2009 Coaching Practices Report - Executive Summary
Companies coach. About half of all respondents considered coaching a developmental method for all employees, an important part of development for high potentials, and/or a performance improvement experience for senior leaders and top level executives. In fact, only 10% of the respondents to the Corporate University Xchange Coaching Study (the Coaching Study) answered that coaching was “not something they needed to do”.
To get an accurate picture of how coaching programs are actually executed, many of the survey questions were segmented to determine the differences in how programs for employees, supervisors, leaders and executives are created and managed. Here are a few examples of the significant differences that emerged from the study:
- Top level executives are more likely to have their coaching program managed by Human Resources (HR) rather than Learning and Development (L&D), to nominate themselves for coaching engagements, and be coached by external coaches.
- High potentials are more likely to have their program managed by L&D, to be selected by HR, L&D or Organizational Development (OD) for the coaching, to be subject to a one year time limit, almost equally likely to have external or internal coaches, and most likely to have the engagement measured.
- First-level supervisors are most likely to have coaching initiated as part of their Individual Development Plan, likely to be coached by internal coaches or their managers, and least likely to have a time limit imposed on their coaching engagement.
Some industries seem more committed to coaching than others. Three-quarters of the professional, scientific, and technical services and 60% of the educational services companies felt that coaching is an essential element of development at all levels. For other industry groups that number fell to 40% or less. Number of employees has some affect on the results, with the largest companies (>50,000) more likely to have programs at all levels.
Measurement is an issue for coaching engagements. Although almost all coaching engagements require a goal statement, and there is even some agreement across companies about the goals of coaching, measurement is not required for a majority of engagements, regardless of level.
The last year has seen an increase in coaching programs. More than 40% of the respondents have increased both the number of people eligible for coaching and the number of trained internal coaches, and 37% have a established a new program.
The survey showed that only 14% of companies currently have programs in place for all employees. For coaching to really have an impact, there is a need for more companies to consider it an important aspect of development for all employees, and for managers to make it part of what they do every day. The fact that there is so much happening at the management levels augers well for that to happen.