EXECUTIVE AND BUSINESS COACHING - THE EVIDENCE

Coaching is a relatively new profession

Are organisations getting a return on their investment in coaching?

Coaching is still a relatively new profession and its recent explosion in popularity has been fuelled largely by anecdotal evidence, word of mouth recommendations and the coachees' assessments of its value.

However, we are starting to see some more formal evaluation of its usefulness. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development have recently carried out surveys among their members to answer the following questions:

• Who is using coaching?
• Are they using internal or external coaches?
• How effective do they believe coaching to be?
• How do they measure this?

The current position

In the words of the CIPD report, the rise of coaching has been so "meteoric" that it has been hard to keep track. Based on the most recent CIPD survey:

• 88% of companies surveyed use coaching by line managers
• 64% use coaching by external coaches.

Companies also reported that they planned to increase the use of coaching in the future.

Does it work?

When asked about effectiveness, 84% of companies deemed coaching by line managers to be effective or very effective.

92% of companies judged coaching by external coaches to be effective or very effective.

The benefits were seen as follows (with the percentage showing the number of respondents who agreed with the statement):

Coaching can deliver tangible benefits to individuals and organisations - 99%

Coaching is an effective way to promote learning in organizations - 96%

Coaching and mentoring are key mechanisms for transferring learning from training courses back into the workplace - 93%

When coaching is managed effectively it can have a positive impact on an organisation's bottom line - 92%

How did the organisations assess the benefits of coaching?

Although it can be a challenge to provide absolute proof of a link between coaching and business improvements, the companies surveyed were confident coaching had a clear value to them.

These are examples of the targets against which improvements were measured:

• Achievement of business key performance indicators/ goals
• Measures of increased skills
• Quantifiable business improvements
• Increased sales per full time employee
• Time taken for new recruits to reach minimum performance levels
• Quality levels
• Reduction of sickness absence
• Cost reduction

Companies also considered:

• Review against objectives set for coaching
• Feedback from the people being coached
• Feedback from line managers/peers
• Feedback from people the coachee managed
• Feedback from clients

Although it can be a challenge to provide absolute proof of a link between coaching and business improvements, the companies surveyed were confident coaching had a clear value to them.

The Challenges

The difficulties the companies surveyed mentioned were finding good, qualified external coaches and (for internal coaching) providing training and finding the right people to be their internal coaches.

If you would like to discuss these findings or would like help implementing your own coaching program, please Contact Us