Anthony Onesto argues that the future of workplace coaching will combine AI and human coaches, with AI becoming the first-line coach that employees can access 24/7 (if they opt in) and human coaches serving as an escalation point. He grounds the argument with personal mentoring experiences and cites workforce coaching statistics ("over 70%" of coached employees see performance improvements; companies report "up to a 29% increase in profits" after implementing coaching). He predicts AI coaches will integrate with workplace tools (email, Slack/Teams), apply many coaching frameworks in real time, and hand off to live coaches when needed.
Questions this video answers
Anthony Onesto.
May 2, 2024.
Over 70%.
Up to 29%.
Chapters
What is the future of coaching in companies? I think it's a combination of artificial intelligence and humans. Here's my quick drop everyone. It's Anthony Yunus. This is my burn the box drop for this week. It has been a while folks, but I've been really thinking about and actually debating and discussing in email and chats whether or not artificial intelligence will replace coaches. So here's my position. I do believe that artificial intelligence, not as it is today, but as it exponentially grows, grows and gets better, will become the first line of coaching for employees. Now before you jump on the oh my goodness, you're so wrong. AI can never replace humans. Listen, listen to my, my position here. So right now the way coaching stands is if I go to an individual and I have a coach. So it's not like I don't believe in coaching. Of course I do. I think coaching is probably has the largest impact in terms of employee performance and it's coaching like from a leader, from an outside person, from a designated person. I think coaching is incred. It's been incredible in my career where I did not have experiences. I found coaches that had the experiences that I was looking for that can help guide me. But those coaches that I had. And so just so folks know, when I joined FreshDirect I didn't really understand the HR experience in an hourly workforce. And so I seeked out the head of HR at JetBlue at the time, Blue Startups, Vinny Stabile, Rest in peace, Benny has passed since and then Artie Nathan who was the head of HR for Wynn Resorts. Any CAS was built by Steve Wynn. Artie was the main people person helping to scale that both an incredible knowledge of the hourly workforce and were really great mentors and coaches for me through that experience and continue to this day although Artie is now retired but anyway really critical for me. But in both of those cases they had what in neuro linguistic programming calls a map. They had an area of experience and expertise that were, you know, it's not unlimited. It was limited in terms of, to their exposure. So they were coaching based on their experiences and their best practices. Now think about AI. If AI again this is all if can incorporate, you know, interactions that I have here at Suzy anywhere in my life, all these sort of things and then has unlimited access to frameworks. Whether it's radical candor or you know, anything with a, with a, with a personality test, all these sort of different coaching frameworks grow framework whatever the frameworks are, if it has unlimited what it could do is look at all the experiences, all the situations that I'm involved in, even the most current situations, if there's real time data and apply which one of those frameworks actually will help out the best. So I do believe there's going to be a future here. Folks, let's, before I dive super into the conversation here, let's look at the numbers. It's not only Anthony thinking coaching is important, there's actually data to support it and actually there's research that indicates over 70% of employees who undergo some sort of coaching see notable improvements in their job performance. 70%. I think it's even more, I think anyone who doesn't have a coach is not really getting the guidance that they need. Companies implementing coaching report up to a 29% increase in profits, 29% increase in profits by instituting coaching. And they report also higher employee engagement. Of course they do. And coaching supports leaders at all levels. So whether you're an individual contributor or you're a leader. I was the head of HR for FreshDirect and these two individuals were my mentors and coaches and they helped me. So again, this concept of mapping really limits the human coach. Now a human coach, I don't think AI at least, and I say this a lot, not yet will take on those nuances that a human can take on in terms of coaching. So I'm not saying that AI is going to completely replace coaching. I think what we're going to see is that there is AI coaches that are going to accompany folks throughout their employee experience. Whatever's out there, you can tie it into your email, your Slack, all of it for the employee to be able to share with the AI code. So nothing that's going to be shared with the employer, but all this information shared with the AI code. So that way when they go on and I see this happening in Slack or teams wherever people are already where they go in and say, hey, I have to talk to my boss tomorrow and I've been struggling or I'm going in with this client and I've been struggling to figure X, Y and Z out and the AI coach is going to guide them based on the experiences there, the infinite amount of frameworks that that can AI coach has. Now there's going to be a point and this happens often. My, my wife specifically calls up a customer service and a lot of the customer service frameworks are now automated frameworks and she does get frustrated at some level and yells out operator. I think there is going to be a world where employees are going to interact with their AI coach, they're not going to get essentially the result that they want or the guidance that they think they need. And they're going to figuratively yell out operator. And that's going to connect to a live coach. As Andrew mention McAfee and Eric talk about in their book published years ago called Race against the Machine, the equation is going to be the machine and the human. I think that is going to be but again, when I look at these things, I think the AI is equipped to be able to look at all references of all your data again if the employee opts into it. Unlimited frameworks doesn't have that map or the territory of their experiences and can provide frameworks that will actually impact that individual. So I do think, and when I say the future, I think it's going to happen this year already talking to a couple of solutions that provide AI coaching or will provide AI coaching. I think in the future it's going to be AI first again. The other thing here, by the way, is on a Saturday or Sunday, if you're thinking about things, you can reach out to your AI coach 24 7, 365 that coach is not only pulling data and is almost in real time again, if the employee allows it, that employee will have access to that coach at any time whenever they have that need and then is going to be able to yell out operator and get to a live human coach. I think that's going to be the future of coaching for employees and I'm really, really excited for it. That's my quick drop. Subscribe to Burn in the box on LinkedIn and we'll see you next time.
