ReUp Education and 15Five Kona AI Coach: Empowering Managers for Measurable Impact

The Challenge: Structure and Feedback

Before implementing 15Five, ReUp Education, an EdTech company helping adult learners complete their degrees, was working on their management structure. They wanted a consistent process for one-on-one meetings, since most felt a bit more informal and reactive. As one director stated, meetings often began with, “What are we gonna talk about?” leading to struggles consistently providing feedback and connecting  employee performance to broader company goals.

What did this challenge impact?

• Accountability: without a documented record, managers questioned whether they had been clear in their instructions, making it challenging to hold employees accountable for their work and professional development.
• Mental Energy: Managers had limited focus, trying to remember key points and take notes during conversations rather than being fully present with their direct reports.
• Coaching: Without a more formal coaching framework, these sessions became unquantifiable and subjective, leaving managers without a clear way to track their own growth and effectiveness and understanding the impact on their direct reports

The Solution: 15Five’s Kona Coach

ReUp implemented 15Five’s AI coaching feature, Kona, first as a pilot program and now to all managers across the company. Kona automatically joins one-on-one meetings, transcribes the conversation, and generates a concise summary, complete with key topics discussed and suggested action items.

Kona also provides managers with proactive, real-time coaching and feedback before and after each session. The coaching and feedback are based on areas where they would like to improve, as well as data inputs from engagement surveys, previous one-on-one conversations, business system inputs, and other data sources accessed by the AI agent. 

This AI transformative approach provided managers with:

• Automated Note-Taking: By delegating note-taking to Kona, managers could focus entirely on the conversation and be more “attentive” and “present” with their direct reports.
• An Unbiased Source of Truth: Kona’s unbiased summaries provided managers with objective evidence of what was discussed, eliminating “they said” disputes.
• Proactive Coaching Insights: The platform provides managers with timely reminders and suggestions to ensure they consistently address essential topics, such as professional development and aligning work with company objectives.

A Seamless Change Management Process

ReUp’s implementation of Kona was designed to be low-friction and was highly successful. The technical setup took only a few minutes and was done seamlessly. In terms of change management, that was also simple, quick, and easy. Managers were provided with pre-written language to introduce the new tool to their direct reports, addressing potential concerns about privacy and recording. 

For most employees, the initial apprehension quickly dissipated, with Jennifer Sobocinski, Senior Director of People & Culture, recalling one manager noting that Kona “just became like wallpaper” in their meetings: ever-present but no longer a distraction. The ability to pause the recording for personal conversations also helped build trust and comfort over time.

The Results: Empowered Managers and Streamlined Workflows

With 15Five, ReUp’s managers now have a powerful tool that has fundamentally improved their leadership.

Improved Managerial Habits

N’Digo Kali, Director of Learner Services, found that Kona’s insights led to better outcomes for her team:

“Because of Kona, I make sure at the very end to recap. Are you gonna do this by this date? I’m gonna do this by this date. Next week we’ll talk about this. So it just makes more structure, and it makes it…it feels more effective and efficient.”

Enhanced Confidence

For Mercedes Taylor, Integrated Campaigns Marketing Manager, Kona acted as an unbiased mentor that boosted her confidence in difficult situations:

“Kona really helped validate for me that okay, hey, I was doing a good job, and that was great to hear…It kind of felt like a little extra mentor that like… my boss can’t hear what I’m saying to this individual. Nobody else is hearing it. And so how do I know I’m actually doing what I need to do and growing in that regard.”

Seamless Workflow and Action

Joanna Costello, Director for Analytics, appreciated how Kona’s insights seamlessly integrated with her existing workflows to provide value:

“Out of the feedback from Kona, I have developed an internal checklist of things to do in one-on-ones… It’s just helpful to have that in the back of my head in every one-on-one of like–those are 3 things that I should be doing regularly.”

Ryn Blecke, a Manager of Learner Services, noted that the AI’s guidance influenced her behavior even when it wasn’t actively listening:

“Even when I wasn’t using Kona, Kona trained me to be more focused in my one-on-one.”

With 15Five, ReUp has transformed an informal process into a streamlined, data-backed system that empowers its managers and strengthens its organization.

Learn how 15Five can help you empower managers. Book a demo.