Business Coaching Needs To Be Effective

Any individual or company who is thinking about investing in business coaching needs to see a return on their investment. Nobody wants to spend money on something that will not produce a benefit, and this will ring even more true in tough economic times when money is tight and the budgets for coaching and training begin to come under pressure. This means that managers and executives will not only want to understand what they will be getting from business coaching courses, but they will also want to see a measurable gain for the outlay.

So the first question to be answered is: what is business coaching? Exact definitions are difficult to come by, as the term business coaching will mean different things to different people. Typically though, business coaching involves supporting an individual and helping to break down barriers so that they are able to fulfil their potential, achieve set goals and generally be a more effective worker. This can have a huge benefit for the organisation, as these employees are likely to be more productive, show greater initiative and have higher morale which leads to less staff rotation and therefore lower recruitment costs. Executive coaching describes a similar process and philosophy, but this time it is for the senior executives and managers of a company rather than the employees or workers. Executive coaching can help a senior manager through times of major change or at a significant crossroads for the company where decisions need to be made which can have significant impacts on the company. Executive and business coaches often act as sounding boards upon which those receiving the coaching can discuss problems with and bounce ideas off of.

Measuring the effectiveness of coaching can also be hard sometimes, as a lot of the success of coaching is an improvement in the person's state of mind and happiness with their work life, particularly executives who have undertaken some executive coaching sessions. However, with one of the main objectives and reasons for investing money in coaching in the first place was to improve employee performance and productivity, these can be measured by quantifiable means such as comparing output levels before and after the coaching. In terms of improving morale and motivation, more qualitative methods can be used such as surveys to obtain feedback.