Coaching Client FAQs

What is the Mission of The Hive Professional Network?

We provide people and organizations with the insights, coaching, and mentoring they need to become who they are meant to be so they can grow and evolve to realize their true potential in work and in life.

We do this by helping them connect and engage coaches and mentors who are right for them using our proprietary matching algorithm on our safe, secure, and inclusive platform, and through our strategic partnerships.

What is a Hive?

Hives are primarily how we group different focus areas of coaching. For example, they can be common functional areas of organizations like Sales or Marketing, or they can be for areas/communities of interest such as Trades or Indigenous. Clients choose the Hive that best suits the type of coaching they are seeking. Coaches choose the Hive that best suits their offering(s).

A future update to The Hive will enable both to belong to multiple Hives.

Why should I join The Hive?

Matching Algorithm: Unlike a Google Search, The Hive’s matching algorithm only displays Coaches who provide the type of coaching services you are looking for, reducing your search time. We will be enhancing the algorithm in future updates to The Hive based on Client and Coach feedback
Multiple Coaching Hives in one place: No single coach will meet your all of your personal or professional development needs. Great Coaches are very clear about what, how, and where they can help you improve, hence, their offerings are targeted to specific areas of improvement. Over time, as your needs and what you want to focus on changes, you will be able find the next Coach to help you.
Accessibility: The platform makes it easy for Clients to find and hire a Coach from anywhere in the world, at any time, from the comfort of their own home or desk at work.
Trust and credibility: The Hive provides a secure, safe, and inclusive marketplace for Clients and Coaches to Connect and Engage. We will not share or sell your information with any third-party, ever. Any third-party platforms we integrate will be via Single Sign-On (SSO) and only share what is minimally necessary to make the integrations work.
Influence the future direction of The Hive: While we have a road-map for the capabilities and features (see below) The Hive will offer, we will be engaging both Clients and the Coaching community to ensure we continue to enhance and evolve The Hive to meet the needs of everyone who has joined us on their journey

What’s the sign-up process?

Watch this video as Greg walks you through the sign-up process.

What should I consider hiring a Coach?

The benefits of hiring a coach include making better decisions around competency development, building your confidence and your value proposition to employers, enhancing communication skills, improving decision-making, and so on.

According to Randstad, nearly everyone sees coaching as valuable.

Moreover,

According to a study by Manchester Inc, 72% of people who received career coaching reported an increase in their self-confidence.
Another study by the International Coach Federation found that 78% of people who received coaching reported an improvement in their work performance.
A study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that career coaching can lead to a ROI of up to 5 times the cost of the coaching.
A study by the International Coach Federation (ICF) found that the average return on investment (ROI) for career coaching was 5.7 times the cost of the coaching.
A study by the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Massachusetts General Hospital found that career coaching can lead to positive changes in self-esteem, life satisfaction, and job satisfaction.

Coaching is an investment in yourself.

What types of Coaches will I be able to Connect and Engage on The Hive?

The Hive accepts coaching in pretty much any personal or professional development category. The current list of Coaching Hives are viewable on the Home page.

If you don’t see a Coaching Hive that meets your needs, send an email to Admin with “New Coaching Hive” in the subject line. We are adding new Hives all the time and we’ll add it to our list of possible Hives.

What is The Hive’s matching algorithm and how does it work?

Both Coaches and Clients answer the same set of questions, but from different perspectives. Based on both sets of responses, the algorithm will match Clients to prospective Coaches who they can then contact to find the one that is best suited to their needs. Clients may contact more than one Coach before they make a final decision. Coaches are not permitted to pressure Clients through unsolicited follow-ups on whether they have decided in their favour.

Coaches also cannot solicit clients directly on The Hive. This was a choice we made to ensure that Client privacy remain at the centre of all engagements, starting with which Coaches they choose to Connect with to meet their personal and/or professional development needs.

We will be refining our algorithm over time to ensure you only get presented with the Coaches best suited to your needs.

What should I consider in making the best choice in a Coach to fit my needs?

We have prepared a workbook to help you select a Coach that best fits your needs.

The Hive also offers an optional Individual Strategic Contribution Assessment (ISCA), which assesses people on three dimensions:

Attachment: are we more relationship-oriented or content-oriented?
Exploration: are we more exploratory or control and optimizing focused?
Managing Complexity: are we more of a specialist or more big-picture/generalist?

Attachment and Exploration get at how we think about and how we solve problems.

The ISCA report is accompanied by a Competencies Profile Report; there are thirty-eight different competencies that apply in every workplace. How exactly these competencies manifest will be different for each of us. This report provides insights into how they manifest for your profile. This has shown to be extremely valuable for putting together a personalized professional development perspective before connecting with and selecting a coach. You can read more about the ISCA here.

What is the process for providing feedback or making a complaint about a coach?

For complaints send an e-mail to Admin.

In a future update we will be implementing a Coach Ranking system where you can rate your experience with supporting comments. Coaches understand the importance of poor rankings and negative comments as it has a direct effect on potential clients looking for a coach, so that ought to lead to very few circumstances that would require a complaint.

It is possible that after engaging with a Coach, you find it is not a good fit. Both you and the Coach will need to address this. Most Coaches have clear positions on when then happens so both can disengage gracefully. It is recommended you get clarity from any prospective Coach on how they would handle situations like that and make it part of your selection criteria.

What is the process for discontinuing coaching sessions due to a complaint?

That will depend on the agreement you have with your Coach based on the Coaching Package you purchased. Some packages will be per coaching session, where you control how many you schedule, while others may contain a set number of sessions that are locked in once you start.

Choose a Coach and coaching packages that a best fit for your needs and financial parameters.

If the reason for discontinuing is based on a complaint about the coaches behaviour or actions, please send an email to Admin with a detailed description of the issue along with any screen shots or documentation you may have to support your claim. We will get back to you within 48-72 hours.

Filing a complaint ought to be the last resort, not the first. Please try to work it out with the Coach first as we are all capable of poorly communicating our intent. Most Coaches understand the importance of a good Client-Coach relationship as their business depends on it.

Depending on the nature of the complaint or the number of complaints, a Coach may be banned from the platform.

Will my personal information be shared or sold?

The short answer is no.

We will collect only the required personal information necessary for the purposes of providing access to the features and capabilities of The Hive Professional Network.

To provide the best experience possible we are forging strategic partnerships with world-class vendors whose products we will integrate into our platform. Those integrations will be done through Single Sign-on to make it as seamless as possible for Clients and Coaches to use the platform. Where more than a sign-on token is needed, we will update our Privacy Policy as we roll out each integration.

Our goal is to share none of your personal information with any third party, and where it is unavoidable, to only share the minimal set required to make the functionality work, and to inform you when that will be the case.

What features are available or will be available through The Hive?

Currently available:

Registration and profile setups
Paid subscriptions and promo codes
View Coaches who have matched to your profile
14 available Coaching Hives. See website main page for current list (scroll down). More Hives will be added over time – if don’t see one that fits your coaching services send an email to Admin

Coming soon (with no additional logins necessary for Coaches or Clients):

Scheduling linked to both Client and Coach calendars
Integrated video for virtual coaching sessions

Coming near-term:

Coaching ranking system
Communities linked to Coaching Hives
Private Hives for Corporate Clients
Private communities for Coaches