The importance of auditing coaching

A good coaching audit could change everything

Who is this article for?

• HR and L&D teams tasked with delivering coaching across an organisation
• Business executives, leaders and managers who want maximum performance from people

Coaching is a funny old business. As a profession it’s only been going since the 1980s but yet the industry has skyrocketed in just that short space of time. Most large Western organisations now have coaching on their agenda. It would be rare to find a senior leader who doesn’t employ their own executive coach, and even rarer to find a manager who doesn’t believe they ‘use coaching’ with their staff.

Of course that speedy growth spurt has its downsides. Often the coaching function has grown quicker than the support structures around it. Coaching in many organisations lacks a coherent ethos or purpose.

Even where a far-sighted HR Director or Senior Manager has created a coaching ethos, the sprawling nature of coaching often means the execution can be patchwork, with many coaches across an organisation all practicing differing coaching styles and lacking a clear evaluation process.

Our experience shows that many organisations are still not getting the most they can out of their coaching provision.

• For some, coaching is still a box-ticking exercise.
• For others it’s difficult to get the buy-in they need from the top-level directorate.
• Other organisations might simply not have the knowledge or time to sit down and review their coaching provision.

The importance of a coaching audit

A lack of a coaching focus can have a number of negative effects, including:

• Coaching working against, rather than for, organisational development and business goals.
• Only tactical and individual benefits are achieved.
• Activity and results are not managed or measured.
• Coaches do their own thing and organisational effort and value can be diluted.
• Learning and better ways of working are lost and forgotten.

I increasingly believe that auditing your coaching function is essential for all large companies. Auditing is essentially like a spring-clean. It creates time for you to look under the sofa and see just how many dust-balls have gathered!!

A good audit should let you understand whether your company’s coaching is transformational or transactional, and exactly how to move it closer to the former. Auditing looks at a whole range of factors including coach training, evaluation, ethos, individual and team needs.

So how do you get started with an audit? Just get a good professional to help.

Find out more about our coaching audit.

Plan for success with a coaching strategy

We’d recommend you start thinking about:

1. What is it you are trying to achieve with your coaching strategy?
2. How does that impact organisational, team coaching or one-to-one coaching performance?
3. What type of coaching is therefore needed to help support the appropriate learning, development and performance outcomes you seek?
4. How can you make sure that type of coaching encourages staff engagement, performance and learning?
5. How can you make sure that coaching is regulated by evaluation and monitoring procedures?
6. How do you know it is adding value?

Good luck with your coaching. If you have any queries then do not hesitate to contact us.