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When building a successful career, we all need trusted thought partners to support us. Coaching is one of the most effective tools for professional development – working with a coach can help you define your career path or get a new perspective on a professional dilemma. For far too long, coaching has been available only to executives. But at Real Chemistry, we recognized the power of coaching to support our people, drive optimal performance, and help us scale our business. That’s why we created an in-house Coaching Team—to offer solution-focused, transformational coaching for all.
Coaching has always been a part of Real Chemistry’s DNA. For over 20 years, our leaders have tapped the expertise of external coaches to navigate decisions and support their professional growth. When I joined the company back in 2018 to lead our People Experience team, we created a program that brought rising stars into leadership cohorts for peer support and gave them the opportunity to work one-on-one with an external coach. The program was instantly successful–we saw retention and engagement climb. This made us think bigger—if coaching is so effective in making our people feel supported, engaged, and ready to bring their best to Real Chemistry, what would happen if we made more coaching available, more often?
That’s when our in-house Coaching Team was founded, to provide solution-focused, transformational coaching for all at Real Chemistry. We wanted coaching to be truly inclusive—offered to everyone from the fresh-out-of-college Associate to the seasoned executive. We wanted coaching to be expert; we quickly built a team of five coaches, all certified by the International Coaching Federation, with over 50 years of collective experience. We wanted coaching to be rooted in Real Chemistry’s culture. Our in-house coaches have a deep understanding of the clients and patients we serve and the unique landscape our people are working in. We wanted coaching to be focused on clear metrics that would support our growth as a business; not just a nice “perk” for our people, but one that drives retention and performance to new heights and allows us to understand common challenges so we can partner with our leadership team to solve them.
And what a success it’s been! Since Real Chemistry Coaching was founded in September 2020, our team has provided confidential coaching to almost 1,100 team members (over half the company). We do this in several ways. On a monthly basis, people can sign up for Coaching Office Hours if they need a quick session to solve a specific challenge. They can engage with us for an ongoing engagement, where they meet twice per month with a coach to work toward their professional development goals. Our coaches also provide team coaching to provide customized solutions to improve communication, collaboration, or optimize processes and systems.
Our positive impact is clear. We’ve seen retention increase 9% for those that have coached with us. 46% of our coaching clients were promoted in our last performance cycle. The average performance rating for coaching clients is 3.8 out of 4. Our Coaching Team has a Net Promoter Score of 93. And in the words of one of our coaching clients, “I’d recommend this to everyone in the organization, as chatting with a coach who knows the ins and outs of Real Chemistry was very helpful to creating a realistic game plan and personal next steps. I love that Real Chemistry is building this practice!”
We know that the objective, confidential, expert coaching is just what people need to grow their careers, perform at their best, and support us as we scale. I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to create a truly inclusive, truly solution-focused, truly unique in-house Coaching Team at Real Chemistry.
For more information, please visit www.realchemistry.com and connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Learn more about Real Chemistry Coaching and other employee benefits on Real Chemistry’s careers page, found here.