ICF -Vancouver Coach Federation

Congratulations to all the 2009 Prism Award Winners and their coaches!!

Nurse Next Door

(Category - Large Organization)

Nurse Next Door Home Healthcare Services is Canada‘s fastest growing homecare franchise system. The company currently has 26 franchise locations from Victoria, BC to Halifax, NS and is adding approximately 2 new locations per month. Nurse Next Door, while having launched its corporate operation in Vancouver in September of 2001, only began franchising in April of 2007. Wanting to help ensure the success of their local franchise partners, founders John DeHart and Ken Sim saw the value of designing and developing a structured coaching program to help guide new business owners through the perennial challenges of a start up franchise. With the continuous improvement culture and coaching foundation in place, Nurse Next Door brought on its first focused, professionally trained internal coach in August of 2008. The company‘s coaching program is its main vehicle of engaging, motivating and strengthening franchise partners from across Canada. The coaching program has been an integral part in Nurse Next Door winning numerous business awards including most recently being ranked as the 6th best mid-size franchise system in North America through an independent survey of its franchise partners.

Coach: Cassandra Gierden

Kootenay Savings and Credit Union

(Category -Small Organization)

With corporate offices in Trail, Kootenay Savings Credit Union offers a full spectrum of financial services to thirteen branches throughout the East and West Kootenays, $750 million in assets, 40,000 members and 250 employees. In 2005, KSCU undertook their first Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) that resulted in the creation the Career Development Initiative. The goal was to integrate a coaching culture to support their strategic goals and grow leaders throughout the organization. From 2006 through to today, KSCU has undergone significant changes. Coach training, coaching and coach leadership has been integrated throughout the organization – every employee (250) is coached for growth and development and all managers and supervisors have received coaching training. Senior management, supervisory staff and the Internal Coaching Team are designated as the major change agents and are the catalysts for embedding the coaching culture into the various aspects of the organization. As a result of the Career Development Initiative, communication, employee development and performance management are all underpinned with a coach approach. All employees have goals supporting the KSCU strategic direction and their own development and managers and supervisors coach to that end. An Internal Coaching team has been developed that provides ongoing support to all managers. The Internal Coaches and the Senior Management team are coached by external ICF coaches. Coaching is no longer just a tool or application to learn but a ‘presence of being‘ that weaves its way through the day to day communication, overall employee development and the performance management process at KSCU. Coaching is integral to KSCU achieving its vision of being ―the best provider of financial services and the best place to work for in the communities we serve.

Coach: Sue Bock

BC Children‘s Hospital (BCCH), BC Women‘s Hospital (BCW) BC Mental Health & Addiction Services (BCMHAS) are agencies of the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA)

(Category - Non Profit)

PHSA is responsible for managing the quality, coordination, accessibility and cost of selected province-wide health-care programs and services. These agencies collaborated to develop a unique and effective leadership program for front line clinical leaders integrating a comprehensive coaching system. In 2005, BCCH and BCW developed a frontline clinical leadership program. The program consists of a variety of workshops over a five month timeframe in a cohort style model. Coaching is integrated into the program in several ways: workshops where participants learn the coaching process; participants form learning triads and are coached in between workshops; coaching practice is integrated into all the workshops; 1:1 coaching is also offered. In 2006, the three agencies collaborated in a creative and innovative partnership to adapt the program to match the clinical and service context of BCMHAS. This pioneering work was leveraged to transcend the learning across the diversity of these specialized PHSA agencies. The main focus of this leadership program is to shift the conversation around patient safety events from blaming and judging to one of learning. Healthcare requires major systems changes to make care safer and more effective. This program demonstrates the ability to grow leadership and coaching capacity across a complex provincial healthcare organization. These agencies are committed to overall leadership development using an integrated coaching system that supports learning. By bringing these coaching skills to front line staff and exposure to students, it will continue to foster our commitment to achieving a learning organization. As a result of this success, PHSA is committed to the continued development and support of front line leadership by building internal coaching capacity and integrating program coordination across the PHSA.

Coaches: Kathy Taberner and Erna Hagge

Mountain Equipment Co-op

(Category - Honourable Mention)

Mountain Equipment Co-op truly demonstrated a strong commitment to one-on-one coaching for personal and professional leadership effectiveness and development in 2007 and 2008 by offering one-to-one coaching to 35 individuals, assertiveness/coach-like communication skills training to 60 individuals and supported 3 coaching clients to attend CTI‘s core curriculum coaching skills courses.

Coaching is fully supported by their senior management team as an ongoing strategic component of the business plan which is just one of the many ways in which MEC shows that they genuinely care about their employee‘s welfare.

Coach: Sandy Russell

N.B. This article was originally posted on the old ICF website