I’m going to let you in on a little secret. If you’re a current or former member of the ICAEW, you might be missing out on an excellent (and free) career development benefit from caba (which stands for the Chartered Accountants Benevolent Association).
Despite being around for over a century, surprisingly few Chartered Accountants know about its offerings. So let me explain a little about caba, the accounting world’s best kept secret.
What is caba?
Caba is a charity whose aim is to support the wellbeing of ICAEW members and ACA students, as well as their close family and dependents. Caba helps members through:
- Emotional support
- Health and career support
- Coaching
- Career development
- Mental Health support
- Financial assistance
- Legal advice
- Debt advice
How exactly does caba help?
Caba provides support through several helpful channels:
- Online courses and workshops help members with financial and career skills
- Support helplines and apps can provide 24/7 assistance to those in need
- Informative guides and blogs tackle topics such as mental health and physical wellbeing, career and financial advice
But perhaps the highest-value offering that caba provides is free one-to-one coaching through their associated network of world-class personal and professional coaches (including me).
What does caba coaching offer?
Caba has 14 incredible coaches supporting it. They have a wide range of specialties (you can see them all here) but what I can do is give you a brief run-down of a typical coaching programme that I work on with my caba clients.
Typically, my clients come to me when they need clarity on where to go next. Either they’re unsure of what they want to do next in their career, they want to move up in the organisational ladder, or they want to stay relevant, or even ahead of the curve, in the fast-changing world of finance. I use my professional coaching training and background as a former Microsoft finance director to help them solve these challenges.
In order to help my caba clients to improve their careers and effectiveness, I focus on 1 or 2 of four key areas over 5 fully funded sessions: Career coaching, Work and personal effectiveness, Future of finance readiness, and Corporate coaching.
Career Coaching
Through career coaching, I provide my clients with the framework and tools to discover their own unique value. We clarify long-term goals, along with the short-term strategies to achieve them. Then I help coach my clients to find their ideal role and discover the path they need to take into work that they love.
Work and Personal Effectiveness
Work and personal effectiveness coaching helps my clients to find the perfect balance between work and life goals. We discuss how to remove daily blockers to supercharge productivity. This helps my clients create effective boundaries that allow them to spend more time on the things that matter most.
Future of Finance Readiness
The world of finance is changing, and 60% of today’s finance jobs will either be heavily automated or cease to exist in the next 10 years. That’s why I provide guidance on how to get ready for the new and exciting future of finance. I work with my clients to help them understand the key trends in finance modernisation. From there we design a development plan based on personal skills and strengths that will help my clients to future proof their finance career. We look at which options are most suited to their interests, and where they can learn the skills they need to stay relevant.
Corporate Coaching
Finally, I help finance leaders and executives with a more senior level of coaching to help them to improve themselves and their teams. In our sessions, we explore ways to overcome the daily challenges and blockers within their role. We focus on their organisations, stakeholders, strategy for success and even finance transformation. This helps my clients to bring their best selves to their organisation each and every day, while building world class finance organisations.
Interested in caba coaching?
If you’re eligible for caba support, you can click here to see caba range of personal and professional coaches. And if you’d like to get started working with myself, or any of the other brilliant caba coaches today use this form to get started.
