Does your coaching program have the intended impact you planned for? Can you prove it?

Committing to a coaching program design that adds value to both the participants and the organization can be tricky. But at its best, coaching can positively impact your culture, help your organization reach its desired outcomes and set employees up for long-term success.

Organizations often leverage coaching as a methodology with the desire to support employees’ development and growth. Training delivery often varies on the method of recruiting coaches: outsourcing from a third-party vendor, upskilling line managers to use coaching skills or a combination of both.

Regardless of who does the coaching, tying impact and outcomes to organizational needs is essential, and it starts with a great design. Proving value by showcasing a direct line of sight between needs and impact is one of the most important design elements you will face.

Here are nine best practices to consider when designing and facilitating an effective coaching program:

1. Conduct a proper needs analysis. A needs analysis can help training managers measure the skills their workforce currently has and the skills they need. This can help with planning and designing criteria and capabilities to cover during training. Here are a few additional insights to consider when conducting a needs analysis:

• Interview key stakeholders, including your executive team, human resources (HR) and talent management.
• Ask yourself and stakeholders: “What is the desired outcome for a coaching program?”
• Follow up this question with: “How can we prove that coaching had the intended impact?”
• Link desired outcomes with key performance indicators (KPIs), such as improved retention, higher employee engagement, shorter learning cycles from hiring to proficiency to perform the job and/or reduced turnover.

2. Tailor your programs. One-size-fits-all coaching programs aren’t effective. One program may be designed for high-potential employees fast-tracked to receive a promotion, and another program for onboarding new employees. Each coaching program will have different needs as well as outcomes.
3. Set clear objectives. This is the most missed step in designing any coaching program. Setting clear objectives can also help with measuring the impact of training (step 9). To set clear objectives, training managers should:

• Design the coaching program based on data from the needs analysis.
• Align individual coaching outcomes with organizational needs.
• Support the program’s success by communicating and providing documented objectives, targets and expected outcomes and impact.

4. Qualify your coaches. Coaches must adhere to a set of high standards and should demonstrate competence during the interview process and client feedback should be tracked over time. Consider the importance of credentials, such as International Coaching Federation (ICF) or Board of Certified Coach (BCC), for example. Track participant feedback over time and plan for talent development activities to keep your internal coaches sharp.
5. Celebrate coaching outcomes. This can lead to the highest possible impact. Here are some examples to consider:

• A $400 million retail organization offers coaching for all people managers, provides opportunities for participants to share learning, incorporates peer coaching and discusses issues related to their own development.
• An automotive company established a “leader board” to showcase readiness for a promotion. While the names of participants are left off the board, the statistics speak for themselves. Company data shows that people who engage in coaching for two years are 48% more likely to be promoted.
• A fin-tech organization promotes a “winners’ circle” of graduates from their coaching program.

The key is to intentionally build the celebration into the program, rather than leave it as an afterthought.

6. Ensure a feedback loop. Part of the design of any great coaching program is to ensure that the direct manager of the person being coached is engaged in the process. It can be an important success measure to track manager involvement and one that shouldn’t be overlooked. While this can be a challenge, data shows that participants with engaged managers see higher impact.
7. Leverage technology. Ensure that you have an effective and reliable way to measure KPIs, successes and program outcomes. A coaching platform can help with this. KPIs to measure might include participation level of training programs, course completion and objectives met.
8. Involve senior management. Pursue this throughout the program from conducting the needs analysis and designing the program, to implementation and measurement. Here are three things you can do to showcase sponsorship:

• Ask a senior leader who has worked with a coach to create a short video on the impact coaching has had on their career that aligns with your program goals.
• Get C-level support via a personable message from the CEO.
• Create an executive-sponsored infographic on the impact of coaching to share company wide.

9. Measure impact. This can be one of more challenging steps to the process. Proving the coaching program’s success may depend on the time, cost and effort it will take to measure the impact. It’s important to start with the program’s desired objectives and then implement measurement methodologies from there. The three most common ways to measure the program’s impact are:

• Participant self: Reflection and program evaluation, including a net promoter score (NPS).
• Success stories: Collecting and sharing impact stories can be done via a post-coaching interview and support in writing the success story, a survey of the participant that is translated into a success story or a short video. (Plan to coach participants through a video if you choose this method.)
• Impact interviews: Conduct interviews of team members that work with and around the participant. To do this effectively, the participant must be willing to share their goals, and those around them must be in a place to effectively observe change over time. This can be supplemented with a scorecard.

Moving Forward

Using a thoughtful methodology to create your internal coaching program can ensure coaching efforts are relevant, impactful and meet the desired outcomes, thereby increasing the longevity of your efforts. Ultimately, a well-designed and executed coaching program is one of the most effective ways to prepare your talent for the future and transform your organizational culture. These steps, paired with an experienced and forward-thinking delivery team or partner, can set you up for long-term success.