Saudi Arabia-based Walaa Cooperative Insurance Company established its Walaa Academy two years ago. The training academy features a variety of new programs and courses that were implemented by the company for the first time, including its Employee Coaching Program for junior managers.
Program Details
Led by an external coach brought from a coaching institute overseas, the coaching program was designed to include multiple one-to-one coaching sessions, workshops, and peer feedback.
The external coach used various coaching techniques to provide a unique visual representation of employee personalities, which enhanced their self-awareness and deepened their understanding during the coaching sessions. Initially, the coach used the Lumina assessment—a psychometric tool that that uses a “whole-person” framework rather than forcing people into categories or archetypes; it measures 24 specific personality sub-factors and maps them across four core colors that represent various commmunication and work styles—to understand where each coachee stood in order to plan subsequent coaching sessions.
Each coachee had a separate series of coaching sessions designed specifically to address their needs and create a roadmap for their future. A coaching portal also helped them visualize their strengths and areas of improvement and address their fears.
Following the program, half of the coachees expressed interest in becoming coaches, feeding into Walaa Cooperative Insurance Company’s aspiration to have its own coaches deliver the program in the long term.
Results
After the junior managers coaching program, feedback from direct reports and team members indicated that 90 percent of the participants showed improvement in leadership behaviors such as better listening and communication skills and team motivation, which resulted in better team engagement.
In addition, the junior managers’ leadership effectiveness scores rose 30 percent, and team performance improved by approximately 20 percent.
