Managing, tracking and evaluating coaching Part 1: where are you now?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the extent to which clients manage, track and evaluate coaching within their organisation, including awareness of the number of individuals being coached, awareness of their annual coaching spend, existence of a consistent and robust process for tracking all coaching, quality assurance processes in existence, and the evaluation of the impact of coaching. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured telephone interviews with HR, OD and L&D Directors and Managers in 69 large UK organisations collectively employing approximately 688,000 people. Findings – Whilst a handful of organisations are very satisfied with how coaching is managed, the vast majority feel there is room for improvement. The research highlights a number of issues: more than half the respondents do not know how many of their employees are currently working with an external coach and less than half are involved in a three-way meeting to sign off the coaching objectives at the beginning of the contract. In terms of evaluation and ROI, less than one in seven organisations have calculated their return on coaching investment, despite some organisations spending well in excess of £100k per year. Originality/value – Whilst the prevalence and benefits of coaching have been discussed at length over recent years, despite significant resources being invested in coaching there appeared to be very little research on how coaching is being resourced, managed and tracked in organisations. To that end, The Learning Curve (TLC) Ltd commissioned Adsum to investigate this research gap.