The training market for executives, in Switzerland and abroad, is booming and organizations are increasingly attracted to the integration of strategic Coaching accompaniments to increase the leadership of their managers, rather than making use of traditional training.
This trend has been consolidated thanks to the concrete results that Coaching is able to bring to organizations, as it is effective in supporting resources in the development and change processes.
As early as 1997, the Financial Times published a study by the International Personnel Management Association, which showed that if traditional training improves productivity by an average of 22%, with Coaching it reaches about 88% (Financial Times, 1997). Starting in those years, there has been a growing demand for Coaching services as a cutting-edge training tool among large Corporations.
In fact, the interest of organizations to make use of Coaching services in Switzerland is mainly based on the strong attention that has been placed on human resources as a competitive advantage and source of value creation within them. The innovations, synergies and knowledge that develop in organizational contexts are therefore an added value defined as a corporate “intangible asset”, as it is difficult to measure.
A survey of the CIPD (Center for Diversity and Work Psychology) elaborated on more than 500 organizations, has also shown that the training of resources in the company has moved from the classic learning of skills to an approach based on the development of the person, precisely the Coaching. The survey found that people within an organization need effective development support especially if they have to take on more responsibilities in their role.
In fact, the statistics show that Coaching in organizations is most requested to support the resource:
- in a rapid company growth where a quick change of roles is required;
- in the acquisition of greater skills;
- in the increase of the workload;
- in the development of leadership and managerial posture.
Coaching, therefore, aims at the development of soft skills (communication, organization, relationship, leadership, management, time management, etc.), or those skills that concern the managerial posture of the person who represent the wealth of human capital in organizations. It is an undeniable fact that Coaching allows to obtain excellent results, but these are achievable only when the manager is mentally predisposed to acquire new skills and to bring out a new personality. Coaching, therefore, accompanies the resource in a process of developing their potential and in the transformation of their mindset, which lead them to implement concrete changes in the way they approach situations, use their reasoning, communication, relationship and manage resources. It is in fact effective for stress management, in facilitating organizational change, in bringing out leadership, in identifying the behaviors that contribute to success and those that limit their effectiveness, in identifying the strategies and action plans of resources, to develop an entrepreneurial attitude, share values, generate measurable benefits and implement a process of self-realization and balance between private and work life.
The benefits and results of Coaching do not depend exclusively on the motivation and active participation of the resource, but also on the posture of the Coach, who must provide all his experience and personal qualities in building a truthful, credible, structured and goal-oriented relationship in order to bring a benefit to the client.
Today Coaching is considered as an effective organizational development tool with solid foundations in psychology, science, philosophy, education and best practices of sports psychology (Zeus and Skeffington, 2002), thus offering a complete and strategic service to organizations and positioning itself as an indispensable service to companies that want to remain competitive.
