In this article, author and career expert Erica Sosna wants to explain why developing your internal career coaching capability may be the best investment you could make in troubled times and share with you how to build a strong business case for doing so.

My father is a jeweller. He specialises in selling unique and beautiful antique jewellery. During the last recession, he told me:

“Erica, both of us are in the luxury business. When things get difficult, no one buys jewellery or training programmes; they focus on keeping the lights on and paying the wage bill.”

Let’s imagine your organisation is in the midst of change for one reason or another.

There’s going to be a merger and a re-org. There have been cuts in funding and headcount. A transformation programme underway will have a real and lasting impact on your population.

In this environment, the sensible thing to do is to batten the hatches. Cut costs as much as possible, and force the justification of every invoice and every spend.

To my father’s point, there doesn’t seem to be the space or the budget to invest in further training for staff when we don’t know what the organisation will look and feel like in the new world, and we aren’t even sure which team will still be in place once the re-organisation is complete.

I can completely understand that. You might feel reticent to say, “This is the time to invest in training our coaches”.

This message can feel awkward and out of touch with the current reality.

The Presentation Is Everything

What if we say that by investing in your coaching education, you could make a strategic intervention that could save the organisation millions?

What about improving the employer brand during the transition and giving your loyal staff real support, encouragement and help during this transition?

What if investing in building capability was a true win/win?

Would that be of interest? If so, read on!

Gearing Up For Transformation

When we think about business transformation and redesign, we have a sense of lots of moving parts. 

Divisions and departments might be reshuffled; teams might be disbanded and created. Each individual in your organisation is going to feel the impact. They will be thinking about their career. They will wonder if there is a place for them in the future and maybe distracted and demoralised by the uncertainty triggered by the change process.

Key Talent Becomes A Flight Risk

As coaches and facilitators, we want to ensure that each person can make the right career decision for them and their future whilst also ensuring the organisation retains the right talent to keep doing great work.

Once the dust has settled, we will still need strong talent to participate in the new structure. When we are in the midst of change, we often forget that this is a temporary phase and will settle into our unique way of working. 

Career coaching helps ensure you have energised and committed people along for the ride.

To help your talent move swiftly through the change curve, it is essential that they feel supported by quality career development conversations about their future. 

This is where expert career coaching can help.

Build Capability

Building the capability of your coaches to help people reflect on their careers and devise career plans is not a luxury item. It is a practical necessity.

Career coaching is a crucial engagement tool, engendering loyalty and participation at all organisational levels. 

Career coaching can help employees make the right choice navigating the change and the new opportunities more skillfully. 

Depending on your agenda, in-house career coaching can help to:

• Reduce redundancy or voluntary severance by assisting people to make proactive choices about their careers.
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• Retain and engage your best people by helping them to see a future in your organisation.
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• Enable each individual to focus and feel empowered to stay productive during uncertain times.
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• Reduce the cost of outplacement services by building capability within.
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• Develop a valuable community of in-house experts that drive internal mobility.

A number of our clients have seen investment in our career coaching qualification as a critical pillar in their people strategy and essential to the success of their transformation process.

During change, individuals must continue to feel invested. 

They must have a place to voice their fears and concerns and connect with a sounding board to make the right choice for them and their families. 

In-house capacity building can deliver the people aspect of transformation in a powerful and impactful way.

The Business Case For Career Development Conversations

So, if you would like to make a business case for further career coaching education for your coaching pool but are feeling shy about requesting funds in an austere time, here are some key ‘lines to take’.

✔ There is a budget set aside to ensure a successful transformation. Career coaching is integral to the strategy for achieving this transformation. 

✔ It is fundamental to our post-transformation success that the right talent is retained. We must prevent brain drain. Career coaching will help us do that by keeping our best people engaged.

✔ Offering in-house coaching support will drive better employee engagement, raise our level of loyalty and performance and enhance our employer brand.  It is a way for us to stay close to our key talent and enhance our succession planning.

✔ In an environment where people feel disempowered because they are not in control of the pace of change, career coaching keeps them energised and empowered. This reduces the risk of burnout, sickness absence and unplanned departures. It’s a cost-effective way to reduce the expense of finding, recruiting, inducting and training new people.

✔ Change is inevitable, and the pace of it is speeding up across all sectors. In a volatile environment, leading through change requires keeping our people close and bringing them along with us. 

✔ Strategically deploying personalised attention can inspire the best talent to work in the public, private, and non-profit sectors.

Accreditation equips internal coaches to manage and maximise the impact of these career development conversations during career transition and change.

Our ICF-accredited coaching programmes are small events designed for 6-8 participants so that everybody can maximise this experience. 

Click here to learn more and download the programme's outline.