How to Improve Executive Coaching ROI
Posted by Alchemy Exchange on August 24, 2008
In a report published last year in Personnel Today, human resources consultancy Chiumento gave some good advice on how organizations can maximize their return on investment (ROI) in executive coaching. Your HR department is probably best placed to play a coordinating role in acting on these simple suggestions.
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At the beginning, discuss and agree what you want to achieve from executive coaching with the coach, the coachee and their sponsor or manager.
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Ensure that these target outcomes are not only realistic but specific enough to avoid any misunderstanding. They should be genuinely relevant to the coachee’s professional development as well as to the business.
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Draft a “coaching contract” that records these target outcomes and agree at the outset with the coach, the coachee and the sponsor that the targets will form the basis of measuring success of the coaching assignment.
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Develop measures that can be used to monitor success against the coachee’s targeted outcome.
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Get regular feedback during the coaching assignment from a cross-section of other staff.
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Have a half-time review with the coach and coachee to ensure that the assignment is on track and to take corrective adjustment where needed.
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Establish a coaching budget and monitor the costs and hours of coaching against your budget and your arrangements with your coaches.
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Manage the coaches in your organization and be clear about those that deliver quality and those that don’t.
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Integrate coaching with other development initiatives within your organization such as succession planning and performance management.
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Make sure that business leaders are involved in reviewing the effectiveness of coaching. Coaching is much more than delivering statistical improvements like staff retention rates. The involvement of business leaders will significantly improve the way that coaching provides significant tangible improvements to the bottom line.
In my opinion, this last point is the most important. An effective coaching programme that delivers material and lasting benefits to the bottom line will only work if it has the involvement of a fully committed member of the business leadership team.
