Coaching Climate 2011

Survey report
September 2011

THE COACHING
CLIMATE
THE COACHING CLIMATE 2011

2 INTRODUCTION

3 SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS

5 THE SURVEY

14 CONCLUSION AND PRACTICE POINTERS

16 REFERENCES


1

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the CIPD’s Coaching This year we also focus on two key trends:
Climate survey report. We started this
survey in 2009 to help HR professionals • How is coaching helping to develop
and coaches working with HR to deliver and improve the business awareness
coaching and mentoring and to develop of HR professionals given that our
the evidence base on practice. We also Next Generation research points this
wanted to expand and deepen the up as a key challenge?
coverage of coaching beyond what • What is the extent of mentoring as
was possible in our annual Learning a distinct approach and how are
and Talent Development survey. Now mentoring relationships set up?
we are delivering it for the second
time. Reflecting back, it is interesting
to see how things have changed and
We thank the HR practitioners
how coaching is developing within
and coaches who responded.
organisations. In this survey we look at
Their conscientious engagement is
the 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?
• What’s being spent on coaching
compared with last time?
• How are coaches being selected and
deployed within organisations?
• What’s 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?

2

SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS

Coaching and mentoring are used by We now briefly outline the other key
many organisations. A total of 332 trends.
responses were received, constituting a
response rate of 2%. They report that Coverage trends
coaching and mentoring are used in • Compared with the level of coaching
about three-quarters of organisations. activity recorded in our annual
When we first launched this survey in Learning and Talent Development
2009 against the full ferocity of the surveys over the last decade, the 90%
financial crisis and the retrenchment in usage reported in our 2009 coaching
business spending, we reasoned that survey was a record. Although in the
coaching might be vulnerable. However, current survey the use of coaching has
we find coaching in good health, though dropped to 77%, this is still a fairly
there are some long-term ailments high level of use and stable over the
which could cause problems in future. long term. Furthermore, of those who
Compared with our 2009 survey the use coaching, more than four-fifths
number of respondents using coaching report that they have increased their
has 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 were Expenditure trends
two years ago. Another health indicator is • The proportion who report that
expenditure on coaching, which though coaching expenditure is rising remains
not rising very fast is at least rising. When around one-third. There has been a
we take account of the number reporting slight increase in the number who
that they have maintained their spending report coaching expenditure to be
on coaching programmes, nearly seven reducing – roughly a quarter this year
in ten report that coaching expenditure compared with a fifth in 2009. The
is either increasing or stable. This almost trend, taking account of increased
mirrors the results of two years ago. stable expenditure, is largely positive.
The profile of coaching is also high. It
is viewed as a key part of learning and Role and contribution

talent development in just over two-fifths • Coaching and mentoring are being
of organisations, for example. The data used more than ever to improve
on who delivers coaching in organisations performance. The proportions
have changed subtly. Line managers reporting their use in tackling poor
were reported as the main delivery performance and in lifting capability
channel for coaching in 2009 by 37% of in good performers have both
respondents. This has fallen to 32% while doubled. Coaching and mentoring
external coaches have been given more are also increasingly used to improve
responsibility for delivery. employee engagement.

3

Responsibility for delivery Coaching 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 coaching awareness tend to be based on
is delivered through these routes. The development plans to help individuals
proportion of coaching delivered by rise to the challenge. A quarter of
external coaches has increased from respondents chose that route, with
14% to 20% since 2009. about 15% focusing on reflective logs
and helping individuals build in time
Purpose 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
it’s almost half. Another key purpose • Mentoring is a distinct intervention
for coaching is to build employee using 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 most
are happy to see it established as an
Evaluation informal 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 coaching

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

THE SURVEY

Coverage and expenditure Profile and positioning: still focused
Nearly 84% of our survey respondents on learning and development
reported that, compared with 2009, The profile of coaching was tested by
they are doing more coaching, while asking respondents what best describes
16% said they are doing less. As the role and contribution of coaching
Figure 1 shows, just under one-third within their organisation. Most see it
are 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 profile
expenditure on coaching remains stable. ranged from ‘90% of employees are
This compares with 40% of respondents qualified coaches – this is what we
to our 2011 Learning and Talent do’, to ‘it is generally reserved for
Development survey who saw a decrease senior managers and executives’. Other
in terms of general learning and talent comments include ‘It is part of staff
development (L&TD) expenditure, and development’, and ‘it has become just
only 16% who saw an increase. another initiative’.

Who delivers coaching and
mentoring?
Although line managers and internal
coaches continue to share primary
responsibility for delivering coaching,
increasing use of external coaches shows

Figure 1: Coaching expenditure trends
Base: 256

8% 10%

28%

31% Increasing
Increasing

Reducing Reducing

38% Stable Stable

No information 42% No information

20%
24%

2011 2009

5

a move towards more professional tendering (19%) and assessment centres
delivery, as shown in Figure 2. This (4%) to test for coaching competence.
probably represents a re-focusing of These approaches are fine for large
organisations on coaching capability, organisations such as the NHS and large
which generally requires more specialist banks and consumer goods companies
support from coaching consultancies. that can gain economies of scale by
developing a pool of coaches, but for
Our 2009 Taking the Temperature of the majority (53%) ad hoc engagement
Coaching survey report identified a trend of coaches on a consultancy basis seems
towards co-delivery. This year’s survey to be the preferred route. That said,
findings reinforce this trend, with about around a quarter of organisations seek to
two-thirds of respondents saying they invite bids from coaches they have used
use external coaches in some capacity. previously and may even recommend
these to others, leading to what is in
Selection and accreditation of effect a shared pool.
coaches
An important aspect of working with A perennial argument rages on whether
external coaches, especially in resource- coaches should be accredited and
constrained times, is that they are licensed. Coaching bodies such as the
properly selected and engaged in order European Mentoring and Coaching
to deliver organisational value. We asked Council (EMCC), the Association
organisations how they selected external for Professional Executive Coaching
coaches. Methods included formal and Supervision (APECS), the British

Figure 2: Primary responsibility for coaching delivery
Base: 256

32
Line managers
37

20
External coaches
14
23
Internal coaches
29
19
Learning and talent professionals 2011
0
7 2009
Other
7

0 10 20 30 40 50
Percentage

6

Psychological Society (BPS) and the Evaluation: 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 2008
and trained coaches who are able to Learning and Development survey that
deal with the complex demands of only 20% of organisations actually
organisational coaching and operate carried out any evaluation of coaching
within stringent professional codes and and mentoring – that we have made
standards. Our data show that there it a focus of our coaching effort. Our
has been a fairly significant increase in research culminated in the publication
the proportion of respondents insisting of our Real-world Coaching Evaluation
on accreditation – just over two-fifths guide in 2010. The guide reviews the
compared with just a third in 2009. evidence of poor practice and mindsets
that are obstacles to effective evaluation
Internal coaches are just as critical to the of the impact of coaching. It examines
process of delivery – indeed more so – as the tools and data sources available
external coaches. As we explained in for evaluation and recommends an
the 2009 survey, they are increasingly integrated approach.
the load-bearers of organisational
coaching. This means that, on the one Having developed a significant amount
hand, line managers can be conducting of research around coaching evaluation,
basic coaching conversations as a way we were able to test in the Coaching
of managing their supervisory workload, Climate survey how the message was
but on the other hand, highly qualified being received and indeed heeded.
coaches can be working with talent and We can see in Figure 3 that the softer
succession pools and often delivering to side of evaluation around ‘stories and
executives outside of their own business testimony’ seems to be dominant, with
area. Thus the requirement for internal just under two-fifths recording this as the
coaching capability to be resourced method of evaluation they use the most.
and allocated is a key issue. We asked In 2009 it was just under a quarter. The
how internal coaches are selected and use of key performance indicators and

appointed 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% are
as in the case of external coaches, that developing a set of evaluation criteria
the line of sight for HR is obscured. at the outset in the contracting phase
This could be because of conflicting or – a practice we have long encouraged.
competing organisational policies and The 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

most favoured practice in a small The implications of this are quite
number of cases. This approach needs clear. Without evaluation practitioners
caution, given the way in which ROI can cannot answer the value question. In
be used without baseline and with the an increasingly value-driven learning
implicit inflation of the denominator (big and talent environment this is likely
project and small coaching cost equals to be detrimental. Evaluation is a rich
massive ROI). Perhaps those dogged and rewarding area of practice and we
practitioners using an ROI approach are would suggest that practitioners devote
employing the sophisticated augmented as much attention to it as they allocate
ROI of Phillips and Phillips (2007) rather to delivery and technique. Keddy and
than the crude calculation of cost over Johnson (2011) have some excellent
benefits. ROI’s hybrid cousin, the more suggestions for evaluation based on,
reflexive return on expectations (ROE) among other things, chains of evidence
approach, is favoured by just over 10% in the criminal justice system and the
of 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 evaluation
Base: 246

We look for stories and testimony but 37
don’t bother too much with evaluation 23
30
We measure coaching through KPIs
22
We develop evaluation criteria at 28
the outset in the contracting phase 20
26
We don’t measure or evaluate coaching
18
11
We use return on expectations (ROE)
8

10
We use a mixture of ROI and ROE 2011
8
6 2009
We use return on investment (ROI)
3

0 10 20 30 40 50
Percentage

8

The purpose of coaching Coaching agendas
Coaching is utilised most as a tool This year we wanted to focus on
for improving performance, as Figure what is covered in coaching agendas.
4 shows. We found that coaching is Perhaps 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 we response. HR professionals responsible
are seeing an honest focus on coaching and accountable for coaching need to
as a remedial and talent acceleration have some visibility of the agendas and
proposition. This reflects the need to topics for coaching to be able to reflect
manage poor performers, to prepare on what coaching assignments involve, as
future leaders and to retain talent. Open ultimately they are paying for the service.
responses on the purpose of coaching Our 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 ‘part specific agendas, and we found that most
of culture change’ – an example of the coaching assignments focus on building
highest level of ingrained purpose, to its skills 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
43
To improve poor performance
20
48
To build on good performance
24
24
To build employee engagement

9
61
To aid leadership development
23
38
Part of talent and succession planning
15
16
Focused upon change management 2011
9
Focused upon skills and capability 47 2009
improvement 0

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Percentage

9

focus on this aspect. Roughly a fifth always within the organisation and link this to
focus on developing skills and competence the business, driving real insight about
and about 3% fail to address this aspect how good people management can
at all. Supporting career transitions is make the difference. While HR people
also a key area. Understanding business are seen as having strong organisational
and commercial issues came quite low savvy, the weakness in business savvy
down the list, with only 5% always doing was viewed as holding the profession
this and double that proportion never back and posed a threat to the senior
addressing that issue. We thought this was profile of HR. The debate about whether
a noteworthy finding, as we explain below. HR is ‘getting a seat at the table’ or at
least influencing major board decisions
Coaching business savvy: the new needs to be seen in the context of the
capability challenge and opportunity appointment of professionals from
The proportion of practitioners who marketing, legal and customer service
report continuously pursuing business roles into senior HR portfolios. This is often
awareness and commercial issues in because these individuals are perceived
coaching assignments is low. The CIPD as having greater business awareness
has identified a capability need in the HR and what might be called strategic
profession for developing what we term agility than HR professionals. The CIPD is
business savvy. Our Next Generation HR seeking to address these issues through
research project challenged practitioners our forthcoming Business Savvy research
to develop and trade upon their insight project and our ongoing Next Generation

Figure 5: Coaching agendas

Improving personal effectiveness 24 50 19 4 1

Developing skills and competence 19 48 23 5 3

Building leadership capability 13 49 27 8 2

Improving understanding

of business, commercial 5 21 33 25 10
and financial issues

Resolving conflict and disputes 4 23 34 24 10

Helping with skills such as 5 23 37 28 5
presentations

Supporting career
10 44 29 13 2
development and transition

Supporting through challenging
6 33 36 19 4
projects and assignments

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Percentage

Always Sometimes Never
Frequently Occasionally

10

HR research around the insight-driven recommendation that coaching addresses
professional. Coaching has a major role to business and commercial awareness
play here. as a priority agenda. Figure 6 shows
some activities typically used to develop
We believe that coaches working ‘business savvy’, and the extent to which
with senior HR teams will have some respondents are using them.
insight into the development needs of
professionals in this area. Thus we asked Focusing on those approaches which are
to what extent, when addressing the used most and least, we can see that
development needs of HR professionals, working on an individual development
coaching assignments looked at plan to raise awareness of any capability
developing skills which promote business gaps and issues was the first choice in
awareness and commercial understanding. that it is always the option in 27% of
We were surprised, firstly, that only a cases and only 1% never use it. Helping
third (109 of the 332 respondents) felt practitioners refresh themselves on key
in 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 use
upon developing HR professionals’ this option. Coaches often recommend
awareness and capability in these areas. the maintenance of a reflective log to help
The CIPD believes that coaching is pivotal people learn in situations of challenge,
in this respect and is making an early such as taking on a new role or moving

Figure 6: Extent of use of activities/approaches to develop
business savvy in HR professionals

Working with individuals 24 27 50 6 1
37 23 8 1
on a development plan

Helping individuals refresh 19 48 23 37 5 2 7
13 43
themselves on key business data
Building a knowledge-sharing
network of key professionals in 1315 28 49 9 39 13 27 5
2
marketing and finance etc.

Checking the company 5 21 31 33 10
12 23 37 24 4
website for relevant data
Keeping a reflective log
on business learning 4 13 23 18 29 35 19 34 1310
opportunities and challenges

Reading up on key topics 5 12 23 16 38 37 5 44 4 2

Supporting CPD/accreditation
10
11 20 44 31 15 18 14 29 2
in the area

Recommending a
business skills course 3 5 23 33 22 39 20 36 4
15

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Percentage

Always Sometimes Never
Frequently Occasionally

11

to a new organisation. This might well and capability of the organisation.
be a productive avenue of learning for Mentoring is especially useful for
practitioners seeking to develop their organisational learning, though it needs
business and commercial awareness. This to be properly planned and developed.
option is always part of the coaching Nearly three-quarters of respondent
support offer in 13% of the organisations organisations have some sort of
that responded, but just as many never mentoring scheme in place. We asked
use it. Recommending a business skills respondents to reflect on mentoring
course was the least favoured option. This practice in their organisations in order to
data, though indicative, does show some ensure that we could begin to track the
of the options for coaching assignments development of mentoring as a distinct
concerned with building business savvy. aspect of practice.
We acknowledge that question phrasing
may have deterred some respondents and First we asked how mentoring is initiated,
perhaps the level of business-awareness given that it is likely to be developed
coaching is higher than is suggested. That internally. We were interested in how
said, we will be challenging coaching at mentoring programmes get going and
all levels to develop and embed this critical nearly half of respondents who answered
aspect of HR capability. this question reported that it takes place
informally as shown in Figure 7. Only
Mentoring coming into its own? 16% have a formal mentoring set-up
Mentoring is often mentioned as an with documentation, such as a mentoring
adjunct to coaching. The skills of contract or template to support the
mentoring are very similar but the focus programme. Around a fifth put the onus
is different. Many organisations use a on managers and leaders to develop
mentoring approach to release the energy mentoring relationships.

Figure 7: How mentoring happens
Base: 242

Informally. We give people
permission and time to pair up 46

Formally. We have a template for
effective mentoring assignments 16

HR allocates mentoring pairs and
17
relationships as appropriate
Managers and leaders are expected
21
to develop mentoring relationships

0 10 20 30 40 50
Percentage

12

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% Leaders

Senior managers

55% High-potentials

All employees
23%


13

CONCLUSION AND PRACTICE POINTERS

As we gauge the coaching climate, we Practice pointers
find this key learning and organisational • A high and stable level of coaching
intervention in good health. The is an opportunity for HR and L&TD
extent and coverage of coaching and to use coaching and mentoring as a
mentoring has remained high and channel for effective interventions.
stable. Expenditure trends, though • Coaching designers and implementers
by no means moving spectacularly should be aware of the mix of
upwards, have not shifted significantly coaching 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 effective that delivers coaching effectively.
evaluation to prove its impact. • Coaching which focuses on
performance seems to be productive
The delivery of coaching is split between and grounded in business reality.
internal and external coaches, with a Focusing on both poor and good
slight increase in the proportion reporting performance is a good way to ensure
that delivery is mainly the province of that coaching is not seen as a remedial
external coaches. This shows that a intervention or a talent path for the
productive balance is being established gifted, but as a key intervention.
between external coaching consultants • Integrating coaching with change
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.
• Evaluation is critical and we neglect it
We are challenging coaching at our peril. Good evaluation is about
interventions aimed at developing more 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 • Coaching has a key role in helping

developing assignments around these build HR capability; L&TD professionals
key capability needs we can help to in the coaching space can make that
build the capability and effectiveness of happen. Putting business savvy and
HR and increase the growing credibility commercial 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 HR
professionals.

14

• Mentoring is increasingly being used Private sector 48%
as a distinct approach to building
Public sector 34%
capability, using basic coaching skills
and techniques on a wider canvas. Voluntary/community 14%
Mentoring programmes cannot be Manufacturing and production 4%
ad hoc; we still need to generate Base: 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 than
Survey background ten employees) accounted for just over
We distributed the survey to a network 10% of our survey respondents. SMEs
of 16,853 HR professionals within accounted for just under 30% and large
learning and talent development and organisations about 60% of respondents.
obtained 332 responses, amounting
roughly to a 2% response rate. This Fewer than 10 11%
is well below the response rate from
10–49 8%
our last survey, to which roughly 550
responses were obtained from a slightly 50–249 20%
smaller sampling pool. It reflects a trend 250–999 22%
towards lower response rates more >1,000 39%
generally because of the increased scope
Base: 329
and nature of surveys made possible by
the proliferation of survey technology.
However, the CIPD believes that as Position in organisation
an aspect of measuring practice it is
Head of learning and development 20%
essential that we embed this survey and
increase response levels. Senior manager/business partner 35%
HR team member 22%

Which sector? Other (responsible for coaching) 23%
Just under half of our survey respondents
Base: 329
are in the private and commercial
sector and just over a third are in the
public sector, with around 15% in the
increasingly important voluntary and
community sector. Fewer than 5% are in
manufacturing and production.

15

REFERENCES

References Other CIPD resources

CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL CIPD Next Generation HR research
AND DEVELOPMENT. (2009) Taking the cipd.co.uk/nextgen
temperature of coaching. Survey report.
London: CIPD. CIPD Learning and Talent Development
annual surveys
CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL cipd.co.uk/
AND DEVELOPMENT. (2010) Real- learningandtalentdevelopmentsurvey
world coaching evaluation: a guide for
practitioners. Guide. London: CIPD.

KEDDY, J. and JOHNSON, C. (2011)
Managing coaching at work: developing,
evaluating and sustaining coaching in
organizations. London: Kogan Page.

PHILLIPS, J. and PHILLIPS, P. (2007) Show
me the money: how to determine ROI
in people, projects and programs. San
Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

16

Issued: September 2011 Reference: 5629 © Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development 2011

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
151 The Broadway London SW19 1JQ
Tel: 020 8612 6200 Fax: 020 8612 6201
Email: cipd@cipd.co.uk Website: cipd.co.uk
Incorporated by Royal Charter Registered charity no.1079797

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