Cathy Liska 
What are the reasons companies want a coaching program? Coaching programs support organizational development over-all and specifically:
- Enhance Skill Development
- Address Derailing Behaviors
- Maximize Productivity
- Expand Employee Engagement
- Increase Talent Retention
- Develop High Potential Employees
- Develop Leaders
- Facilitate Transition
When starting a coaching program, identify the reasons for the program and where possible quantify the challenges coaching will address within your organization.
What is the research that backs up a coaching program to increase engagement, productivity, and bottom line results (and supports making the case for a coaching program)?
- A 2001 study by MetrixGlobal to determine the business benefits and return on investment of for an executive coaching program found that “coaching produced a 529% return on investment and significant intangible benefits to the business; including the financial benefits from employee retention boosted the overall ROI to 788%.”
- An internal report of the Personnel Management Association showed that when training is combined with coaching, individuals increase their productivity by an average of 86% compared to 22% with training alone.
- A survey by Manchester Inc. of 100 executives found that coaching provided an average return on investment of almost six times the cost of the coaching.
- “We’ve done lost of research over the past three years, and we’ve found that leaders who have the best coaching skills have better business results.” – Tanya Clemens, V.P. of Global Executive & Organizational Development at IBM
- ”The goal of coaching is the goal of good management: to make the most of an organization’s valuable resources.” – Harvard Business Review
- Metropolitan Life Financial Services offered a coaching program to retail sales people. The productivity increased an average of 35%, and 50% identified new markets. Metropolitan retained all of the salespeople who were coached. The coaching program cost about $620,000 and delivered $3.2 million in measurable gains.
Provide organizational leadership with the challenges a coaching program will address along with research on the ROI of coaching as noted above. Tie the application of your proposed coaching to the challenges specifically to maximize the creation of buy-in at the top.
In the next blog, explore specifics for creating a program plan / manual.
