Tech-Enabled Coaching For All With Kristin Turner of CoachHub

William Tincup: [00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, this is William Tincup, and you are listening to the Recruiting Daily podcast. Today, we have Kristin on from CoachHub, and we’ll be talking about tech enabled coaching for all. And I can’t wait to talk to her about this as an expert, but also get her take on just how this actually works in the future as well as how it’s working for their customers right now. So Kristin, would you do us a favor and introduce yourself and coach [00:01:00] up?

Kristin Turner: Yeah, that would be great. Thanks for having me be a guest on your podcast. I’ve been interested in this field and career and talent development for a long time. I had an internship actually at Sun Microsystems during my.

Last year of undergrad, and I had received an offer to join a rotation program with them upon graduation. And due to a downturn moment for that company, some offers were rescinded and Sun offered this awesome employee service that provided career coaching and development to our employees. And it was that experience of taking advantage of coaching and development opportunity that helped propel me into a successful career in HR.

I pursued a graduate degree in HR at the University of Minnesota. I followed that up with some various HR roles across a number of industries. Spent some time at Raytheon in the defense industry, oil and gas with SM Energy, and most recently was at a global broadband company called Liberty Global.

Throughout all those [00:02:00] experiences, I realized how really having impactful Career experience around coaching and development can really drive and propel somebody’s career. And so even though the door closed on some things that I had initially planned right out of undergrad, it launched me into this great career in HR.

Along the way I gained some insight about thinking about our careers as a lattice and not just as a ladder, and it led me to where I am today. Like a lot of HR people over the last couple years, I saw my role shift and change dramatically during the pandemic, and while at Liberty Global during that time, we started building out some crisis management teams, our well being, our D& I, and I took this time to actually pursue my coaching certification, and actually brought in Coach Hub at Liberty Global to help me really navigate.

CoachUp. And we

were really a way for us to really bring in a [00:03:00] global provider, because Liberty was global. And we had a chance to really expand the program across the company. And what CoachUp actually does is we are a… Market leader in digital coaching, and we were founded four years ago by two brothers who had their own experience just like myself with coaching, and they built this company from their passion to provide coaching to all people at all career levels.

So our vision at CoachHub is to bring this impactful development program to everyone around the globe, and we do it through a personalized, tech enabled coaching experience. We leverage innovation in the coaching research in technology, and we help increase productivity, employee engagement, and retention.

We have about 650 global employees with over 35, 000 coaches. I said that wrong, so I probably need to start that over 3, 500 coaches in 70 countries [00:04:00] and they speak over 60 languages.

William Tincup: So first of all, fantastic on both fronts, both your personal experience is really compelling. Mike Tyson has his famous quote, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

And the fact that it. Got you to into coaching and then you fell in love with coaching. And then you went on to do a bunch of really cool things in HR. I think it’s just a wonderful kind of story. A, and I just think it’s great that you’ve, you found both with CoachHub, a platform that then can facilitate this.

And, in the title of the show, we’re talking about both. Tech enabled, which we want to get to, and coaching for all. So let’s start with the coaching for all part that, that’s really important because coaching as you and I probably conceived it historically has been for the few and for the select few, right?

And I love this idea of, okay, let’s lower all the barriers. And [00:05:00] coach everyone. So it doesn’t matter who they are, where they start, what role they’re in, etc. Everyone needs to be have access to great coaching. Yes.

Kristin Turner: Yeah, I think for me, when I think about my HR career over time, I brought in a lot of the coaching at more of the executive level at times when I was at Raytheon or other companies, or I began to coach from an HR perspective.

I really feel like that’s what we do as HR professionals. We coach and we serve as a sounding board for employees and leaders. And I saw this trend that we would say, Hey, we can have internal coaching for people at, early, mid levels. and then executive coaching. And I would partner with outside firms to bring in executive coaches for our leaders.

And what I saw over time was a need and a desire to offer that across the entire employee spectrum. And I could really see the fact that career coaching, leadership [00:06:00] coaching, and really the idea of whole life coaching could really be. come alongside any of the talent and development programs that I was creating and putting in place.

And that would help people really just accelerate, right? And see this idea of how do I bring my whole self, my whole life and what I want. And look at my career as this. I had this lattice idea and how do I do that and how do I have the sounding board for somebody to help me figure that path out.

And as we started to offer that more and more over the time of my career. I just saw the impact across all levels to see. Even our future leaders take advantage of this and what I see in our industry now with the tech enabled piece is that we’re able to offer this no matter where people are, right? So I can be connected to coaches.

In the U S I can be connected to coaches globally. And I can do it all from [00:07:00] my own, seat at home or my own seat in the office where I was previously. And now I can be with a coach that can be all around the world as well. And it just opens up the ability for us to connect rather than, gosh, I got to sit down and search and find somebody who I could talk to.

So I’ve just seen that really grow. I love

William Tincup: it. Use the phrase that I really love it’s whole life. Take just unpack that for us.

Kristin Turner: Yeah. So for me, I think, and this comes from my coaching certification background with the Coactive Training Institute, but for me, I think our employees and just myself in general, I want to be seen as a whole person.

I want to be seen as, a colleague, as a mother, as a friend, as a, spouse has all these different parts and pieces of the roles that I play in life. And I bring that whole person to work. And I want to figure out each of those parts [00:08:00] and pieces of who I am and the impact on them to what I then bring at work.

And it’s, it’s funny because it’s also this idea that people talk about, oh, it can help with work life balance. And I’ve always tried to correct people and say, I think it’s life balance, right? Cause we’re balancing all of these parts and pieces of who we are, no matter what role we’re playing or no matter what situation or scenario we’re in.

And I want to be seen as that whole person and I want to see others in that way as well, because we’re bringing that past, present and our future all together.

William Tincup: And thank goodness for it, right? So because you have an HR background this next this next bit is going to be actually really fun for you.

It’s, is where does coaching reside in the organization? Who owns it? And what should coaching, what should it be tied to, system wise? What should it be tied to in a perfect world? Oh[00:09:00] or should it be, I shouldn’t be, I shouldn’t be assumptive there,

Kristin Turner: right? Yeah, no, it’s great.

I actually think that’s a question, people say either or but, or this, that, I think it’s a both and answer. I think coaching belongs in multiple places. And I think while I initially saw it, going back to my experience of career coaching at I saw it as tied to something as career development, as searching for what I’m going to do in my career.

I saw that in my university experiences, whether at CU Boulder or at the University of Minnesota. Your first experience sometimes about that is trying to figure out what do I want in my career? And what do I want to do next? And how do I get some coaching around that? So you can see it as exploration for career, but I think you can see it or.

Rather, and I can, I think you can see it tied to development in so many ways, because there are a number of studies out [00:10:00] there that will tell you and show you and have proven that putting coaching alongside our development programs will help accelerate the learning and the understanding And programs when you think about what an employee actually retains from whether it’s an in person class or an online class, you put coaching tied around it, how much that can accelerate their growth.

And so I’ve seen it there and the programs that I And at Raytheon and at SM Energy, we had leadership development programs. And we would tie not just the in class or in person training, we would also then have 360 development and feedback and coaching that was tied to that to then come up with an individualized plan.

And so I think it’s a way to personalize your development programs and let that person who’s going through the program. come up with what they specifically want to work [00:11:00] on, while you’re also driving from a talent development perspective, the company goals for the leaders you want to build. So I think there’s a lot in that piece.

And I’ve also seen it at The area of D& I’ve seen it in the area of well being, especially much more, obviously, in the last number of years, but how do we really look at the idea of the health of our organization and our people within it as we’ve been able to more talk about mental health in the workplace as we’ve been able to really actually look at what we think and how we feel when it comes to the idea of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

All these things are allowing places where coaching can help because a coach is someone who is an independent sounding board somebody that you can go to in a confidential way to discuss the things that maybe you wouldn’t feel comfortable discussing to just another colleague [00:12:00] or another leader within the organization, but it’s a safe space for you to explore your own values.

And to have somebody really ask you these powerful questions to get to where you want to go and what you want to do with these thoughts and how you might want to change them. And then it’s somebody who really gives you some accountability. To really make some changes towards habits that will be at your definition of health, right?

So it’s habits that, Hey, I want to improve the way I think and act, or I want to just increase and grow in this strength of mind to bring more of myself to the organization and to the different parts of my life.

William Tincup: It’s funny, as you were talking, I was thinking about, we could see ourselves in a world where.

It’s like every movie starts with, in a world where, and like in a world where there’s a chief coaching officer, but then I started thinking there’s so much energy around experience, employee [00:13:00] experience, that you could see coaching really nicely tucked into the experience, if done well, and really woven into that experience if we, if we think about it.

And then it got me to thinking, we have in every, in almost every software company, we have customer success teams, we have leadership. We have customer success teams. Why do we have employee success teams?

Kristin Turner: Yeah, that’s a good idea. Yeah. The idea of customer success has been new to me and at Coach Hub, right?

I know it’s very typical. This is actually my first startup and my first support towards the sales organization. And obviously I’ve interacted with people as I’ve brought clients. Companies like CoachHub into the organizations I’ve worked at before. And just this idea of the handoff to somebody who is going to help you more effectively use the technology, more effectively support your employees.

[00:14:00] When I think about the idea of customer success, I think of our organization at CoachHub and what that team is able to bring and what they brought when I brought the organization in at Liberty. And I also think a lot about some of the other pieces and those handoffs, right? That then I know I have somebody, hey, I’m having this little issue and I can reach out and have a chat, have a conversation.

And when I think about. The idea of employee success teams, that’s really what we do as HR, right? No matter if I’ve been in a role for talent acquisition or as an HR business partner or in talent management, or even in compensation roles, we’re all Here, and we’re all within the organization, to help our employees be more successful, that then drives our organization to be more successful towards the vision and mission that we’re driving towards.

And it’s funny, I was just talking to another HR colleague yesterday, and we were talking about what we can do. The [00:15:00] employees who come to us and you schedule a meeting or something, or they pop in and say, Hey, I was told to come to HR, but I’m a little afraid, and I, or we were Oh we try to always explain to people, never be afraid to come to HR because we’re here for your success.

And so if somebody told you to come to us, it’s actually probably because they know that, and they have a secret to share. And so I love that idea of taking. The customer success piece, but then applying it to who we are as HR professionals and what we can provide to the organization.

And I’d like to think that, especially over the last number of years, we’ve been able to show people that is who we are and what we’re doing rather than just that oh scary HR group that I have to go talk to, right?

William Tincup: We definitely, first of all, we can unpack that for more.

We might need another podcast to do that. But I wanted to get to the tech enabled part of our conversation. And really let’s start with the, where does [00:16:00] HR Where should they start when they think about tech enabled coaching?

Kristin Turner: Yeah, it’s funny because somebody asked me once, what is digital coaching?

Because when I was leaving an organization to say, hey I’m going to a digital coaching company. And, first thought was, oh, you’re going to be a coach because that’s what you love. And that’s what you’ve gotten some certifications on. I said, no, I’m actually, I’m going to do HR for a digital coach.

So then the next question was what does digital coaching mean? And. So I started to actually transition the word to say it’s tech enabled coaching because digital, it’s almost like the evolution of HR has turned into people function has turned into employee success that we just named. To me, tech enabled means.

That I am using a system that’s going to help me reach a goal of getting coaching to more employees and getting coaching especially to a global employee base[00:17:00] because I’ll be able to. Connect people through our system. So at CoachHub, our product the very end is the coaching experience that employees and the coaches have.

But in between is really the tech part. And it’s a system that we have built through what.. All of our research around coaching and the industry, but also just through technology to actually connect employees and coaches. And it’s a matching system, right? So if I was just out there without the support of CoachUp, and I knew, hey, coaching is really important and I really want to find a coach.

I might do a random Google search, or I might go to the ICF, International Coaching Federation website, and I might try to find somebody or I might go to a local coaching chapter, and it’s really hard to figure out, is this going to be the right person? No, I don’t know. Is this going to be the right person?

But what TechEnabled allows us to do is Get [00:18:00] our coaches into a system, have them create a profile of who they are as a coach, their background as a coach, give us even a video so people can have a little tiny experience of them as a coach, and it allows the employee to sit down with our system, pick things that they want in a coach.

So I want a certain gender for a coach. I want a certain industry that the coach comes from. I want a language and our system even gets down to the nitty gritties of, I’ll have an English American, English Australian, or English, British but we have a number of languages. So you can pick, I want a coach to speak in this language, and then it’ll give you these profiles of the coaches and let you match to them.

So then you’ll get six different coaches to choose from based on what you said you wanted as a coach or from a coach give you the profiles, you select from the profiles, and [00:19:00] then in the system it just allows you their calendar. So it’s like a calendy kind of type thing that’s in our system.

And you can select the time, the date that you want, and then it schedules it right away on your calendar. And then the tech also allows us to have the coaching experience through the system. So it’s just a real way to expand the ability to find a coach, find the kind of coach you want, and then to have the coaching experience, no matter where you are, whether you’re at home.

You’re remote or you’re in a hybrid situation out of the office. You can have that experience and it can save, the drive time and the in person time, all that kind of stuff as well. Do

William Tincup: you, do you have any data or do you know where employees? To consume coaching? Is it even if it’s not mobile tablet laptop, if it’s a certain time in the day, do you, is there anything on the consumption side of their coaching?

Kristin Turner: Yeah, that’s a good question. I actually don’t have [00:20:00] anything at my fingertips when I think of where people are. I would say that All of the coaching through our Coach Hub platform is happening through technology. And through it, I don’t have the data around it. Is it happening in the office or is it happening at home?

William Tincup: What the beauty is it’s on demand. So you can, that’s what I love about it is if you need it on a Tuesday at three o’clock, okay. Then you can set that up so it meets the, the employee where they are when they need it. So that’s the most important part.

Yes. So you’ve had some recent news acquisition funding, et cetera. Tell us a little bit about that.

Kristin Turner: Yeah. So what’s been really interesting is I joined CoachHub in December of 2021. And right before that we had made a couple, made an acquisition. And even just recently here in February, we made another acquisition as well to grow our global [00:21:00] growth.

So our acquisition strategy has allowed us to continue that expansion, which expands our career. pool of qualified coaches. It further accelerates our innovation to benefit all of our customers. And I think really when I look at it from the idea of talent, it’s allowed us to really add amazing talent to our staff, our leadership team.

team members, our coaches and it’s really been an exciting time to be a part of the industry and the growth that we have. And if I talk specifically about the two acquisitions this, the first one was a company called MoveOne and MoveOne was the French, or is the French leader and it allowed us to unite our companies in the shared passion towards enabling coaching to people at all career levels.

And the one that we did in February was a woman founded Clayton [00:22:00] Coaching, and it was the leading Austrian partner. And Tina Deutsch joined our global team, along with half a dozen of her colleagues in Vienna. And it further established us as this global market leader that added. An additional 500 coaches to our ranks and just really helps us grow globally and beyond.

William Tincup: Love that. I love that parting thoughts for folks that are thinking about coaching, but haven’t made the plunge yet. Yeah.

Kristin Turner: I think that whole idea of. Coaching being available at top levels and organizations for such a long time, and now the ability that we can offer this in such a scalable way I think is a game changer.

So I think coaching is a very powerful development program. It’s a tool for recruitment and retention as more and more people want [00:23:00] this and they want their companies to see them as this whole person. And I think it’s just such a great way to accelerate the development of everything we do in HR, all the different parts, places, organizations that we play in.

And it’s just something that I think, will enable not only your own personal growth, if you were to look into it, but also the organization growth as well.

William Tincup: Drops mic, walks off stage. Kristen, you’re doing great work at Coach Hub. I absolutely love what you’re doing. Thank you so much for coming on the

Kristin Turner: show.

You’re welcome. Thanks for having

William Tincup: me. And thanks for everyone listening to the Recruiting Daily podcast until next time.