Coaching - the Coach as a Business Partner

For the last decade coaching has enjoyed massive growth. Today, most organisations are now seeing the huge benefits of introducing coaching. Qualified service providers/consultants who offer specialist coaching services are now evolving to become today's new 'business partners' to SME's, Not-for-Profits and Corporates alike. These highly skilled consultants who employ the latest coaching models of change and learning help enterprises by:
   1) becoming strategic partners and ensuring business makes best use of its people and its people opportunities and,
   2) creating centers of excellence which deliver innovative learning and talent management programs and,
   3) working closely with HR administration to provide specialist outsourced 'people development and learning' services.

Today's 'people and performance models’ require individual HR strategies operating with each other in a strategic framework which incorporates both people and business issues.
In the last few years there has been a greater requirement for people management practices to have an impact on business performance. All support functions are under greater scrutiny than ever before. Whether you work in IT, finance or human resources and personnel -in today's corporate world you have to add value.

Today, expectations of senior management and executives are enormous, and the time frame for producing results has all but collapsed. As the leadership group develop new competitive strategies, having a trusted partner and advisor is becoming essential for their success. The Coach as a Business Partner helps leaders and their senior teams navigate a wide array of business challenges. Unlike a strategy consultant who may press a generic model of competition or a training consultant who may present a cookie cut approach of development on an organization, the Coach-as-a-Business-Partner partners directly with the senior team to build a strategy from within. Throughout this working arrangement, this guidance and support also helps leaders focus on both their own professional development and that of their employees.

More CEO's are challenging their HR departments to make more bottom-line and strategic contributions to the organization. Traditional HR functions often face criticism about their lack of service and responsiveness and as a result threats of outsourcing and downsizing are ever present. CEO's, who are focused on growth, earnings and shareholder returns, want HR to support corporate business objectives, have the necessary data to support business decisions and ensure that there are qualified and satisfied workers when and where they are needed. It's a lot to ask, but these demands are achievable today. And the HR department doesn’t have to do it alone. Expert service providers acting in the role as a Business Partner can help move HR from the administrative rut, free up manpower for strategic tasks, and employ business intelligence technologies to align HR with desired business outcomes. When these elements come together, HR can have a tremendous and meaningful impact on the bottom line.

The 'Business Coach' has evolved in the last several years into a professional that has expertise in a particular area of business and learning and development.
The typical Partnering model used by the HR department is an agreed method of working together as an integrated and co-ordinated team to achieve common objectives and shared benefits. The relationship is designed to achieve specific business objectives by maximising the effectiveness of each participant's resource. The relationship is based on mutual objectives, a standardized approach and methodology, an agreed method of problem resolution and an active search for continuous measurable improvements.

It is important to emphasise that:

There is not a single model partnering arrangement or framework that will suit all organisations and all service providers
Partnering does not mean doing what is already done in a better way - it means radical change in the traditional approach, organisation and processes of HR
The nature and quality of team relationships are crucial - good communication and flexibility are essential
Partnering is a means to an end - not a solution and not a quick fix. It is a joint learning process - a journey rather than a destination.
The success of any partnering arrangement is directly linked to the commitment of the partners

The major reasons driving small and large organisations alike to adopt a 'partnering' approach in people development are:
   1) -psychologically-based coaching can provide clear statistical evidence of a bottom line/beneficial outcome while traditional HR coaching
       and training efforts can be costly, difficult to cost-justify and simply a waste of time and valuable resources.
   2) -it is increasingly difficult to recruit the best available people in today's shrinking skilled labour pool

   3) -to succeed in today's business market an organisation must build and develop a pool of highly skilled, creative, motivated, flexible
       and committed professional staff, managers and leaders.
   4) -most internal, long-term HR administration personnel are naturally 'focused-on-the-job' and simply do not have the wider experience,
        perspective and skills of service providers who also have access to cutting edge world-best practices.

Implicit in an organization's drive for local and international competitiveness is the recognition that high-performing managers/leaders are essential for organisations to achieve and sustain competitive advantage. In order to improve overall organisational effectiveness there is now an emphasis on working with aspects of an individuals’ behavior that have the potential to enhance their individual and collective performance, well-being and intrinsic job satisfaction. Behavior-based workplace coaching initiatives, designed and built by specially trained 'consultants-as-coaches', can assist internal HRM practitioners to align management practices within the broader framework of organisational strategies and improve the quality of the working lives of managers/leaders and organisational effectiveness.

Even today, there is still uncertainty in many organisations about who actually is responsible for promoting employee engagement and Partnering is still considered a ‘paradigm shift’ of operation and thinking for the traditional HR department. However, partnering is quickly becoming a commercial necessity that delivers open discussion, informed decisions and world-best standard practices in people development which inturn ensures long-term business growth and success.

The Behavioral Coaching Institute's industry-proven, 4 Day Certified Master Coach Course (world's top-rated business coaching course -ICAA Survey 2009 -conducted in New York, London, Bangkok, Singapore and via our Distance Learning Program etc) meets the critical needs for service providers as coaches to be trained and mentored in the use of a proven range of validated, reliable psychologically-based coaching models, tools and techniques.