More Mid-Level Workers Are Reaching Their Field Goals Thanks to Coaches

Maybe it’s time you asked your employer to assign you a coach.

Once a valued perk in executive suites, coaching of late has been creeping down the corporate ladder to benefit managers and employees.

“The more enlightened companies, typically those on the list of the best companies to work for, understand that if an employee’s whole life is working better, the employee is more productive, and that’s important to the bottom line,” said John Seiffer of Brookfield, Conn., president of the International Coach Federation.

Unlike mentoring--a process whereby an experienced company higher-up advises a rising star--coaches are frequently drawn from the outside and provide support on lifestyle and business matters.

Some businesses, Seiffer said, provide internal coaches who work on assignment from the human resources department. Other businesses pay outside coaches to advise their employees.

And some people “have hired coaches on their own and initially not told anybody because they wanted to have a secret weapon,” Seiffer said.

Coaching apparently is experiencing rapid growth. ICF’s membership has tripled to 1,400 in the last year, and a survey by Personnel Decisions International, a Minneapolis-based human resources firm, found that 90% of senior HR leaders expect the demand for executive coaches to continue.

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Seiffer estimated there are 5,000 to 10,000 personal coaches practicing, charging between $200 and $1,000 a month, “usually for telephone coaching.”

The recipient gets “a certain number of prearranged phone calls over the course of the month, and if it involves coming on site, the cost can run a lot higher,” Seiffer said.

“The advice I give people,” he said, “is get clear on what you want to accomplish with a coach. Most will do an initial conversation without charge. They want to make sure it’s a good match for them as well as for you.”

According to Laura Berman Fortgang, president of Montclair, N.J.-based InterCoach, “Coaches are looking at where you’re at and overcoming the obstacles to where you want to go and creating a plan to get there. We’re doing less talking and more question-asking.”

Coaches are particularly useful, Fortgang said, for high achievers who put themselves on “an endless treadmill” and who are “using adrenaline as their drug of choice to get through any given day.”

To persuade your employer to assign you a coach, Fortgang said, “you have to tell the employer what you want to work on and how you think it would contribute to the whole company.”

For the same training dollars they would use to send you to a conference in Miami once or twice a year, you could get a coach for a year and get more results, Fortgang said. A typical individual who gets coaching experiences a 25% increase in his or her income, although such results are not guaranteed, she said.

“If your company is going to invest in you, it means that they want you and that they’re going to keep you,” she said, “although there are times when a corporation will say, ‘We have a problem person here, and this is a last-ditch effort.’ ”

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In her book “Take Yourself to the Top” (Warner Bros., 1998), Fortgang wrote that individuals are ready for coaching if they recognize there’s a gap between where they are and where they want to be and are willing to take the time to invest in themselves, keep appointments and work with a coach.

A good time to approach your employer about a coach “is just before they get to their training budgets for the year and have decided where the money is going to go,” Fortgang said.

One new coaching organization, Centera Inc. of Minneapolis, said it plans to tie coaching to corporate objectives such as meeting bigger marketing goals.

The more companies flatten their organizations, erase job boundaries, hire free agents and use virtual employees, the more important coaching becomes, said Kathy Higgins Victor, Centera’s founder.

According to David Peterson and Mary Dee Hicks, senior vice presidents of PDI, companies that undertake employee coaching should:

* Provide coaching where the payback is greatest, for example, in helping to accelerate the growth of people in critical assignments.

* Build a pool of coaches who can be counted on, individuals who understand the business’ strategic priorities and culture.

* Use coaches who will help your executives break old habits and learn new ways to do things and who will address an individual’s specific challenges.

* Set objectives for the coaching program and evaluate results in light of those objectives.

To reach the International Coach Federation in Angel Fire, N.M., call (888) BEMYCOACH or visit its Web site at https:// www.coachfederation.org.