invaluable tool that can help employees reach their full potential and maximize their performance. It provides employees with the necessary guidance, feedback, and support to help them reach their goals and succeed.
Next Steps To Provide More Coaching At Your Place Of Work
As an enterprise leader, just believing or saying that coaching is an integral part of your learning and development investment is like asking your managers to be a carpenter but not giving them a hammer and nails.
Cloverleaf can be the tool that is an essential part of any manager’s toolkit. A perfect example of this is recognition. Some team members may need public recognition- this could happen by giving a shout-out at an all-team meeting, a mention on the company website, or a shared channel in Slack.
Other team members may want a more private, personal recognition. This could include a simple email, handwritten note, or MS Teams message that indicates you saw their contribution in the meeting and appreciated it.
Knowing these differences and how to use them for the right person in the right situation is the key to effective coaching, and Cloverleaf can provide you that insight daily within the tools you use every day.
Start a free trial today to learn more, discover its features, and experience the power of coaching at your workplace.
Finding satisfaction in your career has become harder with the changing work landscape and a constant buzz of social media notifications. Companies are moving towards initiatives that include new and foreign hour structures, virtual meeting styles, digital workspaces, and more. For many, developing these new skills can be overwhelming.
Job coaching has come a long way from the days of fluorescent-lit rooms with slide screen presentations. Now, with new technologies and modern connectivity at our fingertips, learners have an opportunity to step out of those well-lit rooms and into a sunnier digital space of personalized, quality-driven, job coaching.
What is Job Coaching?
Job coaching comes in many forms and plays an important role in creating interconnected teams, improving employee communication and interpersonal skills, increasing work awareness, and understanding others’ needs alongside one’s own. From executive officers to new hires, there is a spot for everyone but not everyone has taken advantage of these new opportunities. Let’s go over some differences in coaching styles and see some ups and downs.
What is Executive Coaching?
Executive coaching or executive development is an agglomerate phrase and a well-known term covering several mentoring subcultures. From one-on-one mentoring to executive seminars, these coaching styles focus on educating the top of a traditional org chart to better position the business for success or help the CEO make better decisions. In a sense, it’s traditional coaching but there can be a variety of variations that tailor to the needs of the individual.
Despite the high profile, Executive coaching has ups and downs. It is a nebulous term that often encompasses wide-spanning terminology such as goal setting, personal development, and individual success. These terms are notoriously vague and many can see no improvement due to murky goal setting. Despite the terminology, Executive Coaching often leads to a highly focused coaching style that caters to the individual benefits of business leaders but at an often high price per session.
What is Coaching On Demand?
Coaching on demand is a version of executive coaching that is targeted to early and mid-career professionals. This type of coaching is typically booked online through an app or website. Most sessions are virtual, facilitated by a certified coach, and are offered at a steep discount compared to other types of executive coaching.
On-Demand coaching like this makes executive level coaching accessible to more people. A professional schedules an appointment at a time convenient for their schedule or for a specific challenge, and the two parties usually don’t develop a long-term coaching relationship. This type of executive coaching works well to help solve a specific career problem or crisis, but doesn’t allow for longer-term leadership development and progress.
What is Mid-Level Coaching?
This coaching style has been popular for a long time and has been the butt of plotlines and jokes across popular media for decades. With phrases like “Leadership Seminars” and “Success workshops” this coaching style widens its target demographics and focuses on the middle to upper-level management. From directors to the executive suite, mid-level coaching often takes place in groups and often follows the same ideas as executive coaching, but brings in a coach from outside the organization to offer help.
The goal of most mid-level coaching opportunities is to break down the boundaries that upper-level management places on themselves through work culture, stress, career style, and more. It is a calculated and coordinated second opinion that looks to improve decision-making, flexibility, and leadership skills.
These phrases and uses for Mid-Level coaches seem as vague as Executive Coaching, but it is far from it. The nebulousness of on-demand coaching comes from its large array of tools and uses. However, the cost typically associated with this type of leadership coaching is significant which makes it incredibly difficult to scale and does not offer the same impact that many get from executive coaching.
What is Micro-Coaching by Cloverleaf?
Cloverleaf’s coaching style finds its success in the digital nature of most modern businesses where new technologies combined with teamwork are the driver’s of a business’ success. Micro-coaching or continuous micro-coaching or Automated Coaching™ is the use of weekly, daily, hourly, or continual coaching in micro-doses. Think of it as small snippets of helpful information to optimize the day for success and increase the daily takeaway.
Micro-coaching, like a digital business, thrives on algorithms and data. Cloverleaf personalizes its professional development through personality tests like the Enneagram, DISC, Energy Rhythm surveys, Strengths Finder, and other metrics. These suggestions provide answers and integrate team-related content into its coaching sessions.
This small tweak to the traditional model of coaching offers new approaches for team collaboration and employee development. By providing team analysis, Cloverleaf can take the Enneagram and DISC of each member and plot them on charts to better visualize how each member learns, works, rests, and creates, allowing for a more agile and high-performing team.
HUMAN SKILL PROGRAMS ARE HITTING LIMITATIONS...
5 THINGS THIS FREE RESOURCE WILL TEACH YOU
- Close the widening gap between learning and on-the-job application
- Overcome the tension of pausing productivity for development opportunities
- Integrate learning so it is actually in the flow of work
- The evolution of human skill development
- What Automated Coaching™ is and how it works.
