Research

The following research studies illustrate the significant return on investment of a coaching program, the tangible and intangible effects of coaching, and the efforts being made to develop a meaningful methodology to assess the ROI of coaching:

Amy Joyce, of the Washington Post, reported (PDF) in 2004 that Booz Allen hired a consulting company to study the return on its coaching program. The benefits were $3.3 million in the year 2003, while the coaching for that year's 45 participants cost $414,310. That means the return on investment was 689 percent, according to the study.

A MetrixGlobal study (PDF) of a coaching initiative at a Fortune 500 company indicated a 529% return on investment and significant intangible benefits to the business. Including the financial benefits from employee retention boosted the overall ROI to 788%.

In the same MetrixGlobal study (PDF), five business areas that senior leaders identified as being especially impacted by the coaching initiative are teamwork (58%), team member satisfaction (54%), productivity (31%), retention (31%), and quality of consulting (31%).

In a Manchester study (PDF, 2001) on the coaching of 100 executives, when calculated conservatively, ROI averaged nearly 5.7 times the initial investment in coaching.

In the same Manchester study (PDFP, the top 3 tangible business benefits were found to be productivity, quality, and organizational strengths. The top intangible business benefits were improved relationships with direct reports, improved relationships with stakeholder, and improved teamwork.

A study by Sirota (PDF) Consulting (2004) cites that stock prices of companies with high morale outperformed others in the same industries by more than 2.5 to 1.

An Ivey Business Journal report (PDF, 2006) on the benefits of executive coaching cites the following intangible benefits as described by the Executives in the study. They identified five primary benefits of coaching: continuous one-on-one attention; expanded thinking through dialogue with a curious outsider; increased self-awareness, including blind spots; personal accountability for development; and just-in-time learning.

The results of a Gallup Organization study (PDF) of 1,000 managers in 200 organizations indicated that the most engaged workplaces were 38% more likely to have above-average productivity and 27% more likely to report higher profitability.

A research study by Ninth House (PDF, 2007) reports on trends and ROI challenges in Leadership Development. It cites that less than half (40%) of the organizations have metrics in place to evaluate the overall effectiveness of their leadership development practices.

A study (Schlosser, Steinbrenner, Kumata and Hunt) (PDF) published in the International Journal of Coaching in Organizations reports on the authors' efforts to develop a meaningful methodology for the study of return on investment broadly construed, of executive coaching.