The program has yielded a 31% higher year-over-year retention rate among participants compared to their non-coached counterparts, Wellstar Chief Talent Officer Laura Dannels, PhD, told Becker’s.
“We know that some of the greatest leader challenges in healthcare are at the front-line and midline levels,” Dr. Dannels said. “We’ve always had very robust leadership development programming, but we wanted something that could be much more personalized for our leaders.”
Over the past two years, Wellstar has paired more than 500 employees with a leadership coach through its partnership with Sounding Board, tailoring coaching to individual needs. What was launched as a pilot program for executives has expanded across the workforce.
“Traditional executive coaching programs tend to only be available for senior leaders or executives,” Dr. Dannels said. “This democratizes coaching, bringing it to the front-line leader level, in some cases even team members.”
One standout aspect of the program is its flexibility for shift-based workers. While executive coaching is typically available only during standard business hours, Wellstar built options for nurse managers to access coaching sessions overnight if needed.
Goals and strategy
The program is designed to develop leaders in alignment with Wellstar’s mission, vision and values, strengthen the leadership pipeline to support succession planning, and foster a culture of innovation and adaptability, particularly as the system embraces a digital operating model.
Each coaching cohort has targeted objectives based on leadership needs.
“For succession planning, we focused on groups of leaders that were essentially the most ‘stuck’ in the organization,” Dr. Dannels said. “When we looked at mobility rates, we targeted leaders at the executive director and AVP level.”
The system has also deployed coaching during interim assignments.
“Say we have a high potential leader who’s in an interim, stretch assignment,” she said. “For example, they’re stretching as a COO at one of our hospitals, and they’re typically an executive director in a smaller role. We want to provide coaches for those interim leaders and interim development experiences as well.”
Measuring success
Based on internal feedback surveys, 96% of participants said the coaching made a significant impact on their growth, and 99% said they can immediately apply their learnings to daily work. Coachees also reported growth in specific leadership capabilities, including a 16% increase in strategic planning. One-year retention was 90% among participants.
This marks the highest level of satisfaction of any investment in leadership development Wellstar has made, Dr. Dannels said. She attributed its success to personalization, scalability throughout the system, and direct alignment with business needs and Wellstar’s goals.
A cost-effective solution
“Executive coaching does not have the same price tag it had five, 10, 15 years ago,” Dr. Dannels said. “Because we can use a digital platform like Sounding Board, it’s brought the cost down so substantially that we get a higher return on investment than a lot of our more formal and traditional leadership development programs.”
The program is designed to complement rather than replace traditional initiatives, she added.
“The voice of our leaders has been loud that this was the greatest ROI they’ve had in a leadership development program,” she said. “For us, we’re all about keeping people at the center of what we do.”