What is the Return on Investment (ROI) of a coaching program? What are the outcomes of effective coaching on individual performance, work attitudes and general well-being? Research has shown a positive effect of coaching in the following categories.
Physical and psychological wellbeing
Evidence from health coaching organisations indicates positive individual outcomes in terms of weight management, quitting smoking and stress management. For organisations, this translates into healthier staff and increased productivity due to lower absenteeism. On an aggregate level, society benefits due to healthcare-related savings.
Transformational leadership
Having a coach can transform lives: “80% of people who receive coaching report increased self-confidence, and over 70% benefit from improved work performance, relationships, and more effective communication skills. 86% of companies report that they recouped their investment on coaching and more” (source: ICF 2009). Compared with self-leadership and development courses, which are typically one-off activities where employees learn new skills, a coaching program over an extended period of time results in long-lasting behavioural changes through a space for personal development, in which the individual will actively participate, receive feedback, be challenged to work on what needs improvement, and immediately apply new habits. Higher levels of employee resilience, assertiveness, engagement, commitment and ultimately happiness deliver higher levels of profitability.
Goal attainment
Coaching sessions help the individual analyse and structure ideas, thereby generating learnings and awareness on objectives and subsequent focus on action plans. By designing actions, the individual states their willingness and commitment to grow in new areas and to take risks. By setting specific deadlines and concrete activities, the coach will support the individual in developing and maintaining an effective action plan with SMART objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-oriented), and explore any reluctance (perhaps due to insecurity) and analyse any obstacles. This will result in an improvement in performance, increased openness to personal development, increased ability to identify solutions to specific work-related issues, greater ownership and responsibility.