Using AI for coaching an individual in multiple skills

Leaders are born or made, is an argument going since ages. Some say they are born and some they are made by training & coaching. Organizations have large teams and it’s not possible to impart a one-on-one coaching, although this kind of coaching gives a human touch and helps in creating a better bond within the team. Using AI for coaching an individual in multiple skills could not only help in scaling up skills, but also could help in building positive skills within teams.

An individual is put under training because he/she lacks some skills that are required to perform a certain work. Every year, knowledge driven organizations do a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) for most of their employees. A typical TNA includes identifying gaps in the knowledge and skills of employees vis-a-vis the skills required for effectively completing planned projects on time. The analysis not only provides a training plan for the individual employees on how to abridge the identified gaps, but, also the soft skills that are required to work in teams. Implementing personalized training for each and every employee to abridge the skill gaps demand bigger training & development budget. This is where using AI for coaching an individual in multiple skills helps at a fraction of the budgeted training & development costs.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning help coach younger generation who are joining the workforce through innovative ways and thereby saving time and money. The AI coaching tools provide quick feedback after every coaching session. Further they help in identifying the need for coaching, linguistic patterns and strategic planning models.

Orai is an AI speech coach that allows teams to have more personalized insights – thereby enhancing the entire team’s productivity and efficiency. The software also delivers customized lessons, measures performance and gives real-time reporting. Several businesses are already using online training programs to train their employees in a better way by giving them a cohesive training experience.

ScaleX.ai last year announced coaching as a service that allows sales representatives and business development representatives to perform better by allowing higher conversion rates. The coaching as a service uses ExecVision’s speech analytics tool to record the conversations done by sales reps and later offers 30 min coaching session per week. This offers asynchronous coaching to the teams.

AI-based eLearning tools will help leaders to train their teams effectively. This will also allow team members to remove their skill gaps and achieve the training goals. When compared with humans, AI can easily gather large volumes of data, analyze it, interpret it and can store it. AI-based tools can identify patterns and help managers make faster data-driven decisions. Managers can now suggest trends and give actionable advice based on the quantitative support given by the AI tools.

We shall soon have coachbots as these bots have a potential of understanding the learning patterns of the trainees and impart coaching accordingly. AI helps in giving more personalized learning experiences as candidates can learn at their own pace based on their learning capacity. AI removes the concept of one-size fits all. Now the entire department need not sit for training. Personalized learning helps in achieving individual goals.

Smart eLearning tools allow the trainers to break the large training modules into small lessons wherein the individual can easily understand and learn. Small quiz, surveys and feedback have become part of the coaching process. AI helps in giving greater insights into these surveys by telling who is actually engaged in the coaching. Task-based on-boarding has proved to be more effective rather than asking people to sit for hour-long lectures.

AI provides the opportunity for virtual training. There is an increase in the number of employees working remotely and for longer hours. Some companies say that remote workers have been more productive than the workers sitting inside the office following a proper day schedule. Bigger companies that have a head office in one place and branch offices in other regions find it difficult to train people all at one time and at one place. AI solves this problem as it supports virtual training and offers training via personal virtual assistants. These training sessions can be attended by anyone – either sitting at home or at the office.

AI helps an individual to improve his/her communication skills as AI-based tools are designed using the natural language processing that allows individuals to learn the skills in their native languages. Adaptive learning is proving to be a powerful way to engage the workforce as it offers personalized learning & development.

Humu is an AI-enabled platform that allows companies to enhance a corporate culture by using behavioral sciences with machine learning. It analyzes company data including demographics, employee surveys and uses the collected data to improve employee happiness and retention rates. It also sends emails to employees asking them to change their behaviors to improve their performance.

With busy schedules, people have become loners and there is an increase in stress levels. AI can be used for motivating and inspiring people who are depressed. Wysa is an AI-based life coach that helps you build emotional strength. It works as if it’s your 4 am friend.

Today, learning is more about flow or connectivity in concepts rather that a set of instructions printed in a book. AI helps in creating learning experiences that are based on individual understanding and creating a “learning journey curve” for them. Feedback and analytics play a major role while coaching an individual. It is necessary for the coach to know whether the individual has learned something or not.

Butterfly is AI-based software that helps managers to learn and develop soft skills. It analyses the reasons behind work problems if they are linked to stress, work environment or is it due to bad communication skills.

There can be a debate who is better – human coach or an AI coach? Experts say that the AI coach will prove to be better as they won’t be biased while training individuals. They can easily understand human understanding level, emotional well-being and even can analyze and report what they have learned at the end of the session. Companies cannot have trainers for every individual, thereby leaving lots of skills gaps to be abridged, which ultimately effects the bottom-line. This is using AI for coaching an individual in multiple skills. Although there are several challenges associated with AI-based coaching, it has several advantages too as AI-based coaching can be imparted to a wider group of teams.