The most common reason for companies to hire a coach is to help their employees with leadership development and stress reduction.  The first category is a no-brainer: the ability to attract, keep and develop leadership is one of the most important challenges for organisations. And leadership coaching is a tailored, effective method to do so.

The latter category, stress reduction, is somewhat of a newcomer. This is due to the fact that the majority of sick leave by employees is the result of stress or even burnout. With an average period of absence of 53 days, stress related absence is often extremely costly. One case of 53 days costs €20.000*. So prevention is better than cure, and that is why companies often take effective measures when early stress symptoms appear.

How do companies normally find the right coach for their employees?

Many companies work with large providers of coaching services. These often offer coaching in a traditional way. Coaching services offered are costly. It is not uncommon in the coaching industry that the rates multiply by 2 when the customer is business to business (B2B) compared to business to consumer (B2C). Often coaching providers work with standard packages. An example of a common standard package is 6 or 7 coaching sessions of 1.5 hours, spread out over 6 months, price €1.800 per employee, or even more. Quality of the coaching is good in general, but the way it is offered does not always fit the need of the modern employee.

So, is there an alternative? Yes.

A 21^st century alternative is to make use of a digital coaching platform and offer coaching over video chat to employees.

What are the advantages of digital coaching services?

1. The employee can choose the best coach for him or her, in despite of location. In a global company, he can choose the famous sales coach that already has coached the New York – based colleagues.
2. The coaching can take place whenever, wherever the employee wants. It is even possible to schedule the coaching session before or after working hours, so it does not have impact on employee productivity.
3. It is possible to offer a flexible coaching package. If, for example a short 15 min check-up between 2 longer coaching sessions would be beneficial, it is very easy to set this up in a digital environment. So it is tailored to the needs of the employee.
4. The same result may be reached in a shorter period compared to a coaching session on location. This is because there are less distractions in the digital meeting room.
5. And last but not least… the coaching is in general less costly. There is no travel time and travel cost, leading to a lower rate.

Is there a trend towards digital coaching?

Definitely. Employees are already used to make use of digital applications. Often they work partly from home and their employer has implemented Het Nieuwe Werken (The New Way of Working).  So they already know how to interact over solutions such as video conference and video chat. Taking part in digital coaching sessions is not a big step for them.

That is why more and more companies are looking for a more affordable and future proof alternative to traditional coaching services. Large companies such as Air France KLM and PostNL already have started to work with a digital coaching platform. Many other companies are looking for alternatives to their traditional coaching solution.  It’s just a matter of time J.

The author of this article is Mariëlle Vaneman. Mariëlle graduated in 2003 as MSc in International Business Administration. She is now working for digital coaching platform Competencer. Competencer offers the coaching platform as a SaaS (Software as a Service) and white-label platform. Companies can cherry-pick the best coaches for their needs, and they get a coaching platform in their own branding. Interested? Contact me at: marielle@competencer.com.