The Relational Work Index

The hardest part of work is almost always another person, and 30,000 coaching conversations show what development is missing

Across nearly 30,000 coaching conversations, the single most common thing employees ask for help with is not a skill but a specific colleague and a real conversation they need to have. That pattern holds at every role level, and this report surfaces where hard conversations break down and what HR and L&D leaders can do about it.

What You’ll Take From This Report

  • Where employees ask for help and where they don’t: What the data reveals about where most development programs are aimed.
  • Where hard conversations break down: Employees score 4.07 on composure and only 2.63 on reaching resolution.
  • What the colleague question means for development budgets: Why most L&D investment funds the wrong end of the problem.

The question this report answers is not whether your employees can handle a hard conversation. It’s whether your programs are helping them finish one.

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Cloverleaf is the only AI platform that coaches the relationships between people. Built on 13 market leading behavioral assessments and a patented relationship intelligence engine, Cloverleaf delivers personalized coaching to every manager, direct report, and team in Slack, Teams, Workday, email, and the AI assistants your teams already use. Proven across 45,000 teams with 86% of users indicating improved team performance within 30 days. For more information about Cloverleaf, please visit www.cloverleaf.com

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