ENNL
Menu
← All articles

Working with multiple coaches: how to set it up properly

Working with multiple coaches: how to set it up properly

Two coaches align their approach

Do you work with other coaches, for example as a duo on a team engagement, in a small practice or with a regular stand-in? Then you need to get three things right: the form of the collaboration, the agreements with your client and how you handle confidential data. In this article you'll read, for each element, what to put in writing, where things often go wrong and how to set up your practice so that every coach sees exactly what they need. No more and no less.

Exantur
exantur.com
Bring your coaching team together
Exantur brings client engagements and practice management together, with teams and roles for practices that work with multiple coaches.
Discover Exantur

In short

  • First choose a collaboration model: referring on, working with associates, or operating together under one brand. Then put money, roles and handovers in writing.
  • Tell your client in advance which information you share, with whom and why. That's part of good contracting.
  • Do you use software that stores client data for your practice? Then a data processing agreement with that provider is mandatory under the GDPR.
  • When co-coaching a team, agree on roles, signals and debriefs before the first session.
  • A shared workspace with roles and permissions prevents notes from ending up scattered across emails, chat messages and loose folders.

Table of contents

What do we mean by collaboration between coaches?

Collaboration between coaches takes various forms in practice. Each calls for different agreements. These are the situations we see most often:

  • Co-coaching a team. Two coaches support a team or an executive group together. One leads the conversation, the other observes the group.
  • A small practice with multiple coaches. Three or four coaches work under one name, with a shared calendar and shared clients.
  • Working with associates. An independent coach runs engagements on behalf of your practice.
  • Referring on. You send a client to a colleague with a different specialisation, for example from career to leadership.
  • Cover and handover. A coach becomes unavailable or stops, and a colleague takes over the engagement.
  • A coaching pool within an organisation. A company deploys multiple internal or external coaches for its employees.

With team coaching it's good to keep the goal clear. According to the Praktijkboek teamcoaching by Boers and Lingsma, team coaching is about increasing the team's awareness and capacity to act. It's about the patterns and interactions within the group, not just the development of individual people. That makes it different from team building, where connection and a shared experience are central, and different from training, where you practise predetermined skills. Teamchange also describes the goal as a team that becomes more self-reliant and can tackle future challenges itself.

If two coaches work on such an engagement together, you need to agree on that goal. Otherwise one pushes the team forward while the other holds back.

Three ways to set up your collaboration

For a practice with multiple coaches there are roughly three models. The Associatie voor Coaching suggests this sequence: first choose the model and then put contracting, payment, responsibilities and handover in writing. Here's what that looks like in practice:

Model Who holds the client relationship? Who invoices? What to watch out for
Referring on The coach you refer to That coach themselves What you pass on at the referral and whether the client agrees to it
Associate under your practice Your practice, the associate delivers Your practice Who owns the notes, which method applies, what happens if the collaboration ends
Together under one brand The practice as a whole The practice or each coach separately Shared rules for quality, privacy and the split of revenue and costs

Referring on

This is the lightest form. You keep working separately. The key question is what you hand over. Often a brief, warm introduction is enough. You don't need to send along your session notes, and usually that isn't wise anyway.

Working with associates

Here the client relationship sits with your practice. The associate delivers the work. Put in writing which method and materials the associate uses, where notes are stored and what happens to those notes if the associate leaves. Also agree whether the associate may later approach your clients themselves.

Together under one brand

This feels like a real practice. Clients see one name, one approach and one quality level. That only works if everyone follows the same basics: the same intake, the same way of taking notes and the same rules for sharing.

Agreements to put in writing in advance

Much of the tension between coaches doesn't arise from the coaching itself, but from things no one had agreed on. These are the points you'd best put in writing:

  1. Roles per engagement. Who is the lead coach? Who is the point of contact for the client organisation?
  2. Money. Who invoices, how do you split the proceeds and who pays shared costs such as software?
  3. Contracting with the client. What does the coaching agreement say about collaboration, cover and sharing of information?
  4. Access to information. Who may see which notes, goals and documents?
  5. Cover. What happens if a coach falls ill or goes on holiday?
  6. End of the collaboration. Who keeps the client, where does the data go and how quickly is it deleted?
  7. Quality. How often do you hold peer supervision or supervision, and how do you measure whether the coaching is working?

For point 3 you can start with our free coaching agreement generator. Add a section to it about collaborating with other coaches. With the cancellation terms generator you make sure all coaches in your practice apply the same rules for cancellations. That saves disputes with clients who hear different rules from two coaches.

Confidentiality: who may see what?

In a collaboration the question "what do I store?" turns into "who sees what?". That's the heart of multi-coach working. The professional associations are clear on this. NOBCO and EMCC see confidentiality as an active duty of the coach: you explain in advance what you share and with whom. Technology doesn't change that duty.

NOBCO reports that the new international ethical code for professional coaches takes effect on 1 July 2026. That code emphasises contracting, responsibility, confidentiality and the use of technology and AI. If you're a member, read the code and check whether your agreements still fit.

What your client needs to know in advance

The EMCC guidance on coaching using technology and AI requires that clients know which information you collect and for what purpose. For a practice with multiple coaches, that means concretely:

  • Tell them that more coaches work in the practice and whether they can view notes.
  • Explain when you discuss a case in peer supervision or supervision, and that you do so anonymously.
  • Make clear what the client organisation or employer does and does not hear.
  • Ask for consent before you share information with a covering coach.

With team coaching there's something more. Research into team coaching from the University of Pretoria calls confidentiality an especially complex issue, particularly when reporting back to the rest of the organisation. What is confidential must be made clear and contracted. Agree with the team and the client organisation which reporting you share: themes only, or also progress per person?

Handover to another coach

A covering coach is not a gap in the calendar you fill. Trust matters more than a free slot. Discuss the handover with your client first. Then share only what the new coach genuinely needs: the goals, the agreements and the action points. Your first impressions and personal observations usually don't belong there.

A handy rule: write your notes so that you can split them. What is factual (goals, actions, agreements) is easier to hand over than what is personal (your own interpretations).

Factual notes are shared, observations stay confidential

The GDPR in collaboration: who is responsible?

The GDPR is the European privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation. Coaches work with sensitive information about work, relationships and sometimes health. As soon as you work with more coaches, you have to determine who is responsible for what.

The GDPR has two roles:

  • Data controller: the party that decides why and how data is processed. Usually that's your practice.
  • Processor: the party that processes data on your behalf, such as a software provider.

If two parties jointly determine the purpose and the means, they can be jointly responsible. The guidelines of the European privacy supervisors (EDPB) provide separate rules for that. This can apply when two independent coaches operate together under one brand. In doubt about your situation? Then ask a privacy lawyer for advice. The distinction determines which agreements you need to make between yourselves.

Do you use software that stores client data for the practice? Then the Dutch Data Protection Authority says a data processing agreement is mandatory under Article 28(3) of the GDPR. Both parties are liable if it's missing. Such an agreement covers, among other things, the purpose, the duration, the type of data, security, confidentiality, the use of other providers, data breaches and deletion.

Note: a data processing agreement does not automatically make your practice GDPR-proof. You must be able to explain yourselves why you store data, who has access and how you delete it. You can find the full legal text via the GDPR page of the Dutch Data Protection Authority. For a practical overview, see our GDPR checklist for coaches.

Coaching a team together

Co-coaching is powerful. A team sees two people who collaborate well, and that in itself sets an example. But it requires preparation. Here's how to approach it:

  1. Brief beforehand. Before each session, agree who leads and who observes. Decide what to watch for: who talks, who stays silent, which patterns recur.
  2. Agree on a signal. How do you let the other know you want to step in or that it's time to stop? A simple agreement prevents you from correcting each other in front of the group.
  3. Roles per moment. A coach who asks questions works differently from a trainer who sets exercises. Train de Trainer explains that difference: a trainer transfers knowledge, a coach helps the client find their own solutions. Agree who takes which role and when.
  4. Debrief. Right after the session, compare what each of you saw. Record observations, insights and action points in a place you can both access.
  5. One face to the client organisation. Choose one coach to report. Then the client organisation gets one story, not two.

A common mistake: each coach keeps their own notes, in their own notebook or app. After three sessions no one remembers which agreement the team made. A shared file per engagement solves that.

Maintaining quality as a team of coaches

More coaches means more differences in style. That's fine, as long as the basics are the same. For a coaching pool, the Associatie voor Coaching mentions, among other things, selection, training, peer supervision, supervision, quality assurance and a way to measure impact. For a small practice you can keep it simple:

  • A fixed intake. Every coach uses the same intake form. That way you can compare engagements and hand them over more easily.
  • A fixed note structure. Agree on what you record: observations, insights, breakthroughs and action points. Then a colleague will understand your notes too.
  • Peer supervision at fixed moments. For example once a month, with anonymised cases.
  • Follow-up between sessions. Look together at which clients pick up their action points and where things go quiet. Our guide on improving accountability gives practical steps for that. Accountability here means: the client sticks to what they agreed themselves, and you can see whether that's working.
  • Making results visible. What can you show the client organisation without sharing confidential content? Think of goals achieved and the number of completed action points.

Want to know where your practice stands right now? Take the practice health check. In a few minutes you'll see where the weak spots are.

From loose files to a shared workspace

Many small practices start with a shared folder, a spreadsheet and a group chat. That works until the third coach joins. Then you see these kinds of problems:

  • Notes sit in one coach's email and can't be found when that coach is ill.
  • Everyone can see everything in the shared folder, including files that don't concern them.
  • A client gets check-in questions from two coaches, or from none at all.
  • When a collaboration ends, no one knows which files need to be deleted.

For every solution you consider, check these points:

Question Why it matters in a collaboration
Can you set per coach what they see? An associate doesn't need to see all the practice's files
Is everything kept together per client and per engagement? Handover is faster and more careful
Is there an activity log? You can check who did what
Where is the data stored and is there a data processing agreement? Required for the GDPR
Is login extra secured? MFA (logging in with an extra code, for example via your phone) protects you if a password is leaked
Does the client see their own portal? The client knows where their goals and assignments are, regardless of which coach they speak to

Want to see first what your current separate tools cost per year? Work it out with the coaching software stack calculator.

Our view on collaboration between coaches

We speak with many coaches who start a practice with one or two colleagues. Almost always the first conversation is about money and clients. The second conversation, often months later, is about notes. Who may read them? What happens to them if someone stops? That conversation is better had up front.

We built Exantur around the coaching relationship, not as a general customer administration system (a CRM). You notice that precisely in a collaboration. An engagement belongs to the client and the practice, not to a loose inbox. Notes are structured, so that a colleague can read them. Goals, action points and check-ins sit with the right engagement. And anyone who shouldn't have access doesn't see the file.

Our conviction: good collaboration between coaches starts with clear boundaries. Software can support those boundaries, but you have to draw them yourselves and explain them to the client. That's why we tell you honestly that our software, too, doesn't automatically make a practice GDPR-proof. It does help you do it well.

Martijn

How Exantur helps a practice with multiple coaches

Exantur is a workspace for coaching practices, from the first intake to the final report. For practices with multiple coaches there are teams and roles, 360° feedback, team analysis, insight into the outcomes for the client organisation and an activity log. Each client gets their own portal for goals, progress, check-ins and shared documents. The data is stored in the EU, in Frankfurt, with segregated environments per organisation, MFA and a data processing agreement. If you want to work under your own brand, take a look at white-label coaching software.

The plans range from Mini at €19 per month to Practice at €199 per month (€1,990 per year). An extra coach costs €25 per month. There is a free trial period. View all plans on the pricing page or first read more about coaching practice management software.

How Exantur helps a practice with multiple coaches — overview diagram

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between team coaching and coaching by multiple coaches?

Team coaching is about who you coach: a team as a whole, with a focus on collaboration and patterns within the group. Coaching by multiple coaches is about who coaches: two or more coaches running engagements together. The two often occur together, for example when two coaches support an executive team.

May I share notes with a fellow coach?

Only if your client knows about it and agrees, and only what your colleague genuinely needs. Put this in your coaching agreement. For peer supervision, discuss cases anonymously.

Do I need a data processing agreement if we use software together?

Yes, if the software provider processes client data for your practice. The GDPR then requires a written data processing agreement. If you work together as independent coaches under one brand, also have it checked who is the data controller.

What should I arrange when a coach leaves the practice?

Agree in advance who keeps the client, what happens to the notes and within what timeframe data is deleted or transferred. Inform the client and ask what they want. Disable the departing coach's access immediately.

How do I prevent two coaches from working at cross purposes?

Use a shared file per engagement, a fixed note-taking structure and a lead coach per client. Hold a brief check-in before and after each session. That way everyone knows which agreements apply.

Sources

Recommendations