Lillian Liang Emlet: [00:00:00] Welcome to the transforming healthcare coaching podcast, where we bring you guidance and coaching perspectives so that you can level up in your life and work.

Klaus Grim: I’m Klaus Grim, your host for today’s episode on Return on Investment by Working with a Coach. And I’m thrilled to be here with you. Our mission at Transforming Healthcare Coaching is to revolutionize healthcare by empowering clinicians and leaders like you to thrive both at work and in life. I’m excited to introduce you to our guest speaker today, Gillian Faith. Gillian, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Gillian Faith: Hi, I am Gillian Faith and my healthcare experience comes from Rehabilitation Services as a clinician and also a clinical leader in both Scotland and the USA. I have also spent years in Human Resources Management. I like to work with clinical managers, healthcare executives, and also [00:01:00] clients who are experiencing overwhelm and stress. They may be dealing with conflict or they may have important decisions or transitions to make.

Klaus Grim: Alright Gillianian. How would you define return on investment in the context of coaching for healthcare workers?

Gillian Faith: So I believe there’s a few different ways to look at this and it really depends what the client is seeking in a coaching relationship. And in terms of coaching and healthcare, we do a lot with well being, where we help to reduce turnover, increase job satisfaction, reduce burnout, that kind of thing. But then there’s also the more performance related ROI in terms of leaders and managers who perform better in their positions. We can have better team collaboration. Which leads to better patient outcomes, we can have stronger cultures in teams and in units and [00:02:00] basically higher performing organizations and departments.

Klaus Grim: I agree with what you just said, Gillian, in terms of, when we talk about return on investment, I think a lot of what we’d like to talk about is from, a healthcare organizational standpoint, like you mentioned, as well as the healthcare professional themselves. So from a organizational standpoint, I think you hit on it. Reduce turnover costs. There’s people leaving because of job satisfaction. And you can save money on recruiting, onboarding and training new employees, for instance. If you’re getting people who love their job, there may be less call outs for sick days or or just not showing up to work in general because people are just living healthier, better work life balanced lives. Then from the, one on one coaching packages that we work with our health care professionals, we help people have better work life balance and achieve more well being in their life, which ultimately reduces [00:03:00] burnout, increases job satisfaction and ultimately helps create a positive work environment. So I think you touched on this investment being, multifactorial.

Gillian Faith: And I think one of the most critical positions are the clinical manager positions.

Klaus Grim: You work with a lot of healthcare professionals, but also leaders and CEOs and managers could you explain the return on investment in terms of coaching for them?

Gillian Faith: So I think in terms of clinical managers, the return on investment for the individual themselves, but also for the organization can be huge. Clinical managers play very critical roles in keeping departments and units running. They’re also in a position to really influence whether other staff, stay and work in the unit or want or choose to leave and go somewhere else. It’s a well known fact throughout any industry, actually, that, people tend to [00:04:00] leave managers more than the lead companies, and it’s the same in healthcare but the clinical managers, I think especially have, they’re juggling a lot of different issues and different demands. And I feel that they are really crucial to the success of the organization and they really can benefit from either one on one coaching or being part of a group.

Klaus Grim: Yeah. And I find that a lot of people look up to health care managers or managers in general, as you spoke to, and if they’re leading by example, and actually benefiting themselves from job satisfaction and work life balance, that essentially creates a trickle effect on to their employees and can really inspire and change departments.

Gillian Faith: If we can reduce turnover and increase satisfaction for managers, you’re looking at, they may have 10 employees that they’re responsible for, they could have 50, they could have [00:05:00] 100. So the ripple effect really is something to consider when we’re thinking about ROI on coaching.

Klaus Grim: Gilliian, I’m curious. What are some of the key indicators of a successful coaching program for our healthcare teams.

Gillian Faith: I think a key indicator would be that we as coaches bring solutions, we can sit down with a client and we can have a coaching session. Is this actually going to solve a problem that they have or help make something better? So I think, one of the key indicators is as coaches, we bring options, we help people gain awareness around what’s going on for them and we can then explore options. We can help with decisions. And coaches are usually very forward focused. We like to move the action forward. And we like to have an [00:06:00] ROI and we like to know what that is.

Klaus Grim: Yeah I like that. And I think it always depends on the goals and the mission of the healthcare organization we’re working with or the professional that we’re working with one on one. And that success comes from; what is that client or that team developing as awareness? And what are they achieving in the process of the coaching engagement? Because everybody’s goals and visions are completely different. And this is completely unique to each of the programs we tailored towards each client and the organization we work with. But I think that at least here at transforming healthcare coaching, that we do see, and these are some of our key indicators, but we do see improved employee performance. We do see higher job satisfaction among employees, more engagement, and these things also turn around and help improve patient outcomes. And, as we mentioned earlier, we work with a lot of leaders, so we see enhanced leadership and teamwork, which, all in all, really, If we think of return on investment, we think of [00:07:00] cost savings, and we think of, decreased turnover, as we talked about earlier they all go hand in hand,

Gillian Faith: Right. And the bottom line is better patient outcomes. And if we look after the health care providers then that has to have a direct impact on patient outcomes and satisfaction.

Klaus Grim: Yeah. And I think that what we find, and at least what we try to empower with our clients and our teams, is to create sustainable changes, not just a one time fix. You’re not coming and saying, hey, transforming health coach coaching, we need changes in our patient satisfactions, for instance, or helping improve, the workplace culture. We want to make sure we create sustainable changes that are actually multifactorial, that, hey, we’re not just helping achieve a more positive work environment, we’re also here to help, reduce turnover, we’re [00:08:00] also here to help your clinicians and your nurses and your healthcare workers live better lives, which in turn helps them, provide better patient care and represent your organization authentically.

Gillian Faith: I think that’s well said, Klaus.

Klaus Grim: Thank you. So to get into the next question here is how would you say healthcare organizations and individuals justify the costs of a coaching program?

Gillian Faith: I do believe that if we have a clear idea of how a coaching program can help, I think there’s going to be significant ROI. So really the coaching program should pay for itself. If somebody has significant shift in the way they handle stress. And, we’ve talked about turnover on and off turnover is very expensive. It’s a very high dollar amount. So if we can show that we do have an impact on [00:09:00] reducing turnover once again, the coaching will more than pay for itself.

Klaus Grim: And I think oftentimes you just mentioned that benefit often outweighs the initial investment. And you’re right, turnover costs are expensive, like for hiring, recruiting, training. And then one thing that comes to mind as well is burnout. If you’re people who are suffering burnout or have more stress and anxiety practicing at work are more likely to make a mistake at work and mistakes happen all the time but you never want to make a mistake when it’s in terms of somebody’s life, right? Coming from an emergency medicine background you’re making, very difficult decisions in the snap of a finger and if you can decrease that burnout, you decrease the likelihood of a bad, wrongful decision, which A saves in malpractice. But also prevent you from making that decision that may always be in the back of your mind when you could have said, maybe there was something I could do differently. So that’s [00:10:00] one thing that kind of comes up to mind as well.

Gillian Faith: And as consumers of healthcare, we want to turn up at the hospital or the clinic or whatever and know that, we’re being taken care of by healthcare professionals who are functioning well that day. Like you say, especially in the ER or the OR where, mistakes can be costly.

Klaus Grim: Yeah, so that speaks a lot to kind of healthcare organizations, but I’m curious, how can a healthcare professional who is just learning about what coaching is all about justify the costs of hiring a coach?

Gillian Faith: One way to receive coaching that’s less expensive is to join a group coaching program and transforming healthcare coaching does offer group coaching. The benefits of that tend to be a reduced cost, but also you get to know other people. You have peers, you can hear different perspectives and learn from other people. And if somebody was in a [00:11:00] group program and they wanted to continue with individual coaching, once they had learned really what the benefits are and what the potential could be, then absolutely they can shift over to an individual coaching relationship.

Klaus Grim: Yeah. And the way I like to explain to people as well is, how much would it cost you to have this big dream or goal that you may have, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And for some people that’s Oh, I’d pay, half my savings for that, for instance, and I’ve had clients come up to me telling me that, that this should have cost a lot more than it actually did. And one thing that here at Transforming Healthcare Coaching that we offer as well is the ability to seek CME reimbursement through your employer and we’d encourage you if you’re interested in that to reach out to us at transforminghealthcarecoaching.com through a discovery call to talk more about that, but that’s one way that that cost could be maybe mitigated [00:12:00] and at the same time, reaping the rewards of a better future.

Gillian Faith: Some organizations do have professional development dollars and perhaps would be willing to spend that on personal coaching for healthcare professionals. It’s another way to think about how, this coaching can be paid for.

Klaus Grim: Yeah totally. So I’m curious. What long term benefits can healthcare workers and organizations expect from investing in coaching?

Gillian Faith: So I think we’ve touched on some of these things already. We’ve talked about improving retention, decreasing burnout, improving leadership skills, improving communication. So there’s many benefits and we’ve talked about coaches aiming to obtain sustainable change or work with the client so that they can get to the point where the change and the habits are sustainable. So if we think about that, then there are many long term benefits, both [00:13:00] for the organization and for individual healthcare providers.

Klaus Grim: I think we did hit on it before, but like the separation between the organization to the individual, but I agree with you. There’s a big joint benefit, as you had mentioned, and, from adaptability and resilience that people can get from this to that sustainable growth that you had mentioned. And really enhanced communication collaboration. I think these are all things that are long lasting as a result of working with a coach from both, like I said, a team and individual perspective. So, Gillian, I’m curious here. What are some common challenges health care organizations face when implementing a coaching program?

Gillian Faith: I think some of the challenges are first of all, not everybody understands what the potential outcomes can be from, having a coaching program. So I think there’s some education needed and some conversations needed in terms of what does this really look like? And, what’s [00:14:00] the frequency, how does it actually work?

Klaus Grim: And I think some of the challenges come from coaching being unfamiliar to healthcare. I think that there are some big organizations that have used coaches, but the word coach may be a little bit unfamiliar or the definition might be a little different from the perspective of how we do coaching at transforming healthcare coaching and how we follow ICF ethical guidelines and our kind of coach training and upbringing through core energy coaching. And then I think resistance to change that a lot of healthcare organizations or professionals may be resistant to adopting new kind of practices or changing in a culture versus kind of the traditional methods that may be used, which may be none at all, actually, maybe just, being left to the wild to deal with issues at home or at work and never see these things, change in a positive manner. There could [00:15:00] also be a little bit of fear of judgment is what coming up for mind right now. So there’s always a bias when people think of, therapy and mental health and addressing your mental health issues. And that could be, I think transcribed into coaching as well. And people may think that they’re being judged or viewed as, inadequate if they’re asked to participate with a coach.

Gillian Faith: Yeah and I would add close that, as coaches, we know that, we are a relationship with a client is nonjudgmental. We don’t necessarily look at things as good or bad or right or wrong. They just are, and the client’s always the expert in their own situation. Coaching has had that kind of a punitive kind of a bias in times gone by where if there’s a performance issue, then somebody might be asked to work with a coach and certainly I think that still happens, but really, that’s not what our coaching programs are all about. Another challenge that I’ve come across is that people have been disappointed with the coaching relationships that they may have had. [00:16:00] And I’ve heard it say that the coach didn’t really understand their situation or didn’t really talk the language. And I think it’s fair to point out at transforming healthcare coaching that all of our coaches are either current clinicians or have been in clinical roles. So we all understand medical conditions and terminology and we can talk the language. And I think that really helps, the teachers and coach training that you don’t really have to be an expert in industry. And I do believe that’s true for a lot of coaching relationships, but I do think in health care, it really helps. We’ve walked the walk and we understand I’ve been a young leader in a role where I felt ill prepared and I would have loved a coach. I’ve also been burnt out and, I certainly would have loved to coach for that as well, but they weren’t available at the time for me.

Klaus Grim: Yeah. I love that relation factor that, each of us can provide to many of our clients. And I [00:17:00] think we had touched this on a previous episode, Gillian, but, healthcare workers are often struck with busy schedules. So how can they find the time to meet with a coach? And that is something that we pride ourselves on is the ability to accommodate to our clients. We have clients that work at night that can only find time to work right before their shift or right after their shift, which may be early seven in the morning or eight o’clock at night, whatever it may be, and oftentimes we accommodate for those reasons. And another thing that’s coming to mind, and I think we touched on this well, as the ability for an organization to see the return on the investment, beacause oftentimes, they just see this as another cost, right? Another cost. And if you don’t think of the return on investment, the things that we’ve talked about, not many people are going to want to invest in such a thing for their employees. And so I guess what I’m thinking about is if there is a leader listening on to this and considering how a coach could help their team or [00:18:00] themselves, I’d encourage them to think about themselves here. See what a coaching engagement can do to them. And then as a result, you may find that it has a lot of effect for your entire team and something that could be really a great resource. So I guess I’ll get into our final question, Gillian. How do you tailor coaching approaches to meet the specific needs of different healthcare roles, like nurses, doctors, PAs, nurse practitioners, administrative staff?

Gillian Faith: Yes, so every time I have a client in front of me it’s a unique situation. So we may use assessments, we may not we may listen to what each individual has to say, sometimes it doesn’t really matter whether the person’s a physician or, a leader in the organization what’s important is how they’re presenting or what they’re presenting to us and what they’re really looking for out of coaching. Some of the issues that we deal with [00:19:00] are the same across different disciplines and other times they’re not. From my point of view, every person that sits in front of me is unique and we take lots of things into consideration. We work together to come up with a coaching approach that’s going to work for each individual person.

Klaus Grim: Yeah, I like that. Here at Transforming Healthcare Coaching, we are all trained to coach anyone through any challenge or goal or vision they may have, and we also understand the unique circumstances of each profession within healthcare, and that we don’t claim to be an expert in understanding everyone’s lives. I think we are that open ear, and that partner, that confidential, comfortable space you had mentioned Gillian and your guide to really live a sustainable, fulfilled, and better life. And we want to be your trusted healthcare professional ally and really [00:20:00] see you transform to the best version of yourself. And by doing so really help change healthcare for the better. Everything, as you mentioned, Gillian, I think is correct. Everything is unique to the client and the team that we are working with. And we are very passionate about, keeping that personable and keeping that vision and mission alive among all our clients.

Gillian Faith: What’s coming up for me is that we may have sparked some people’s curiosity as to, how they could benefit from coaching. And I would just invite you to reach out and book a discovery call and just let’s have a conversation. No pressure basically discover what coaching’s about and how we can meet your particular needs. And for some people it may be a great fit, for other people it may not, but without that discovery call, we’ll never know.

Klaus Grim: I love that call to action. I think we wanna [00:21:00] even add that we’d love to get to know our listeners here, so please connect with us. Transforming Healthcare Coaching is on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. Each one of our coaches is on LinkedIn. You can also send us an email at podcast@transforminghealthcarecoaching.com to just say hello , to hear more about what we offer and how we can help you specifically. And if there’s anything you’d like us to talk about in future episodes. Awesome. Thanks Gillian.

Gillian Faith: Thanks Klaus.

Lillian Liang Emlet: Thank you so much for listening to the Transforming Healthcare Coaching Podcast. If you found this episode interesting or useful, please share this with your friends and colleagues in healthcare, and we will love it if you hit subscribe so that you never miss an episode. Leave us a review on wherever you are listening to us. It means a lot to us and we actually read every comment. Also, we want to help with the topics and problems that you want us to talk about. Email us with suggestions, feedback, and praise at podcast at transforminghealthcarecoaching. com. If you want deeper [00:22:00] support for your life and work as a healthcare clinician and leader, head over to transforminghealthcarecoaching. com and see how we can partner together to meet your goals. Download your copy of our free five reflection questions to jumpstart your journey as you level up in your life and work and get on our email list. Be the first to know about our coaching programs and what’s coming. Together, we can transform healthcare, one person at a time.