Did you put employee career development on the back burner during the pandemic? What will happen to coaching and training in the new normal of hybrid work environments? Numly, a company dedicated to improving employee engagement through peer coaching, offers an innovative SaaS solution to those challenges by pairing coworkers as coaches and learners, based on self and organizational assessment of critical skills. From Day One spoke with Numly’s founder and CEO, Madhukar Govindaraju, about the concept of peer coaching, how it works in practice, and the benefits it can bring to employees and businesses. Excerpts:

Why aren’t corporate managers devoting more time to coaching and developing the skills of their employees?

Employees always complain, whether the complaint is official or during water-cooler conversations, that their managers are not supporting them in the area of career growth. There are two reasons for it. One is that the managers are not really sure where to start, what skills to work on, and how to work with the teams to really help them grow–which means they don't have a strong coaching culture within the companies. The second reason is that the HR leaders and organizational-design experts at all the big universities have been talking since the 1990s about flattening the organization. Over time, organizations have actually become flat. Now you don't have enough managers–less than 15% in every group of 100 people. You can't expect them to have enough time for coaching. So people aren’t getting the support internally–and meanwhile the culture has become one of all work, work, work.

Have the pandemic and remote work made the situation more critical?

What’s happened is that the need for skills that we thought were critical before the pandemic is expanding today at a much faster rate. Every company is feeling the same pressure. They need to put the focus back on reskilling and upskilling their teams. Gartner released the results of a survey of HR leaders’ priorities for 2021, and the No. 1 priority was “building critical skills and competencies.” Critical skills are not just hard skills. For a software engineer, for example, programming is a hard skill. But for a person becoming a leader, you must have a lot of soft skills, including written and oral communication, and leadership skills. With everybody working from home today, you need a program to develop skills like time management and working together from a position of trust.

How can corporate leaders figure out specifically what skills are needed–and in which roles?

Every CEO wants to address the skills gap. But no one knows what the gap is. When you ask an HR leader, “Hey, tell us the three areas where you have a gap,” their immediate reaction is, “We sort of know; we have a hunch,” but there is no quantified view or detail to actually bring that together. At Numly, we measure and quantify the skills gap through self-assessment and coach evaluations and help organizations get started on a peer coaching program that spans the course of three to six months, so we can demonstrate progression on the skills. And it’s not just a set of five skills or ten skills–we have a very deep database of hundreds of soft and hard skills that we can help them build across.

How did you catalog what skills are needed–and for what roles?

We funded research to gather data from HR professionals. And we asked them what skills are important for your career growth. We interviewed over 18,000 professionals worldwide, from different career stages and different industries: high tech, retail, education, insurance, pharma, automotive and manufacturing. The sum total of that mega-research effort is our crown jewel: the ground-truth data sets that we have. We actually have a set of over 350 skills, but when we took out anomalies and looked at what skills really matter, we brought it down to about 185 skills.

How is peer coaching different from traditional executive-coaching programs with external and expert coaches?

What we mean by peer coaching is literally a coaching network within your company. When people use the term “coaching,” they tend to think about bringing in external experts. That's still valid. But for most companies, that's a very expensive effort. And most companies do that with only the top 8% of the executives and senior leaders, which doesn’t benefit the bottom 92% of your organization. What we’re trying to do is pivot it back to the critical mass of the entire organization and develop a strong bench or a very resilient organization with peer coaching.

How does peer coaching work between the coach and learner?

The key definition of peer coaching is that it’s about two individuals within the company. They reflect on current practices, what's happening, and what the challenges are. They refine and share ideas. And eventually they’re solving problems. It could be something like, “Hey, my manager is not helping me,” or “What do I need to do to get a promotion?” You develop a trusted connection between the two. That's the first step. And it’s a private conversation. All the conversations that the platform will guide between a coach and learner would be entirely private. The idea is to create a safe environment where a coach and a learner can openly discuss issues, without the learner having any kind of fear that something they say might lead back to HR. It's almost like my conversation with my physician, whom I’ve been seeing for over 15 years at Stanford. When I go there, I say, “Here's my problem, what do I do? Please give me a solution.” Now, if that conversation came back to my manager at work, or my HR team at work, and there's no privacy, I wouldn’t be opening up to problems with my physician. We want to bring in privacy to enable trust. Trust enables us to connect and share knowledge with each other.

How do you match the peers for a peer coaching partnership?

We have algorithmic ways to identify coaches according to their rating on a set of skills. Companies can bring in their managers and other talent into the system. Then once you identify the coaches and learners, we put them together with a set of skills to be learned, a coaching program. You can pick different sets of skills for different audiences. And we give our customers a dashboard of analytics showing the distribution of where the skills are and where the gaps are.

In these one-on-one coaching situations, what’s in it for the employees doing the coaching?

Everybody in the company wants to be a Leader, but the first skill you want to master before you become a leader is how to be a coach. Coaching helps to develop leadership skills. That’s a big thing: As humans, we want to grow, we want to feel that we are contributing, that we are impacting others. It also helps coaches to expand their network. Today, what leaders typically do is mentoring programs, say connecting a VP to a Senior VP, but the networking connection could be superficial. In contrast, we’re connecting for skills and development, within and across teams. Those lateral network connections strengthen your organization and are a lot more powerful compared to external coaching. So the investment that companies make with our tool is not a one-time thing, it's an ongoing process.

What are some of the other benefits?

It also drives employee engagement. In a peer-coaching platform, skills development and engagement become natural and foundational. Right now companies are pivoting from the concept of diversity, equity and inclusion, to one of inclusion and belonging. You need to create a sense of belonging in the employee experience. And we’re not just connecting them, we're helping them with developing the skills they need, which is a much better employee value proposition (EVP). We empower employees to help each other. What better way to motivate and energize your team than to say, "Hey, we want you to help us get there."

Can it help with the burnout factor, which seems to be widespread?

Yes, and that’s what every company is facing. In an article I recently wrote for Forbes, I said that work-from-home burnout is real. Whether it is Zoom fatigue or because everybody's scrambling throughout the day, work-life balance has evaporated because there's nothing that differentiates work from life. Employee well-being is becoming a big issue. Of course, there are tools that make your life easier and more productive, which is where Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex and Slack are going. That's one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is recognizing there is a role for the manager to help with work-from-home burnout by understanding employee problems and issues. Peer coaching can help because it is highly personalized and contextual, rather than being an out-of-the-box solution. These programs have been designed to bring people together in a guided, customizable process so that they can engage and feel connected again–and not just to each other, but to the company as well.

Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner who sponsored this story: Numly.

The Role of GLP-1s in Employee Benefits

Companies that offer inclusive care benefits are not only seeing higher retention rates but are also attracting job seekers who prioritize well-being over just a high salary. With obesity on the rise in the U.S., leading to increased rates of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes, employees are looking for workplaces that support their health holistically, recognizing that inclusive benefits can be life-changing.The prevalence of chronic disease presents a challenge for employers over increasing healthcare costs. 60% of employers expect healthcare costs to surge over the next three years. Yet, it is critical to offer comprehensive care and wellness for higher retention.The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) found that workers would choose a job with benefits over a similar job providing 30% more salary but with no benefits. Consequently, employers also face more competition with other companies that provide more inclusive healthcare benefits.The growing off-label use of GLP-1 drugs, originally approved for treating Type 2 diabetes, has fueled discussions around treatments for cardiometabolic diseases. However, cultural misuse has also associated these drugs with rapid weight loss management.What are the potential risks and benefits associated with including FDA-approved weight loss drugs in care benefits? Is there an ROI of covering weight loss medication?The Reality of CardiodiabesityDeanna Critchley the AVP of Cigna led the sessionDeanna Critchley, area vice president at Cigna, provided insight into the reality of cardiodiabesity management at From Day One’s NYC half-day benefits conference in a thought leadership spotlight.There are several factors to consider when adding FDA-approved weight loss medications such as Wogovy into care benefits. While GLP-1s are automatically covered to treat Type 2 diabetes, weight loss drugs such as Wogovy are considered add-ons or buy-ups, which affects claims costs.Currently, there is no evidence suggesting a decrease in cancer, stroke, heart attack, or other emergency room visits by taking these prescriptions alone.Secondly, drugs such as Ozempic and Wogovy generally have to be taken for an extended period of time, or even a lifetime. People gain back ⅔ of their weight within two years of stopping.Cigna conducted an internal study and found that 66% of people on weight loss medications stopped taking them within 6 months due to rapid weight loss, social pressure, and significant side effects from taking the drugs.This further presents the risk of employers facing increased medical expenditures without guaranteed positive results. It can become unsustainable to find it as pharmacy claims rise. “That’s where we’re still looking at the longevity of this to see if it’s worth you as an employer covering these drugs if they’re not even going to continue taking it.”But if employees are more likely to choose a job that covers weight loss medications, companies face undeniable pressure. “You have to actually consider your benefit philosophy, how you cover it, and what type of population you have,” Critchley said.“Do you use it as talent acquisition? Are your competitors offering that? Do you offer lifestyle management programs and that’s part of your well-being philosophy?” she asked.The benefits of investing in weight loss supplemental coverage, then, lie in having long-term employee populations, the ability and foresight to invest in long-term cost avoidance, and incentivizing customers to enroll in holistic weight management programs.Utilization Management Is KeyCritchley recommended that employers not yet covering weight loss medications should first confirm with their carriers whether utilization management measures are in place. This safeguard helps ensure that GLP-1 drugs are prescribed only to individuals with diabetes.At Cigna, their utilization program confirms clients with Type 2 Diabetes and asks if they would consider taking Metformin, a more affordable and generic prescription drug similar to Ozempic.Cigna Healthcare has developed several solutions, including RxClaimsConnect, which automates claims processing for clients with documented Type 2 diabetes. For self-funded clients offering weight loss coverage, Cigna provides access to EncircleRX, a program equipped with safeguards to ensure the appropriate individuals qualify. Eligible clients must have a BMI of 30, or 32 with two additional co-morbidities. The program also includes a cost cap or a pricing guarantee.More importantly, it includes required enrollment and ongoing engagement with a lifestyle modification program. Nutritional counseling and exercise programs are required management systems in place. This demonstrates the effectiveness of integrated and holistic healthcare as effective and inclusive care benefits.Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Cigna, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Stephanie Reed is a freelance news, marketing, and content writer. Much of her work features small business owners throughout diverse industries. She is passionate about promoting small, ethical, and eco-conscious businesses.

Conversations: The Currency of the Future

Steve Artnz, CEO of Campfire, poses the question, “what is a conversation to you?” In the digital age, conversations can include verbal communication, texts, phone calls and even interactions with artificial intelligence.During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s October virtual conference, Arntz spoke about the art of conversations to build stronger relationships, productive work environments and inclusive workplaces.Conversations are fundamental to fueling relationships with everyone in your life, but some conversations are harder than others. Arntz presents the audience with a mnemonic to help people focus on the key aspects to a conversation: FLAME for fluid, lively, authentic, meaningful, engaging.Fluidity “creates a mutual understanding and respect,” he said. Liveliness provides the enthusiasm and engagement between people. Authenticity helps build trust and opens up meaningful conversations that strengthen relationships. Engagement is crucial to maintain participation from both sides in the conversation.As conversation tools in the workplace, Arntz focuses on check-ins, asking deep questions and listening generatively.Steve Arntz, CEO of Campfire, led the virtual thought leadership spotlight In a general check-in, you might ask “How are you feeling?” but Arntz suggests posing deeper questions like “What are you feeling? What are your distractions? What are your intentions for our time and space together?” These can serve as more effective starting points for teams to check-in on each other.Starting off with these questions,“will reduce the number of meetings on your calendar” and “increase the path to efficiency in those meetings,” Arntz said.To dive even deeper, ask people why, how and what questions to learn more about their feelings. For example, “why is this situation frustrating you?” or “how does this feeling impact your work right now?” Asking these types of questions will allow the conversation to flow into greater discussions on feelings, thoughts and intentions.Following this tool, Arntz provides four ways to engage in conversations fully: download, which is confirming that people are heard; facts, listening with an open mind and asking questions to gather information; empathy, connecting with experiences and emotions; and creation, which is the act of creating something new together.“When you practice this generative listening with intent to learn from the unknown, to connect with the broader, bigger thing, then you can really build on each other’s insights and create new insights,” Arntz said.Although these questions and conversations can provide deeper connections between managers and employees, an existing feeling of distrust can also hold people back from being honest and vulnerable. Especially when companies are aiming for efficiency and profitability, actions can seem more transactional.“If my manager were to ask me, ‘what are you feeling?’ I might have a hard time really trusting that person actually cares and sometimes it’s because I don’t trust that the organization cares,” said Artnz. “So the manager and organization start to become conflated and they inherit each other’s weaknesses and strengths.”In these cases, it can be helpful to see vulnerability from the manager first. Prior to opening up the conversation on what employees may be feeling, start off by sharing your own thoughts and emotions, creating an environment that welcomes and encourages others to share.These skills can be utilized when holding conversations with people, but with the increased use of AI, it’s important to remember that communicating with robots is much different. “Artificial intelligence does not equal conversational intelligence,” said Arntz.Conversations with AI focus on logic, accuracy and efficiency, lacking the emotion and authenticity that takes place in human interactions. But this is not to say that technology is not useful in bettering conversations.“It’s not robots or humans. It’s robots and humans together. I see a world in which we can stop tripping on each other as much as we are today,” said Arntz. “As we get assistance from these robots…we can have much more impactful and meaningful and creative relationships and that’s a world that I'm really excited about helping to shape and create.”Arntz encourages people to use the conversational tools he discussed in addition to interactions with both robots and humans. Blending the two can help expand their insight on how to engage, create partnerships, and take action with others.Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Campfire, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jennifer Yoshikoshi is a local news and education reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Leveraging Generational Diversity: Moving from Ageism to Age Inclusion

In a recent survey from Resume Now, 90% of workers age 40+ said they experienced ageism in the workplace. And a study from AARP found that 64% of the same age group experienced age discrimination, meaning tangible impact on one’s ability to advance, stay in the workforce, and get paid fairly. “The data shows that ageism is still with us, unfortunately, in the workforce, and that it’s actually quite prevalent,” said Heather Tinsley-Fix, senior advisor, financial resilience, AARP, at a From Day One webinar.The five-generation workforce is a well-known phenomenon—in fact, 83% of executives believe that creating a more multigenerational workforce would drive their organization’s success and growth. But how should companies begin to build cultures that shift away from unconscious ageism toward age inclusion?Dr. Megan Gerhardt, founder & director of thought leadership at Gentelligence, has spent the last 15 years speaking and consulting with top organizations worldwide on leveraging generational diversity in the workplace. Gerhardt spoke with Tinsley-Fix and Heather Ainsworth, CEO of Workable Concept, on creating cultures in which all ages thrive, psychological safety enables fruitful interaction, and intergenerational collaboration drives bottom-line value. They also shared a sneak peek of a new suite of resources AARP designed specifically to help HR leaders address this opportunity. It translates research into specific actions and creates custom plans that takes into account your own areas of personal power and influence.Turning From Ageism to Age InclusionThe World Health Organization defines ageism as “the stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel), and discrimination (how we act) toward others or oneself based on age.” The workplace can be rife with generational stereotypes, with headlines constantly decrying both Gen Z and Millennials as “the worst colleagues” (and also sometimes, puzzlingly, “the best”), while also insisting that Baby Boomers retire to free up jobs for those younger folks. And while many, Tinsley-Fix says, wrongly peg those 45-55 at “late career” and 55-65 in “decline,” in fact, “people 65 plus are the fastest growing segment of the workforce.”Conversely, age inclusion is “when a team or organization creates policies, tools, and culture that enable people of all ages to thrive without needing to navigate age-based stereotypes, prejudice, or discrimination.”An effective leadership team will build a complex, inclusive culture where workers of all ages and stages can thrive. It’s not only a kind choice, it’s what Tinsley-Fix calls “a value creation strategy hiding in plain sight.” The depth of experience and skill sets in an age-diverse workforce, whether technical, professional, or durable human skills, creates major opportunities for employers who can unleash those synergies. The best results occur when people from different life and career stages work together to define problems and create solutions. Having workers of different ages allows you to connect with a wider customer base and gives you a more nuanced knowledge base to call on.“Having workers of different ages is also a talent management necessity,” Tinsley-Fix said. In the near-term, workers 65+ are the fastest-growing portion of the talent market, but over the coming decades, more people will exit the workforce than will enter it. AARP posits that “declining population or labor force participation rates among younger workers may lead to talent shortage. Retaining older workers (considered age 40+) can help employers address this challenge.”Learning to Work TogetherContrary to popular belief, the five generations in the workforce work well together. “Data shows that multi-generational teams perform better when they’re managed well than teams which are more age-siloed. In companies that utilize mixed age work teams, the productivity of both older workers and the younger workers is higher than in companies that do not use mixed age teams,” Tinsley-Fix said. “That myth that productivity declines as we age is based on measuring individual productivity rather than team productivity. Mixed age teams outperform teams on things like decision-making, creative tasks, and complex problem solving.”With this in mind, it’s important for leaders to encourage generativity, which is defined as “a person’s interest in and dedication to establishing and guiding the next generation.” Gerhardt encourages cultivating “gentelligence,” the idea of helping people have smarter intergenerational conversations. This shows up at work through co-creation, providing expertise freely, setting up organizations for success, consulting, coaching, and mentoring.The panelist spoke about "Leveraging Generational Diversity: Moving from Ageism to Age Inclusion" during the webinar (photo by From Day One)“This can also show up just in how people approach conversations,” said Ainsworth. “Is a conversation between people of different generations seen as transactional, or do they approach it with a sense of curiosity in order to co-create value and the culture that they want to be working in?”Creating an Organization That Supports Generativity“An age-diverse workforce left to its own devices is not necessarily going to be more productive,” Gerhardt said. “It has the potential to be, but like almost all forms of diversity, that rests solely on how well it's managed and led. And that includes the cultures and climates we're creating.”It’s important to encourage intergenerational interaction since it may not occur naturally, Gerhardt says, as employees often work their way up through the ranks alongside colleagues similar in age who become their friends. This lack of relationship-building can lead to age polarization. And without regular proactive exposure to other generations, stereotypes can flourish. Encourage employees to “see the value that every generation brings,” Gerhardt says, and build out a benefits package that offers perks specific to every stage of life, from student loan repayment to childcare, elder care, retirement, and more. And determine the level of psychological safety for each age group and career stage, noting that low levels of safety can result in disinterest or even concern about sharing knowledge.Much of this comes down to helping different generations understand each other better in order to strengthen trust and collaborate effectively. “I think it’s a myth that our younger generations aren’t interested in listening or learning from people who are older. I think it’s that how they want to communicate, learn, and listen has changed,” Gerhardt said. One example she shares is that Gen Z grew up having all the answers at their fingertips, so if they don’t immediately receive the “why” behind something—like why it might take 18 months to get promoted—it can impact their psychological safety. That doesn’t mean a workplace needs to cater exclusively to the young, but it should be extra mindful to have inclusive communications that account for all learning and work styles.Gerhardt suggests proactively creating opportunities for those significantly older and younger to collaborate on meaningful work where diverse expertise is needed for success. “Generativity comes from being curious,” Gerhardt said. Smarter intergenerational conversations can be sparked by “Gentelligent” power questions like: “How would you approach this? Can you help me understand that perspective? What barriers can I help remove for you to reach this goal?”Generations at WorkAn age-inclusive organization should:Welcome workers of all ages and value their experienceLive by the mantra that everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learnBe flexible, recognizing that longer lives mean loopier career pathsSupport caregivers with leave, resources, and other benefitsManage differences and celebrate similarities across multiple generationsNot put people in buckets or make assumptions about them based on ageAARP just launched Generations at Work, a new tool packed with resources to help you take action to build and leverage a multigenerational workforce. It guides you through a self-assessment to help you create a customized plan based on your existing strategies and future priorities; provides free resources to help you executive each of three key actions; and ensures you distill your learnings and bring them back to the team.AARP believes setting a handful of targeted goals to improve age inclusion makes us more likely to achieve the changes we seek. Leveraging a multigenerational workforce requires us to consider actions across HR, both with teams and individual employees. Learn more and create your customized plan at https://employerportal.aarp.org/generations.Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, AARP, for sponsoring this webinar.Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.

Peer Coaching: Unleashing the Potential for Better Performance

RELATED STORIES

The Role of GLP-1s in Employee Benefits

Conversations: The Currency of the Future

Leveraging Generational Diversity: Moving from Ageism to Age Inclusion