How to Get Your Organisation to Pay For Your Coaching
Sometimes I come across clients who are keen to work with me but simply don’t have the means to pay for leadership coaching.
Coaching is an investment. It’s an investment of time and money that will help you to progress further than you may be able to by yourself.
Leadership coaching is designed to help you achieve your leadership goals and overcome your leadership challenges. Coaching helps to build confidence and gives you a sounding board to discuss your potential options.
In other words, leadership coaching is all about personal and professional development. When you improve as a leader, your organisation will benefit. So why shouldn’t your organisation pay for your coaching?
If you would like your company to pay for your coaching, use the following tips to help you.
1. Build a (Simple) Business Case
The first thing to keep in mind when you want your company to pay for coaching is that they want to understand the business case. That is, they want to know the benefits compared to the costs.
This doesn’t mean you need to build a really complicated document with lots of financial detail. It just means you need to be clear about why you want coaching.
When you’re clear on why coaching will help you, you can explain the reasons to your manager in a conversation, and you can write them down to gain approval through a formal HR process if you need to.
That brings me to the next point – why coaching will help you.
2. Understand Why Coaching Will Help You
There are lots of ways that leadership coaching will help you. Here are some of them.
⭐ A leadership coach helps you improve by holding you accountable
One of the important aspects of coaching is that the coach will hold you accountable.
During each coaching session, you’ll most likely come up with one or more actions that will help you improve your situation. When I coach my clients, I ask them “How will I know when you’ve completed your action?”.
Often it can be as simple as following up by email or text to check in with the client a week after the session.
This makes a tremendous difference for many of my clients because holding yourself accountable is hard. But when someone else is holding you accountable, you often don’t want to let them (or yourself) down.
⭐ A leadership coach has experience that will be speed up your progress
As a leadership coach, I’ve had hundreds of conversations with leaders all over the world. Each time, I learn about their situation, what’s working for them and what isn’t.
I’ve also held many leadership roles myself and worked as a consultant, so I’ve probably experienced similar challenges that you are facing. I’ve also worked in lots of different organisations and industries.
This experience helps me to understand your situation. It also helps me to get to the heart of the issue quicker, so you can progress faster.
⭐ A leadership coach helps you process your thoughts and frustrations
Coaching is a conversation. Sure, it has a bit of structure to it, but it’s still a conversation.
When was the last time you sat down with somebody for an hour or two and discussed your leadership goals and challenges? If you’ve never had coaching, the answer is probably “never”.
The simple act of speaking out loud and responding to coaching questions helps you to process your thoughts more effectively.
I’ll ask questions to test your thinking and challenge your limiting beliefs. It’s hard to do this by yourself, and a coach can more easily spot where you might be holding yourself back.
Coaching can also help you to unload your frustrations in a safe environment. It’s not usually a good idea to speak them openly with your team. Coaching is a safe space where you can speak openly and honestly about your work situation.
Everything discussed is confidential – so you don’t need to worry about other people in your workplace finding out.
⭐ A leadership coach’s sole purpose is to help you improve
Some people may think “shouldn’t my boss be able to coach me?”. Hopefully, your boss does have some coaching skills they can help you with.
However, a leadership coach has something that your boss doesn’t. An independent perspective, and a single goal of helping you improve your situation.
Your boss will be tied up in the office politics, managing budgets and worrying about other people in your workplace. They know the people in your organisation, so they may have a biased perspective.
However, as a leadership coach, my only role is to help you improve. I don’t work for your organisation, and I don’t report to your manager. That means you get an independent perspective, where you can be open and honest about your situation.
3. Remind Your Manager That Coaching Is Tailored Professional Development
Training and coaching are both forms of professional development. Many organisations have no hesitation in spending money on training courses. However, some are not so familiar with coaching.
Many organisations have learning and development budgets, and many pay for coaching out of these budgets. After all, an investment in coaching helps your professional development.
The difference with coaching is that it is completely personalised to you. I don’t have a coaching template. I find out what you want to work on, and we work on it.
Training is much more generic, while coaching tackles your specific needs.
4. Understand Some of the Statistics About Coaching
Sometimes it can be helpful to have some statistics to help you build a case for your company to pay for coaching. Here are a few for you!
✅ Manchester Inc. ran a survey of 100 executives, predominantly from Fortune 1000 companies. The research showed that the average Return On Investment (ROI) was almost 6 times the coaching costs. 📖 Source: The Manchester Review.
✅ The Institute of Coaching found that over 70% of individuals who receive coaching benefited from improved work performance, relationships and more effective communication skills. 📖 Source: The Institute of Coaching.
✅ The International Coaching Federation (ICF) found that 86% of organisations experienced a positive ROI on their coaching engagements, and 96% of those who had an Executive Coach said they would repeat the process again. 📖 Source: International Coaching Federation (ICF).
5. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask the Question
Asking for your organisation to pay for your coaching is nothing to be ashamed about. After all, coaching is an effective form of professional development.
If you do your preparation, understand the benefits of coaching and why you think it will help your organisation, there is a good chance that your company may just invest in your growth and development!
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- Get clear on your most important goals and what is most important to you
- Identify blockers and limiting beliefs that are holding you back; and
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