Coaching: What are the benefits of coaching for the organization?: (Part Two)

With coaching as the default style of management, morale and motivation improve with a consequently dramatic effect on staff retention. Given that the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) estimates the average cost - -in the UK - of an employee leaving at andpound;4625, this is clearly a significant gain.

It has been said that people join organizations but leave managers and there is probably a lot of truth in this. Listen to the conversations in coffee shops and bars where workers gather at lunchtime and take note of their moans and groans. Some will be grumbling about the lack of choice in the staff restaurant or the battle for car-parking, but I'll bet the majority of complaints are about treatment at the hands of management. Of course coaching alone cannot fix otherwise destructive relationships but it does shine a light on where things are going wrong and what may need to change. So not only does coaching helps us retain key people in the organization but it also retains their skills and attributes. We're constantly being told by the business gurus that we now operate in the knowledge economy, that the days of labouring in exchange for wages and salary are over and that firms live or die by their ability to change, learn and use their core competencies and knowledge. We need to cultivate the knowledge and skill that reside in the workforce, nurture and develop it and ensure it is passed on to the next generation. What better way to do this than through coaching?

There are counter arguments though. Some say that there's no point in hanging on to staff that have reached the top of their salary scale unless you can offer them career advancement which isn't so easy any more. Others suggest that investing in the development of staff is a waste as they'll probably leave and their next employer gains all the benefit. I believe both these arguments are flawed. There is more to working life than climbing the greasy pole of career advancement and if people are earning enough to fulfil their needs, learning, developing and enjoying themselves the chances are they'll stay. Some might leave for more money and good luck to them, that's their choice and are they the people you'd want to hang around anyway? Some might leave after you've invested in the training, but that's no reason to withhold development from everyone else. You can always insert a 'payback clause' in any agreement to fund say, an external qualification. If we're having coaching conversations regarding people's current situation at work and how they'd like to see that developing, recognize as well that from the organization's point of view we're capturing invaluable data for career and succession planning. Coaching also helps solve the conundrum of 'I'm okay where I am and don't want to progress'. This is not a normal reaction and in my experience has been caused by poor management in the past or external factors getting in the way now. Again, progress does not have to mean to a new job with a promotion; coaching helps people progress in terms of being the best they can be in their current role.

Many of the benefits we've considered until now are available in the short term, but coaching also offers the prospect of building a foundation for new skills development as the organization becomes more used to learning, makes it part of what it means to work there and attracts people with a learning disposition. All of which will make the organization more competitive as the knowledge and skills needed to operate successfully in a market need constantly to be updated. Some ageing managers may have been able to resist the technological revolution when word processing was all they had to worry about; after all they still had their secretaries to take care of such things, but what about the impact of the internet and the World Wide Web? Managers and staff at all levels and in all organizations are having to get used to the new business models and ways of working that the internet has brought about. Teachers cannot afford to slip behind their pupils. Business leaders cannot afford being overtaken by two young people on a laptop in a bedroom and we can none of us afford to ignore the opportunities and threats that the digital age presents. But all of this requires an ability to learn at speed. If, as has been suggested, high performers are simply those people (and organizations) that learn quicker then we are obliged to turn to coaching to make that happen. It follows that coaching also prompts entrepreneurial thinking as it encourages people to think creatively and offers rewards for voicing ideas

Coaching over the longer term also offers better value from learning and development activity. Classroom training, for example, has been shown to have a much grater effect when the trainee is supported by their 'coach' as they put into practice what they've learnt. Of course there is a time and possibly a monetary cost of putting the coaching in place, but this is a fraction of the amount lost through poorly implemented training or learning that is allowed to wither on the vine. If training budgets are tight, coaching represents the most efficient means of employee development, when perhaps more formal training or courses are not available. When line managers deliver the coaching, their staff are learning and developing every working day, not just at formal training sessions. I mentioned earlier the idea of employees behaving as if the business were their own. What if everyone in the business thought and acted as if they were self-employed. They'd be constantly alert to new opportunities, mindful of cost and looking to be the best they can be. Coaching may not foster this spirit everywhere or for all of the time, but it's certain that command and control won't do it at all!