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What do you do when someone on your team struggles with a specific task?
You may have found various issues across your organization through a detailed skills gap analysis. Maybe it's a salesperson struggling to close deals or a new software engineer using a coding language they've never been exposed to. A considerable 18.9% of HR and L&D professionals ranked upskilling and reskilling as a top priority for 2025. Employee skills must continually improve to set your organization up for long-term success.
Learning new skills can sometimes feel perpetual. Employees can easily be stuck in a never-ending learning loop, taking in new information without applying what they learned and improving their work performance. These loops lead to wasted resources and frustration for employees who want to grow their careers and earn more money.
So, how do you prioritize skills improvement with defined goals, frequent feedback, and performance evaluations?
Corporate coaching programs educate employees through focused training around a specific challenge. Building a strategic coaching program will be an effective tool as HR and L&D leaders strive to shape company culture and improve goal attainment. If your organization already uses a mentoring platform, corporate coaching can complement it by offering targeted, skill-based development.
This guide will cover how to make a coaching program that exceeds company expectations and builds a positive learning culture at companies.
Ready to create and refine your company’s corporate coaching program? Download our eBook on best practices for running a successful workplace coaching program.
What is corporate coaching?
Corporate coaching programs help companies by pairing employees with professionals with specialized expertise. This coach can help employees on a short-term basis with tools, training, and feedback that focuses on a defined challenge or issue the employee is having.
Coaching at work gets your employees off that never-ending learning path by pairing employees with a professional who knows their specific needs, aspirations, and learning styles. Work coaching focuses on reaching specific goals and implementing new behaviors. Employees learn from an experienced professional who can teach them useful strategies they can't get by taking a general course or watching video clips online.
FYI: If you are looking for an experienced professional, many companies find success by tapping into the knowledge that already exists within their organization. Instead of relying solely on external coaches, they match employees with internal coaches who understand the company’s culture, challenges, and growth paths. This approach often leads to more relevant and scalable coaching programs.
Benefits of coaching in the workplace
Employee coaching programs often require a significant investment of time and internal L&D resources. While some organizations also invest financially, especially when using external coaches, the bigger challenge is often the coordination and long-term upkeep. So, what makes it worth the effort? A well-designed coaching program can boost productivity, close skills gaps, and help preserve institutional knowledge.
Corporate coaching boosts productivity
Every company has a different strategy for improving the number of hours employees work on meaningful tasks. For organizations with well-defined goals and objectives to hit, a well-built coaching program can skyrocket productivity. Coaches are a powerful tool that allows employees to become efficient workers, stay motivated, and reach their full potential.
Coaching can be personalized
Have you ever tried to listen to a lecture as a visual learner or take a lab as an auditory learner? We all have a unique learning style that we gravitate towards. Many programs don't consider preferred learning styles.
Coaching typically involves structured and personalized elements. This flexibility allows a wide variety of participants to get involved. Coaches will present information most effectively as they get to know their coachees.
Workplace coaching closes skills gaps
The skills landscape is changing constantly. According to LinkedIn, employees have to learn skills like AI literacy, adaptability, solution-based selling, growth strategy, and innovative thinking in order to compete today. In the next few years, employees will need to learn a mix of hard and soft skills that might not be readily accessible. Pairing a skills gap analysis with a strategic coaching program can help you close business-essential gaps and curate a successful workforce.
Coaching helps organizations pass on institutional knowledge
What happens when experienced employees leave your company? Organizations of all sizes face challenges with institutional knowledge. Whether employees retire or take a new opportunity elsewhere, key information often stays locked within certain teams or individuals. When that knowledge isn’t shared, it can slow down onboarding, create confusion, and affect long-term performance.
Outside of boosting documentation, pairing senior and junior team members together with a workplace coaching program helps spread some of the knowledge and helps you maintain longevity.
Coaching reduces turnover
Do your employees feel supported at work? It’s challenging for employees to stay when they feel like no one is investing in their growth. Coaching programs reduce turnover by investing in team members. Employees want to stay longer at organizations that put an emphasis on learning and development.
Workplace coaching examples
Building a workplace coaching culture can be challenging if you've never seen a working program. From programs targeting leaders to upskilling, these companies have built valuable programs that have impacted their employees:
- Marriott has two programs. The Voyage Leadership Development Program is designed for recent university graduates, while the Marriott Development Academy is intended for aspiring managers who want to take on leadership roles.
- Procter & Gamble's leadership programs include the Ignite Training Program and the P&G Leadership Academy. They use a mix of experience-based learning; colleagues, mentors, and peers; and structured courses to develop and upskill workers.
- Wells Fargo has built a Practice Management & Leadership Development Program. This program provides group learning and coaching programs to help workers improve their personal skills, modernize their practices, and gain new clients.
- NASA offers career counseling and coaching services to help employees grow their knowledge and skills. As NASA fills many of its openings, it looks internally first. When employees take part in coaching at the agency, they increase their chances of taking on new and exciting roles.
Should You Use A Coaching Software Or Create Something Manual?: Companies like Cruise Automation and First Horizon have scaled their mentoring and coaching programs using Together. Using technology helps programs run smoother by:
- Systemizing the matching process and eliminating bias.
- Letting you gain helpful insight about the health of your programs and demographics.
- Automating manual processes so you can scale your programs to meet demand.
Types of corporate coaching
Employee coaching programs impact every level of the employee experience. From onboarding to executive coaching, your programs can hit every employee level and skill type. You are not limited to one-on-one coaching either. Group coaching can be an effective way to mentor employees and take advantage of the expertise on your team.
- Executive coaching: Helps senior leaders improve decision-making, strategy, and leadership.
- Performance coaching: Helps clients overcome challenges, create action plans, and boost productivity.
- Career coaching: Guides individuals in skill development, career planning, and goal setting.
- New employee coaching: Assists new hires in acclimating to the company culture and understanding their roles effectively.
- Team coaching: Enhances collaboration and communication within teams to improve collective performance.
- Skills coaching: Focuses on developing specific competencies required for an employee's current role or future responsibilities.
- Leadership coaching: Equips current and emerging leaders with the skills needed to manage people, navigate change, and drive team success.
- Coaching for managers: Helps first-time or experienced people leaders improve communication, team-building, and feedback delivery.
Coaching styles in the workplace
All of your coaches will deploy different coaching styles based on what they are good at and what works for the employee. It’s important to assess style preference when matching your corporate coaching participants.
How to launch a corporate coaching program
Launching a corporate coaching program can be straightforward if you have the right pieces in place. If you want your participants to be successful, start by setting the right foundation, making it easy to join your program, and providing the right resources for team members who join.
Create goals for your coaching program
Like most employee initiatives, coaching programs need to start with a goal in mind. If you don’t take time to address why you are building your program, you won’t be able to know when your organization has hit its goals.
An example of a goal is Amazon’s Upskilling 2025 initiative, which was originally launched to help 300,000 employees between 2019 and 2025. Amazon introduced a range of programs, including the Amazon Technical Apprenticeship and AWS Intelligence Initiative, to support employees in making meaningful career changes into more technical roles. According to company-released figures, the Upskilling 2025 initiative has now supported over 350,000 U.S. employees.
Your goal doesn’t have to be as ambitious. Something simple like, “We want to help 70% of our sales team attain quota two quarters in a row by establishing a six-month sales training program,” works.
You can also reference mentorship program goals and objectives examples to help shape your coaching initiative with similar structure and clarity.
Streamline the registration process
If you want to maximize the amount of participants in your program, make registering a breeze.
We suggest opening up registration for coaches earlier than coachees. Once you know how many coaches you have, you can get a better understanding of how many pairs you can host in your program.
During the registration process for coaches, be sure to ask if they are open to taking on more than one employee or creating a group program. Knowing this information will allow you to take on more participants if needed.
Promote your program across channels
Promotion is an essential aspect of a successful coaching program. Whether this is your first time running the program or your tenth, tell your employees about it.
Omnichannel promotion is a key strategy for a successful launch. Just because you posted about it in the company Microsoft Teams announcement channel does not mean people heard about your program.
- Talk about the program in meetings
- Post an announcement in the company newsletter
- Print out flyers to hang around the office
- Host a lunch and learn to share what employees can expect
- Post about the opportunity on your company’s intranet
The best strategy for creating buzz is getting other people to discuss your coaching initiative. For example, get senior executives to share in town halls or ask managers to tell their direct reports. Hearing the news from several people will get more workers excited about joining.
Don't discount the importance of directly asking an employee to join as a coach or coachee. The ability to share your knowledge with employees or get coached by an expert in your field is huge. Some of the most qualified people in your organization won't apply because they don't feel qualified. Let them know you see them and want them to join.
Match participants and celebrate pairings
Don't let the excitement fade once you get participants excited about your program. Match your coaching groups so participants can get started right away.
The matching process is integral to the corporate coaching experience, but you don’t have to spend hours sifting through profiles with colleagues hoping to find a match. Coaching software (like Together) helps you match participants based on goals, experience, and shared interests, so matching takes seconds instead of days.
Send a quick email introducing your pairs and set up expectations around follow-up. The most common expectation is that coaches will reach out to the participants they are guiding.
Provide resources through a repeatable coaching curriculum
Coaching programs work best when they follow a structured curriculum that provides consistency, clarity, and support for both coaches and participants. Instead of starting from scratch each time, build a standardized toolkit that can be reused with each new cohort.
Here’s what to include in your coaching program materials:
- Kickoff templates: Set the tone with goal-setting worksheets, conversation starters, and first-meeting agendas. You might also include a coaching plan template to help participants outline session goals and track progress.
- Session guides: Provide a weekly framework with reflection questions, skill-building exercises, and suggested discussion topics tailored to your program’s goals.
- Supplemental content: Share curated podcasts, training clips, readings, or webinars to reinforce learning between sessions.
- Check-in materials: Include templates for midpoint surveys or self-evaluations to help track progress and course-correct when needed. Encourage self-assessment and help participants track personal growth.
One essential resource is an expectations document that outlines what success looks like for both coaches and coachees. Set clear guidelines around:
- Time commitment (e.g., two hours weekly)
- Where and how sessions will be held
- Coach/coachee responsibilities
- Outcomes participants should aim to achieve
This repeatable curriculum supports consistency across cohorts and ensures your program isn't just happening; it's driving real, measurable impact.
Measuring the impact of coaching
As your programs run, how will you be able to tell if it's a success? Tracking and measuring the program before, during, and after it runs is essential.
Gather analytics during the registration process
Use questions in your registration survey and data from your registration survey vendor to understand questions like:
- How did people hear about the program?
- How many people saw your application?
- How many people filled out the application?
- How many coaches and coachees did you end up with?
Understanding these numbers will help you gauge interest and find the best places to advertise your program next time.
Send regular surveys and gather feedback
During the program, gather regular feedback from your team. At minimum, you need a mid-point survey and a survey at the end of your program. If possible, collect feedback after every meeting.
These surveys should include a mix of quantitative and qualitative questions so you can compare answers and get unique feedback from each participant.
You should ask questions like:
- How has your coaching relationship been developing?
- Has the program met your expectations so far?
- Are you reaching the goals you set at the beginning of the program?
Another useful question is asking participants to rate the different sessions in your program. Once you have a significant number of ratings, you will see which parts of your program are most effective.
Track what participants do after their program ends
After the program is over, your journey isn't. The goal of a coaching program is to train employees in a skill. If you have a leadership development program, track which employees become leaders after participating.
For example, if your program includes Human Resources coaching, you might track whether HR professionals report greater confidence in navigating organizational change or implementing new policies after their sessions.
A mentoring tracking system or similar coaching-specific tracking approach can help you quantify the long-term impact of your program.
Corporate coaching FAQs
Here are some common questions that HR and L&D professionals have when building their corporate coaching programs:
What is the difference between coaching vs. managing?
If your employees already have a manager, you might wonder why they need a coach. While managers can provide coaching, they often default to what moves the business forward now. The daily movement of work doesn't always allow for strategic thinking and building career plans. Coaching gives your employees a chance to get strategic and learn skills that will carry them into the next phase of their careers.
What is the difference between coaching vs. feedback?
Coaches give feedback, but not all feedback is coaching. Feedback happens after a task or action has been completed. Coaching is forward-thinking and gets employees to make better decisions in the future.
Should we use internal or external coaches?
For the most part, internal coaches are a best practice. Coaching and employee engagement often go hand-in-hand, and part of that is the connection between two employees. However, there are certain situations where an external coach is required. For example, when you are coaching a high-level executive like a CEO or CTO, it makes sense to hire an external coach to build their skills.
Boost your employee experience with employee coaching programs
There's no doubt about it. Coaching has powerful benefits for teams who want to improve skills gaps, leadership, onboarding programs, and more. Building a successful coaching program that employees are excited to join cohort after cohort takes planning and practical software solutions.
Launching your coaching and development program is within reach. Download our eBook that features best practices for running your coaching program, or book a demo to see our software in action.
