Choose digital and become the CEO of your own career

Anik Stalmans, CHRO at Cegeka recognised her talents: creating powerful teams. “I'm glad that I got the opportunity to do this in different roles within the company.” Anik is convinced employees need to be aware they are in the driver’s seat of their own career. Once they are, coaching can help them discover talents and deal with hurdles.

Anik and Peter Rutanga have known each other for years. Peter is Enterprise Transformation Consult at CoachHub and is passionate about democratizing coaching. He believes coaching is no longer an exclusive phenomenon amongst top level profiles, today we make coaching accessible for people at all career levels.

CoachHub’s digital coaching platform was introduced at Cegeka with the to raise awareness on how coaching can inspire Cegeka employees to identify personal growth opportunities, both career wise as well as for mental wellbeing.

Making employees grow

Anik kicks off: "At Cegeka, we don't have the typical fixed career paths. People grow both vertically and horizontally but the thing is they don't always know what they want or can do. Thanks to the "CEO of your career" program, we create awareness on personal development, the importance of self-reflection and the advantages to inspire colleagues and to share insights. In the end, the employee himself can discover where his/her talents lie and what (s)he likes to do. It’s a perfect match with some of our values: ownership, development and entrepreneurship."

To support this program Anik contacted CoachHub. They specialise in making coaching more accessible and scalable through their AI enabled Coaching platform". “Regardless of the department where a colleague works, we want to offer equal growth opportunities. Corona has given us the necessary push to make employees see the online coaching business as a full-fledged offering.” says Anik.

Peter adds: “For Cegeka, we wanted to offer a flexible Coaching Platform. Our Clients can choose who to provide access to the platform  within the organisation. Our Matching Algorithm continuously strives to find the perfect match between coach and coachee. Employees only need to answer a few questions to create a match with a coach. We are quick and flexible at this and it reduces the workload for Cegeka.”

International feeling local

“Cegeka has grown tremendously and now operates internationally. The fact that we, at CoachHub, operate in the same countries and offer digital coaching in different languages, makes us very approachable.” says Peter.

Anik nods and adds: “CoachHub helps to send the signal to the rest of the workforce that we are tackling HR internationally. All countries can use it in the same way, and yet you feel like you are working locally. Also, we receive very good feedback from colleagues everywhere and that encourages others to get into a digital coaching program."

“After each coaching session feedback is asked to the coachees, and our platform's dashboard helps to detect specific patterns and/or focus areas that coachees are working on. With the generated data from the feedback, we take a scientific look at anything that is coachable.” Peter says.

Creating a next level employer experience

"Coaching, whether digital or not, should not be an obligation. You have to enjoy being allowed to get access to this learning opportunity. The goal is to get something out of it yourself. As CHRO, I am not going to tell which individual should take which coaching. But if I see people struggle with something, I will suggest it. Besides, we have 150 vacancies open at our company. In a war on talent, digital coaching can also be used to attract new talent. And also, for instance, with a high potential to give direction for next career steps.”

“Coaching is only one aspect. Keeping employees happy and motivated is an and-and-and-story.” says Anik. “You can’t force them to be happy, but at Cegeka we make sure to have a competitive remuneration package, we stimulate internal mobility, organise team buildings and monthly happy hours, enable working from home …  It’s important to focus on both job content and social importance, as well as keeping up with the spirit of the times. Being an attractive employer concerns a whole package of different things.

Anik sees coaching as a sign of confidence in people. "We want to help employees develop their skills. To your coach you can openly tell your own interpretation about how things are going and check how to deal with it. This does not mean that it is an us-and-them-story. A good relationship with the manager is essential at all times. Coaching topics are often aligned with the manager.”

“We only work with top level business coaches.” Peter says, "Because they know our coaches are external to their company, employees know they are talking to someone confidentially. There is no interaction between the coaches and management and they can schedule as many sessions in the flow of work as they like. It’s possible to talk about and  work on structural issues such as time management , but also on wellbeing. To grow as a person and grow as a leader, that’s what holistic coaching is about.”

Coaching is for all of us

But the question is if it’s affordable to coach all your employees. “At CoachHub we’re all about the democratisation of coaching. Anyone can use a licence for a couple of months and then it goes on to someone else. Flexible and very cost efficient!” says Peter.

“In the end the goal is to make every employee reflect on who (s)he is, what behaviour (s)he shows and how behaviour and motivation make work and life more fun. Next to that, it’s also about getting better as a team.” Anik summarises

“To conclude: we recommend our customers to always start at the beginning and ask themselves if individual coaching will help them reach their organisational goals. Hence our motto turning personal transformation into organisational growth.” says Peter.

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