Success stories of companies and individuals who use professional coaching to achieve business and personal goals continue to fill the news around the globe. A strong majority—78.5 percent—of coaching clients from the European/Middle Eastern/African region (EMEA) surveyed in the 2009 ‘ICF Global Coaching Client Study’, commissioned by the International Coach Federation, report being “very satisfied” with their coaching experience.
Globally, 99 percent of clients surveyed were very or somewhat satisfied with their experience. Those from EMEA who invested in coaching within their organisations reported the median financial return to the company was 1,567 percent, or nearly 16 times their investment in coaching.
What’s being addressed?
Optimising individual/team performance, expanding professional career opportunities and improving business management strategies are three top areas in which professional coaching is being used, according to the 2010 ICF Global Consumer Awareness Study.
These two studies support what the coaching industry has known for some time; that companies that integrate coaching can experience positive results in work performance, employee productivity, team building, product quality, employee retention, and more.
Case studies
Last October, the ICF awarded Genentech Inc., a founding biotechnology company, and the TINE Group, Norway’s largest dairy cooperative, with the ICF International Prism Award for enhanced business achievement through their commitment to coaching as a leadership strategy.
For several years, employees in the IT department at Genentech, acquired by the Roche Group in 2009, have benefited from the company’s Personal Excellence Programme (PEP), a coaching-based development programme that includes individual and group coaching. The vision of Chief Information Officer Todd Pierce, PEP has been attributed with increasing employee productivity and customer satisfaction, improving employee communication, and making a significant, measurable business impact for Genentech along the way. Evaluations show the program is producing an estimated $1.50 to $2 USD for every dollar spent to deliver PEP.
“Through PEP, we have created a smarter, more agile and more responsive organisation,” Pierce said. “There is greater collaboration across functions, customer relationships have improved, employee engagement is noticeably higher, and we are better positioned to respond to change and lead technological innovation.”
Since 2005, TINE Group reports its coaching initiative has been effective in achieving among its employees a new management style and new insight into the role of manager; better quality products, better innovation, better results, greater awareness, more courage, improved learning skills, a greater ability to change and live with change and decreased sick leave.
The company has seen a 45 percent reduction in short-time sick leaves for one of its largest packing plants in Trondheim—meaning an annual savings of some three million NOK (Norwegian krone). Applying that figure to the whole company would produce an estimated cost savings of 100 million NOK every year.
As TINE looks to expand its business beyond Norway, “We shall keep up the good work and train our leaders and our in-house coaches,” said TINE CEO Hanne Refsholt. “The coaching programme will go on as we gradually implement the coaching mindset and skills into all our programmes to build the culture we want to see in our company.”
With return on investment—both financial and otherwise—now well-documented, potential consumers of coaching can focus on the important task of selecting the right coaches for their organisations and building their internal coaching programmes. Visit Coachfederation.org/works to learn more about working with a professional coach.