FAQs for Businesses considering The Hive

The Hive Professional Network (The Hive) provides businesses with a platform that connects their employees with coaches for personal and professional development. Here are some frequently asked questions to help businesses understand how our marketplace works and how it can benefit their employees.

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 we consider enabling out employees to hire a coach?

The potential benefits to corporations of hiring external coaches for their employees can include improved employee performance and productivity, improved leadership skills, increased employee retention and engagement, better communication, and collaboration within and across teams, as well as more innovation and creativity, both individually and collectively. Some even cite improvements in organizational culture. These are tangible changes that can affect your organization’s top and bottom lines.

It’s no wonder, as Randstad’s study confirmed, 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 invaluable for professionals looking to step up their game and gain new perspectives on their career and goals as well as helping develop the competencies needed to achieve them.

We also offer Strategic Diversity Analytics to enable teams perform better by providing insights into:

Individual natural preference in contributing to performance
The dynamics between different team members
Team characteristics based on individual contributions and dynamics.
Connecting team characteristics and the strategic objectives of the team.

Knowing their strategic vulnerabilities will enable them to identify what may be needed from other areas of the organization or the need to conduct strategic hires and/or contract temporary consulting services.

How does The Hive work?

Our marketplace works by providing businesses with access to a pool of coaches who specialize in personal and professional development. Businesses can sign up for the marketplace and then offer coaching services to their employees as part of their benefits package.

Employees can then access the marketplace and select a coach (refer to the Selecting a Coach PDF) based on their individual needs and preferences.

How much does it cost to use The Hive for my business?

For corporate pricing contact our CEO, Jason.

The cost to each employee for coaching services will be based on their chosen coach and coaching package. Coaches publish their coaching packages and fees on The Hive. We provide a Selecting a Coach Workbook to help your employees capture their professional development goals and to select a coach that is a best fit for their professional development goals and financial parameters.

What types of Coaches will my employees 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 is viewable on the Home page.

If you don’t see a Coaching Hive you feel your employees may need, send an email to Admin with “New Coaching Hives” 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 your employees answer the same set of questions, but from different perspectives. Based on both sets of responses, the algorithm will match an employee to prospective Coaches who they can then contact to find the one that is best suited to their needs. They may contact more than one Coach before they make a final decision. Coaches are not permitted to pressure potential coaching 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 Clients only get presented with the Coaches best suited to their needs.

What are the benefits of using the The Hive?

There are numerous benefits of using The HIve. For businesses, providing coaching services to their employees can lead to increased employee engagement, job satisfaction, and productivity. It can also help attract and retain top talent, as well as improve employee loyalty and job performance.

As well, The Hive has unique benefits that other coaching platforms do not:

Matching Algorithm: Unlike a Google Search, The Hive’s matching algorithm only displays Coaches who provide the type of coaching services your employees are looking for, reducing their 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 an employee’s personal or professional development needs. Great Coaches are very clear about what, how, and where they can help a Client improve, hence, their offerings are targeted to specific areas of improvement. Over time, as your employee’s needs and what they want to focus on changes, they will be able find the next Coach to help them without ever leaving The Hive.
Private Hives: A Private Hive will be unique to a business. The normal coaching Hives will be open to any Coach or Client seeking a Coach. A Private Hive, open only to your employees, will be a place for them to share what they are learning from their coaching experience with other employees in your company.
Virtual Conferences: The Hive will host optional Virtual Conferences for your business geared to coaching and professional or personal development themes that you and employees choose. We will provide the keynote(s) and presenters.
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 company or Client 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 do Coaches need to provide to join The Hive?

Coaches need to complete a profile of their coaching services that covers:

Problems they help clients solve
Solutions provided
Coaching process
Positive outcomes their clients experienced
What their clients say about them
Coaching fees

We are also implementing a ranking system for Coaches. 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. In the unlikely situation where a complaint against a Coach does take place, we will ensure a fair and reasonable resolution which could lead to censure or removal of the Coach from The Hive.

All Coaches are either independent or work for coaching companies.

Will my company or employee information be shared or sold?

The short answer is no.

We will collect only the required business 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 as well as notify our all of our customers.

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.

How do employees schedule coaching sessions?

Once an employee has selected a Coach, they schedule a coaching session through the Hive App.

Is there a minimum number of coaching sessions required?

The number and nature of coaching sessions are based on the Coaching Packages of each individual coach and the coaching client’s choices. Part of the selection process for a Coaching Client is to select a Coach that best matches to their needs and financial parameters. We cover that in the Selecting a Coach Workbook.

How are coaching sessions conducted?

We recommend all coaching sessions within the video conferencing capability provided by The Hive, unless in-person is possible and preferred.

What if an employee doesn’t feel comfortable with their coach?

See our Coaching Client FAQs for more

How is confidentiality maintained during coaching sessions?

All coaching sessions held using The Hive’s video conferencing capability, and are recorded in the unlikely event that a coaching Client needs substantiating proof of unprofessional conduct by their Coach. For The Hive to view them, we will require signed authorization form the coaching Client with an indication of the rough time in the coaching session where it occurred. Only authorized Hive staff will be permitted to view the session content and only the part(s) necessary to validate the claim of unprofessional conduct by a Coach. All videos will be automatically removed on a preset schedule.

Can coaching services be customized to meet the specific needs of our business?

Yes. Most coaches and coaching companies are used to customizing their offerings for clients.

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