Even half of employees have symptoms of work oriented stress. WithMe research project funded by the European Union and Tekes (2013-2016) researched, how well individual coaching can help to reduce stress and stress related symptoms. 19 companies and research institutions participated the research, including partners from Finland, Belgium and Spain. In Finland, the responsible partner was Technical Research Centre of Finland.
One part of the research was to give holistic wellness coaching for the employees of the city of Oulu, Finland. The targets were defined based on a motivating interview and an individual coaching program for reducing stress. There were two 25 persons groups. The other group got coaching based on both phone calls and Movendos mCoach on-line coaching tool. The other group got phone coaching only. The coaching included a 4 months’ intensive coaching and a 5 months’ independent coaching. The coaching in Finland was conducted by Mawell Care Ltd.
The results were very good. With help of individual remote coaching the level of mental wellbeing got better in both groups – from risk level to good level. In the group of Movendos mCoach, the commitment for coaching was higher, customer satisfaction better and the drop out rate lower compared to the comparison group. The research included measurements of mental wellbeing and stress levels, but also measurements of the time coaches used for remote support, changes in health behavior and motivation and commitment to the coaching tasks.
Individual remote coaching is an efficient way to reduce work related stress and stress symptoms. Utilizing high quality on-line coaching technology increases the commitment for life habit change. Based on the coach experiences, the on-line technology enables holistic collection of information in a systematic and effective way, which makes it’s easier to focus in terms of coaching. A huge benefit was also the better understanding of customer’s life situation and needs. With mCoach the individual coaching tasks were much easier to be defined compared to the other group (only phone support).
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