1. Survey reportSeptember 2011 THE COACHING CLIMATE THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011

2. 2INTRODUCTION3SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS5THE SURVEY14 CONCLUSION AND PRACTICE POINTERS16 REFERENCESTHE COACHING CLIMATE 20111 3. INTRODUCTIONWelcome to the CIPDs Coaching This year we also focus on two key trends:Climate survey report. We started thissurvey in 2009 to help HR professionals How is coaching helping to developand coaches working with HR to deliverand improve the business awarenesscoaching and mentoring and to develop of HR professionals given that ourthe evidence base on practice. We alsoNext Generation research points thiswanted to expand and deepen the up as a key challenge?coverage of coaching beyond what What is the extent of mentoring aswas possible in our annual Learning a distinct approach and how areand Talent Development survey. Nowmentoring relationships set up?we are delivering it for the secondtime. Reflecting back, it is interestingto see how things have changed and We thank the HR practitionershow coaching is developing within and coaches who responded.organisations. In this survey we look at Their conscientious engagement isthe key indicators: increasingly critical if we are to build What is the coverage of coaching: an evidence-based profession.to what extent is it being used? Whats being spent on coachingcompared with last time? How are coaches being selected anddeployed within organisations? Whats the role and contribution of coaching in respect of the organisation? How is coaching being delivered within organisations, and what is its purpose? How is coaching being evaluated?THE COACHING CLIMATE 20112 4. SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGSCoaching and mentoring are used byWe now briefly outline the other keymany organisations. A total of 332trends.responses were received, constituting aresponse rate of 2%. They report that Coverage trendscoaching and mentoring are used in Comparedwiththelevelofcoachingabout three-quarters of organisations. activity recorded in our annualWhen we first launched this survey inLearning and Talent Development2009 against the full ferocity of thesurveys over the last decade, the 90%financial crisis and the retrenchment in usage reported in our 2009 coachingbusiness spending, we reasoned thatsurvey was a record. Although in thecoaching might be vulnerable. However, current survey the use of coaching haswe find coaching in good health, thoughdropped to 77%, this is still a fairlythere are some long-term ailmentshigh level of use and stable over thewhich could cause problems in future.long term. Furthermore, of those whoCompared with our 2009 survey theuse coaching, more than four-fifthsnumber of respondents using coaching report that they have increased theirhas slipped from 90% to 77%. However,usage over the last two years.of those who use coaching, nearly 84%are using it more now than they wereExpenditure trendstwo years ago. Another health indicator is Theproportionwhoreportthatexpenditure on coaching, which though coaching expenditure is rising remainsnot rising very fast is at least rising. When around one-third. There has been awe take account of the number reporting slight increase in the number whothat they have maintained their spendingreport coaching expenditure to beon coaching programmes, nearly sevenreducing roughly a quarter this yearin ten report that coaching expenditure compared with a fifth in 2009. Theis either increasing or stable. This almost trend, taking account of increasedmirrors the results of two years ago. stable expenditure, is largely positive.The profile of coaching is also high. Itis viewed as a key part of learning and Role and contribution THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011talent development in just over two-fifths Coachingandmentoringarebeingof organisations, for example. The data used more than ever to improveon who delivers coaching in organisations performance. The proportionshave changed subtly. Line managersreporting their use in tackling poorwere reported as the main deliveryperformance and in lifting capabilitychannel for coaching in 2009 by 37% ofin good performers have bothrespondents. This has fallen to 32% while doubled. Coaching and mentoringexternal coaches have been given more are also increasingly used to improveresponsibility for delivery.employee engagement. 3 5. Responsibility for deliveryCoaching commercial capability in HR Delivery continues to be largely the Coaching assignments which address province of line managers and internal business savvy and commercial coaches. More than half of coachingawareness tend to be based on is delivered through these routes. The development plans to help individuals proportion of coaching delivered byrise to the challenge. A quarter of external coaches has increased fromrespondents chose that route, with 14% to 20% since 2009. about 15% focusing on reflective logsand helping individuals build in timePurpose of coaching to review and reflect on key company In 2009 a quarter of respondents data and information. reported that coaching focused on improving good performance; now Developing mentoring capability its almost half. Another key purpose Mentoring is a distinct intervention for coaching is to build employeeusing coaching skills but with different engagement, which has moved from timescales and agendas. About 75% just under a tenth to around a quarter.use mentoring in some way and mostare happy to see it established as anEvaluationinformal set of relationships affording Stories and testimony remain the the time for individuals to pair up. focus of coaching evaluation (around Mentoring is available to most 30%), although key performance employees. indicators (KPIs) are not far behind as a measure of success. Return on investment (ROI) and return on expectation (ROE) are used by less than a tenth of respondents.Coaching agendas We found that coachingTHE COACHING CLIMATE 2011 assignments tended to focus more on developmental and personal effectiveness issues than on issues such as business awareness, which was always addressed by only 5% of respondents and never in 10% of settings. Personal effectiveness was the focus of coaching in about 25% and skills and capabilities around 15% of respondent organisations. 4 6. THE SURVEYCoverage and expenditureProfile and positioning: still focusedNearly 84% of our survey respondentson learning and developmentreported that, compared with 2009,The profile of coaching was tested bythey are doing more coaching, while asking respondents what best describes16% said they are doing less. Asthe role and contribution of coachingFigure 1 shows, just under one-thirdwithin their organisation. Most see itare seeing increased expenditure on as part of learning and development.coaching, just under a quarter are seeing In a rich range of additional comments,coaching budgets reduced and for 38%respondents told us that the profileexpenditure on coaching remains stable. ranged from 90% of employees areThis compares with 40% of respondents qualified coaches this is what weto our 2011 Learning and Talent do, to it is generally reserved forDevelopment survey who saw a decrease senior managers and executives. Otherin terms of general learning and talent comments include It is part of staffdevelopment (L&TD) expenditure, and development, and it has become justonly 16% who saw an increase. another initiative.Who delivers coaching andmentoring?Although line managers and internalcoaches continue to share primaryresponsibility for delivering coaching,increasing use of external coaches showsFigure 1: Coaching expenditure trendsBase: 2568% 10%28% THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011 31%Increasing Increasing Reducing Reducing 38% Stable Stable No information42%No information 20% 24%2011 2009 5 7. a move towards more professionaltendering (19%) and assessment centresdelivery, as shown in Figure 2. This(4%) to test for coaching competence.probably represents a re-focusing ofThese approaches are fine for largeorganisations on coaching capability, organisations such as the NHS and largewhich generally requires more specialistbanks and consumer goods companiessupport from coaching consultancies.that can gain economies of scale bydeveloping a pool of coaches, but forOur 2009 Taking the Temperature ofthe majority (53%) ad hoc engagementCoaching survey report identified a trend of coaches on a consultancy basis seemstowards co-delivery. This years survey to be the preferred route. That said,findings reinforce this trend, with about around a quarter of organisations seek totwo-thirds of respondents saying they invite bids from coaches they have useduse external coaches in some capacity.previously and may even recommendthese to others, leading to what is inSelection and accreditation ofeffect a shared pool.coachesAn important aspect of working with A perennial argument rages on whetherexternal coaches, especially in resource- coaches should be accredited andconstrained times, is that they are licensed. Coaching bodies such as theproperly selected and engaged in orderEuropean Mentoring and Coachingto deliver organisational value. We asked Council (EMCC), the Associationorganisations how they selected externalfor Professional Executive Coachingcoaches. Methods included formaland Supervision (APECS), the BritishFigure 2: Primary responsibility for coaching deliveryBase: 256 32Line managers 37THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011 20External coaches 14 23Internal coaches2919Learning and talent professionals 201107 2009 Other70 10203040 50 Percentage 6 8. Psychological Society (BPS) and theEvaluation: still an Achilles heel?International Coach Federation (ICF) are Evaluation is enough of a concern seeking to drive demand for accredited arising from the findings in our 2008and trained coaches who are able toLearning and Development survey thatdeal with the complex demands of only 20% of organisations actuallyorganisational coaching and operatecarried out any evaluation of coachingwithin stringent professional codes andand mentoring that we have madestandards. Our data show that thereit a focus of our coaching effort. Ourhas been a fairly significant increase inresearch culminated in the publicationthe proportion of respondents insistingof our Real-world Coaching Evaluationon accreditation just over two-fifthsguide in 2010. The guide reviews thecompared with just a third in 2009.evidence of poor practice and mindsets that are obstacles to effective evaluationInternal coaches are just as critical to the of the impact of coaching. It examinesprocess of delivery indeed more so asthe tools and data sources availableexternal coaches. As we explained in for evaluation and recommends anthe 2009 survey, they are increasingly integrated approach.the load-bearers of organisationalcoaching. This means that, on the oneHaving developed a significant amounthand, line managers can be conductingof research around coaching evaluation,basic coaching conversations as a waywe were able to test in the Coachingof managing their supervisory workload,Climate survey how the message wasbut on the other hand, highly qualifiedbeing received and indeed heeded.coaches can be working with talent and We can see in Figure 3 that the softersuccession pools and often delivering to side of evaluation around stories andexecutives outside of their own business testimony seems to be dominant, witharea. Thus the requirement for internaljust under two-fifths recording this as thecoaching capability to be resourcedmethod of evaluation they use the most.and allocated is a key issue. We asked In 2009 it was just under a quarter. Thehow internal coaches are selected anduse of key performance indicators and THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011appointed in organisations. We had a low business metrics is a fairly close second.response rate to this question, suggesting,It is heartening to see that 28% areas in the case of external coaches, that developing a set of evaluation criteriathe line of sight for HR is obscured.at the outset in the contracting phaseThis could be because of conflicting or a practice we have long encouraged.competing organisational policies andThe use of return on investment (ROI) pockets of coaching expertise. often seen as the holy grail of coaching evaluation and just as elusive is the 7 9. most favoured practice in a smallThe implications of this are quitenumber of cases. This approach needs clear. Without evaluation practitionerscaution, given the way in which ROI cancannot answer the value question. Inbe used without baseline and with thean increasingly value-driven learningimplicit inflation of the denominator (big and talent environment this is likelyproject and small coaching cost equals to be detrimental. Evaluation is a richmassive ROI). Perhaps those dogged and rewarding area of practice and wepractitioners using an ROI approach arewould suggest that practitioners devoteemploying the sophisticated augmentedas much attention to it as they allocateROI of Phillips and Phillips (2007) rather to delivery and technique. Keddy andthan the crude calculation of cost overJohnson (2011) have some excellentbenefits. ROIs hybrid cousin, the moresuggestions for evaluation based on,reflexive return on expectations (ROE) among other things, chains of evidenceapproach, is favoured by just over 10% in the criminal justice system and theof respondents. A worrying quarter still net promoter score used in marketing.carry out no evaluation of coaching. Creativity and innovation in evaluation will help to lift us from the dead hand of crude ROI and unverified anecdote towards a more productive approach.Figure 3: Coaching evaluationBase: 246We look for stories and testimony but37 dont bother too much with evaluation23 30 We measure coaching through KPIs 22 We develop evaluation criteria at28 the outset in the contracting phase20 26 We dont measure or evaluate coaching 1811 We use return on expectations (ROE) 8THE COACHING CLIMATE 201110We use a mixture of ROI and ROE 2011 8 62009 We use return on investment (ROI) 3 0 10 20 30 40 50 Percentage 8 10. The purpose of coaching Coaching agendas Coaching is utilised most as a tool This year we wanted to focus on for improving performance, as Figurewhat is covered in coaching agendas. 4 shows. We found that coaching isPerhaps confidentiality has got in the used nearly as much to improve poor way of coaching topics and agendas performance as to build on good being transparent and understandable. performance. One interesting point is Confidentiality should be a backstop the increase for both these purposes in towards inappropriate disclosure of each case the proportion of usage has damaging information, not a systematic doubled since the 2009 survey. Thus weresponse. HR professionals responsible are seeing an honest focus on coachingand accountable for coaching need to as a remedial and talent acceleration have some visibility of the agendas and proposition. This reflects the need totopics for coaching to be able to reflect manage poor performers, to prepareon what coaching assignments involve, as future leaders and to retain talent. Open ultimately they are paying for the service. responses on the purpose of coachingOur survey asked respondents to report range from its being considered part on the extent to which they work on of a lifelong learning strategy and partspecific agendas, and we found that most of culture change an example of thecoaching assignments focus on building highest level of ingrained purpose, to itsskills and capability. As shown in Figure being thought to have no purpose. 5, a quarter always focus upon improving personal effectiveness and only 1% never Figure 4: Purpose of coaching Base: 248 43To improve poor performance 20 48 To build on good performance 2424To build employee engagementTHE COACHING CLIMATE 2011 9 61 To aid leadership development2338Part of talent and succession planning15 16Focused upon change management2011 9Focused upon skills and capability472009improvement 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Percentage9 11. focus on this aspect. Roughly a fifth always within the organisation and link this tofocus on developing skills and competencethe business, driving real insight aboutand about 3% fail to address this aspect how good people management canat all. Supporting career transitions is make the difference. While HR peoplealso a key area. Understanding businessare seen as having strong organisationaland commercial issues came quite low savvy, the weakness in business savvydown the list, with only 5% always doing was viewed as holding the professionthis and double that proportion neverback and posed a threat to the senioraddressing that issue. We thought this was profile of HR. The debate about whethera noteworthy finding, as we explain below. HR is getting a seat at the table or at least influencing major board decisionsCoaching business savvy: the new needs to be seen in the context of thecapability challenge and opportunity appointment of professionals fromThe proportion of practitioners whomarketing, legal and customer servicereport continuously pursuing businessroles into senior HR portfolios. This is oftenawareness and commercial issues in because these individuals are perceivedcoaching assignments is low. The CIPDas having greater business awarenesshas identified a capability need in the HR and what might be called strategicprofession for developing what we term agility than HR professionals. The CIPD isbusiness savvy. Our Next Generation HR seeking to address these issues throughresearch project challenged practitionersour forthcoming Business Savvy researchto develop and trade upon their insightproject and our ongoing Next GenerationFigure 5: Coaching agendas Improving personal effectiveness2450194 1Developing skills and competence 1948 23 53Building leadership capability13 49 27 8 2Improving understandingTHE COACHING CLIMATE 2011 of business, commercial 52133 2510 and financial issuesResolving conflict and disputes423 34 2410 Helping with skills such as523 37 285 presentations Supporting career 10442913 2 development and transition Supporting through challenging 6 33 36194 projects and assignments 010203040 5060 70 8090100 Percentage Always SometimesNever Frequently Occasionally10 12. HR research around the insight-driven recommendation that coaching addressesprofessional. Coaching has a major role tobusiness and commercial awarenessplay here.as a priority agenda. Figure 6 showssome activities typically used to developWe believe that coaches working business savvy, and the extent to whichwith senior HR teams will have some respondents are using them.insight into the development needs ofprofessionals in this area. Thus we asked Focusing on those approaches which areto what extent, when addressing the used most and least, we can see thatdevelopment needs of HR professionals,working on an individual developmentcoaching assignments looked atplan to raise awareness of any capabilitydeveloping skills which promote businessgaps and issues was the first choice inawareness and commercial understanding. that it is always the option in 27% ofWe were surprised, firstly, that only a cases and only 1% never use it. Helpingthird (109 of the 332 respondents) felt practitioners refresh themselves on keyin a position to answer the question. business data is always an option for 13%Of that third, only 43% said they focus and none recorded that they never useupon developing HR professionals this option. Coaches often recommendawareness and capability in these areas.the maintenance of a reflective log to helpThe CIPD believes that coaching is pivotalpeople learn in situations of challenge,in this respect and is making an earlysuch as taking on a new role or movingFigure 6: Extent of use of activities/approaches to developbusiness savvy in HR professionals Working with individuals 24 27 50 61372381on a development plan Helping individuals refresh19 4823 37 5 2 7 13 43themselves on key business dataBuilding a knowledge-sharing network of key professionals in 1315 28 4993913 27 52 marketing and finance etc.THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011Checking the company 5 213133 10 122337 24 4 website for relevant data Keeping a reflective logon business learning 4 13 23 18 29 3519341310 opportunities and challenges Reading up on key topics 512 231638 37 5444 2Supporting CPD/accreditation 1011 204431 15 181429 2 in the areaRecommending a business skills course 3 523 3322 3920 36 4150 10 20 30 4050607080 90100 Percentage AlwaysSometimesNever FrequentlyOccasionally 11 13. to a new organisation. This might well and capability of the organisation.be a productive avenue of learning for Mentoring is especially useful forpractitioners seeking to develop their organisational learning, though it needsbusiness and commercial awareness. Thisto be properly planned and developed.option is always part of the coachingNearly three-quarters of respondentsupport offer in 13% of the organisationsorganisations have some sort ofthat responded, but just as many never mentoring scheme in place. We askeduse it. Recommending a business skills respondents to reflect on mentoringcourse was the least favoured option. This practice in their organisations in order todata, though indicative, does show someensure that we could begin to track theof the options for coaching assignmentsdevelopment of mentoring as a distinctconcerned with building business savvy.aspect of practice.We acknowledge that question phrasingmay have deterred some respondents and First we asked how mentoring is initiated,perhaps the level of business-awarenessgiven that it is likely to be developedcoaching is higher than is suggested. That internally. We were interested in howsaid, we will be challenging coaching at mentoring programmes get going andall levels to develop and embed this criticalnearly half of respondents who answeredaspect of HR capability. this question reported that it takes place informally as shown in Figure 7. OnlyMentoring coming into its own? 16% have a formal mentoring set-upMentoring is often mentioned as an with documentation, such as a mentoringadjunct to coaching. The skills of contract or template to support thementoring are very similar but the focus programme. Around a fifth put the onusis different. Many organisations use a on managers and leaders to developmentoring approach to release the energy mentoring relationships.Figure 7: How mentoring happensBase: 242THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011 Informally. We give peoplepermission and time to pair up 46Formally. We have a template for effective mentoring assignments16HR allocates mentoring pairs and17relationships as appropriateManagers and leaders are expected21to develop mentoring relationships 0 1020 30 40 50Percentage12 14. We then asked who was most likely to receive mentoring and contrasted this with coaching. As Figure 8 shows, mentoring is generally not targeted at senior managers and high-potential employees; it tends to be offered to all employees in more than half of the organisations surveyed. Figure 8: Who receives mentoring Base: 231 10%13% LeadersSenior managers 55%High-potentialsAll employees 23%THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011 13 15. CONCLUSION AND PRACTICE POINTERS As we gauge the coaching climate, wePractice pointers find this key learning and organisational Ahighandstablelevelofcoaching intervention in good health. The is an opportunity for HR and L&TD extent and coverage of coaching andto use coaching and mentoring as a mentoring has remained high andchannel for effective interventions. stable. Expenditure trends, though Coachingdesignersandimplementers by no means moving spectacularly should be aware of the mix of upwards, have not shifted significantlycoaching delivery methods and work downwards. The profile of coaching towards finding the best mix of as a crucial organisational intervention external support, internal coaching remains high, though there is still real focus and line manager up-skilling concern over the need for effectivethat delivers coaching effectively. evaluation to prove its impact. Coachingwhichfocusesonperformance seems to be productive The delivery of coaching is split betweenand grounded in business reality. internal and external coaches, with aFocusing on both poor and good slight increase in the proportion reportingperformance is a good way to ensure that delivery is mainly the province ofthat coaching is not seen as a remedial external coaches. This shows that aintervention or a talent path for the productive balance is being establishedgifted, but as a key intervention. between external coaching consultants Integratingcoachingwithchange who can build capability and develop management, performance and programmes, and delivery through learning will ensure that coaching is internal coaches and line managers.delivering strategically as well. Evaluationiscriticalandweneglectit We are challenging coachingat our peril. Good evaluation is about interventions aimed at developingmore than stories and testimony; the HR professionals to start to focus responsibility for evaluation needs to on business savvy and commercial be allocated appropriately. awareness. We believe that in Coachinghasakeyroleinhelping THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011 developing assignments around thesebuild HR capability; L&TD professionals key capability needs we can help toin the coaching space can make that build the capability and effectiveness ofhappen. Putting business savvy and HR and increase the growing credibilitycommercial awareness at the centre of that many HR professionals are assignments will ensure that coaching demonstrating as business-aware people delivers both organisational value and and performance professionals. career-enhancing capability for HRprofessionals.14 16. Mentoring is increasingly being used Private sector 48% as a distinct approach to buildingPublic sector34% capability, using basic coaching skills and techniques on a wider canvas.Voluntary/community14% Mentoring programmes cannot be Manufacturing and production 4% ad hoc; we still need to generateBase: 332 learning and insight, but a light- touch approach such as supporting Number of employees represented documents and training events for The size of organisations covered is often mentors can help embed it.a significant issue in coaching delivery. Micro businesses (those with fewer thanSurvey backgroundten employees) accounted for just overWe distributed the survey to a network 10% of our survey respondents. SMEsof 16,853 HR professionals withinaccounted for just under 30% and largelearning and talent development andorganisations about 60% of respondents.obtained 332 responses, amountingroughly to a 2% response rate. This Fewer than 1011%is well below the response rate from10498%our last survey, to which roughly 550responses were obtained from a slightly 50249 20%smaller sampling pool. It reflects a trend25099922%towards lower response rates more >1,000 39%generally because of the increased scopeBase: 329and nature of surveys made possible bythe proliferation of survey technology.However, the CIPD believes that as Position in organisationan aspect of measuring practice it isHead of learning and development 20%essential that we embed this survey andincrease response levels. Senior manager/business partner35%HR team member 22%THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011Which sector? Other (responsible for coaching) 23%Just under half of our survey respondentsBase: 329are in the private and commercialsector and just over a third are in thepublic sector, with around 15% in theincreasingly important voluntary andcommunity sector. Fewer than 5% are inmanufacturing and production. 15 17. REFERENCESReferencesOther CIPD resourcesCHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNELCIPD Next Generation HR researchAND DEVELOPMENT. (2009) Taking thecipd.co.uk/nextgentemperature of coaching. Survey report.London: CIPD. CIPD Learning and Talent Developmentannual surveysCHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNELcipd.co.uk/AND DEVELOPMENT. (2010) Real- learningandtalentdevelopmentsurveyworld coaching evaluation: a guide forpractitioners. Guide. London: CIPD.KEDDY, J. and JOHNSON, C. (2011)Managing coaching at work: developing,evaluating and sustaining coaching inorganizations. London: Kogan Page.PHILLIPS, J. and PHILLIPS, P. (2007) Showme the money: how to determine ROIin people, projects and programs. SanFrancisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.THE COACHING CLIMATE 201116 18. Issued: September 2011 Reference: 5629 Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development 2011Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development151 The Broadway London SW19 1JQTel: 020 8612 6200 Fax: 020 8612 6201Email: cipd@cipd.co.uk Website: cipd.co.ukIncorporated by Royal Charter Registered charity no.1079797