It’s All The Rage: The Career Coach
For the past few years, Career coaches have been all the rage among executives with itchy feet. Now because of the rising costs associated with losing good employees, organizations are following suit by inserting career coaches on their own payrolls. Some organizations like Deloitte & Touche are now spending as much as $2million a year on a career-coaching program and claim they have sent 23% of its workers through the “coaching” process, and that out of its 9700 employees, 760 of those workers would have left the firm had it not for their coaching system.
While estimated costs of losing employees vary from organization to organization, some as low as a few hundred dollars to as high as four times the annual salary of the employee, certain causes associated with turnover in any specific job or organization can be managed by a career coach. These include such things as high stress, working conditions, monotony, poor supervision, poor fit between the employee and the job, inadequate training, poor communications, and organization practices, or just itchy feet. On an even more serious note is the recent finding that after scrutinizing exit interviews, companies are starting to discover that many employees are bolting to other companies for positions not unlike the positions they left.
In today’s working landscape, the importance of enlisting your own career coach has spread from executives, to organizations to the ranks of disgruntled employee who just may think the grass is greener. Career coaches can help an employee figure out “what they really want to do, and then help with a plan. It’s not unusual for an employee to discover that the restlessness they feel, the yearning for more money, excitement and passion just might be found within their own company.
