How To Get Your Company To Pay For Executive Coaching
In today's high-pressure business environments, personal and professional development is essential for career success. Executive coaching has become a powerful tool for helping professional women accelerate their careers sustainably, without succumbing to stress or sacrificing their relationships. More people are steadily discovering the benefits of executive coaching. These days, coaching is no longer a luxury for top-level executives but something that can benefit employees at all levels of the organization. And as the demand for coaching grows, more professionals are looking for ways to get their companies to pay for executive coaching.
While it can feel daunting to make the ask, the good news is that employers are increasingly willing to finance coaching and there are steps that employees can proactively take to make it happen. In fact, roughly half of our clients receive employer financing despite most of them working at companies that don’t have formalized coaching budgets. In this blog post, we will explore what employees need to do to unlock the benefits of executive coaching and convince their companies to foot the bill.
1. Align Coaching Goals With Company Objectives
When seeking financial support for executive coaching, it's crucial to align your coaching goals with your company’s business objectives. Your company is more likely to invest in executive coaching when they see a direct link between your goals and the organization’s priorities so consider how you can make your success their success! For example, if your company is focused on expanding into new markets, you can highlight how executive coaching can help you develop the leadership skills necessary to lead and manage international teams successfully.
Organizations can have a broad range of objectives and priorities and you should always adapt your ask to your company’s culture to make it as easy as possible for your stakeholders to say “yes”. This may mean emphasizing how your coaching goals align with soft objectives such as the company's vision, mission, and values in your discussions with your manager. Or, it could mean showing how the coaching outcomes can help your department and team achieve the hard business outcomes you’re working toward.
2. Explore All Paths Toward Approval
While more companies are formalizing how they work with professional development, it’s safe to say that we still have a way to go until executive coaching becomes a standardized employee benefit. So if you’re looking for financial support from your company, it’s important that you explore all paths toward a “yes”.
A good place to start is to talk to your HR team about your company’s professional development budgets! Ask them about what kind of services they finance and up to what amount. And while you do this, keep in mind that the list of approved services and the maximum amounts aren’t final. It’s often possible to get financing for additional services, including more expensive ones, with the right approvals. If these cases, your HR team should be able to guide you through the process.
If your company doesn’t have formalized professional development budgets, talk to your manager. Team leaders and department heads often have discretionary budgets that they can use to finance executive coaching services. And if no such budgets exist at your company, ask your manager to help you get approval from the right stakeholders (most likely the HR and Finance teams). Ultimately, your manager has a vested interest in you becoming a happier and more productive employee, so turn them into an ally!
3. Create Your Proposal
Keep in mind that while you may have spent a lot of time thinking about coaching, how it works, and why you need it, that may not be the case for your manager and the other stakeholders whose support you need. A well-crafted proposal can be a powerful tool to convince your company to pay for executive coaching and it’s your job to create it!
Your proposal should outline the coaching program and the benefits it will bring to both you and the organization. Include details such as the coaching objectives, the program timeline, the costs, and the anticipated outcomes. And make sure to highlight how the coaching program will help you grow as an employee or overcome challenges that are hindering your performance - especially those you may have discussed with your manager as part of your performance reviews and 1:1 meetings. By doing so, you’re grounding your ask in your manager’s and company’s priorities and making it easier for your stakeholders to say “yes”.
Need Help Securing Financing From Your Company?
We have extensive experience with helping our clients secure financial support for coaching from their companies. We’re happy to provide you with email templates and coaching program documentation that will enable you to align your ask with your company’s objectives and create an amazing proposal for your stakeholders! To find out more, book a free 30-minute call with us to explore how we can be of help.