JIT Coaching Innovation

Think back to a time when you felt stuck at work. Maybe you were leading a project that stalled. Or you had a work relationship you wanted to improve. Perhaps it was a career decision you were unsure about.

Even though you talked with your manager, colleague, spouse, or friend about this dilemma, your mind continued to cycle through it again and again. You felt stuck.

Now, imagine that your workplace offered a free, confidential Just in Time (JIT) Coaching service to help you think through your situation. At the end of 30-minutes, you felt heard and respected. You explored new ideas you hadn’t yet considered. You even identified one new action to take immediately that you were excited about. You no longer felt stuck.

Making it Happen

In November 2020, we were able to make that happen in my organization. It all started with an idea from my colleague Cindy Dunlow and 15 passionate volunteers who sought to empower people to reach their full potential. Cindy proposed that JIT Coaching was an innovative way to support our enterprises’ overarching people team strategy to increase access to coaches. We also aligned JIT Coaching to our organization's career growth priority.

Together, our project team shaped a simple way to offer free 30-minute coaching sessions to anyone who wanted to get unstuck on a work challenge. I was fortunate enough to lead our enterprise coaching strategy and co-lead this innovative project team. Cindy and I created a structure to execute on this idea, including an internal 5-hour JIT Coach training program, JIT Coach Guide, JIT Coach Community, grass roots marketing campaign, and a SharePoint scheduling system.

Amid the pandemic, JIT Coaching became a safe space to have confidential conversations about any work challenge. Employees found it on our career site and through employee resource groups.

Real Results

From the start, we knew we were onto something meaningful. Participant survey results were encouraging – 99% of sessions met expectations. We consistently had a 95+ Net Promoter Score (NPS), beating our target of a 70 NPS. Word of mouth spread. Some participants were even inspired to become JIT Coaches.

In three years, JIT Coaching remained an integral part of our coaching strategy and career growth priority. In June of this year, we had over 150 internally trained JIT Coach volunteers, averaging about 60 active coaches each month. In 2023, over 1,000 participants benefited from this service. This year JIT Coaching is trending to nearly double that number.

Of course there are opportunities for improvement. The monthly schedule fill rate average is 70%, balancing demand and supply is top of mind, and more JIT Coach community development is a priority. But the foundation of this service is simple, meaningful, and cost effective.

This success is due to the caring, passionate JIT Coach volunteers who feel so much joyful reward from helping others. Their deep listening, curious questioning, and respectful support helps people get unstuck – and demonstrates just how much the organization cares.

Are you interested to offer something similar in your organization? Schedule time to meet with me!