How using coaching in a corporate environment could help you attract and retain your talent.
A recent PWC study showed that many millennial and Gen Z employees are shifting their expectations when considering working with a new organisation. For example, 65% of those asked said that the opportunity for personal development influenced them to take positions at their current job over things like reputation (36%) and pay (21%). Combining these findings and the recent ‘Great resignation’ happening amongst employees within the UK, now more than ever, employers need to improve their capacity to attract, retain and manage new talent.
The cost of onboarding new employees
To attract and recruit and onboard one new employee based on a salary of £27,600, as a business, you would need to budget approx £50,000.
This is based on analysis undertaken by The Undercover Recruiter as they outline different items such as office equipment, the recruitment process, National Insurance, etc. Interestingly one of the lowest outputs, yet arguably one of the most crucial, is training budgets at around £1,000.
Suppose organisations proactively invested more money in employees’ training budgets and hired a corporate coach or corporate coaching business. In that case, this could provide a service that would empower employees, give a sense of belonging, build confidence within the teams and help reduce conflict in the workplace.
Instead of responding to employees leaving and spending £50K+ on replacing them, this proactive approach will do one of two things, both beneficial in the long run for an organisation. It will either create more loyal employees because you invest in them and their future as you build the business. Or it could make the employee realise that your business vision doesn’t align with theirs, so they will move on to somewhere new, which is also absolutely fine.
How and where could coaching add value to your organisation?
According to Gallop.com, 29% of employees engage fully, 55% are not engaged, and 16% are actively not engaged and consistently against virtually everything (CAVE dwellers). Coaching, in different guises, is an opportunity to shift the mindset of more than half of employees towards being fully engaged.
There are a few different situations where coaching could add value:
career coaching
coaching through change
coaching through conflict and
teaching managers to adopt a coaching first approach to their leadership style.
How much interference is there in your organisation?
Performance = potential - interference
This equation is from Tim Gallwey’s book ‘The Inner Game of Tennis.’ He argues that this approach is about unlearning the personal and cultural habits that interfere with our ability to learn and perform. It’s an opportunity to give ourselves and our team greater access to our innate abilities. In this scenario, “Potential” includes all of our capabilities—actualised or latent—and our ability to learn; “Interference” represents how we undermine the fulfilment or expression of our capacities.
Coaching is a way of being, listening, asking, and speaking that draws out and augments characteristics and potential that are already present in a person. An effective coaching relationship creates a safe and challenging environment in which learning can take place. Coaching can help tackle the interference that is stopping high performance within teams.
In this instance, we’d class interference as one of the following (this list is not exhaustive)
fear of change
resisting change
distrust
poor listening
hidden agenda
lack of fairness
not being heard
conflict
insufficient resources
fear of failure and success - not feeling safe
Contemplate then how many employees struggle with interference daily, impacting their potential and, as a result, their overall performance. How many people are essentially stunting their potential by letting interference like the above get in their way? If no one in the organisation is proactively helping to deal with this interference, then it will continue to build.
