Organizations and coaches are increasingly turning to return on investment (ROI) measurement to demonstrate the value of coaching in terms that managers and executives can understand. ROI coaching is a methodology that focuses on investing in strengths and helping people to feel good by improving their performance. It is about measuring levels of motivation, inspiration, and teamwork, as well as creating positive workplace cultures outside of traditional performance-based training methods. The return on any investment is determined by measuring cost relative to profit. In executive coaching, financial returns are often an indirect result of commitment, but sometimes the ROI is easily quantifiable.
During the program, feedback forms can be filled out at the end of each training day, providing an excellent basis for a report at the end of the program. If participants agree, they can be quoted by name, which weighs heavily when it comes to justifying the expense and encouraging other staff members to participate in future training. Leaders should begin a coaching commitment by being consistent in terms of the factors that will be measured and how those factors will be measured from commitment to commitment. It is now widely recognized that coaching is a means of increasing employee motivation, retention and engagement, and that these factors are believed to contribute to increased profits or better budget management in non-profit organizations. ROI coaching involves a series of workshops and methodologies that teach leaders how to be positive in the workplace. Most organizations conduct periodic surveys of their employees, either on “soft” aspects such as satisfaction and motivation or on “concrete” data such as absence rates, meeting objectives and turnover.
These surveys can be adapted to measure the benefits of training. In addition to asking about the duration of the coaching commitment, find out how often the sessions will be held. For example, a coach can work with a leader to be more effective in delegating or to better cultivate cross-functional relationships in order to develop and deliver operational excellence. The NHS has a robust system for measuring staff satisfaction and its results reflect the return on investment in terms of positive changes that the training program has brought. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) reports that “leaders who participated in coaching experienced a 50 to 70 percent increase in work performance, time management and team effectiveness.”A number of organizations, including the Coaching Association and the CIPD, publish relevant surveys from time to time which can be found through Internet search engines. Trying to put an amount of money into coaching benefits for employees can be difficult, but there is evidence.
A tactical coach versus a transformational coach working on systemic change is likely to yield different results. For example, I worked with a client, Angelique, whose supervisor sought a coach to address what the supervisor called unprofessional behavior. A frequently cited survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Association's Resource Center revealed that the average ROI of coaching was seven times greater than the initial investment.
