How to maximise the business impact of coaching in your workplace

Coaching has firmly established itself as one of the most effective ways to unlock human potential at work. But simply offering coaching is no guarantee of success. As an HR manager, director, or leader overseeing coaching initiatives, you hold the key to whether coaching is a tick-box exercise or a strategic driver of business performance and organisational value.

Drawing on insights from recent thinking in learning, neuroscience, coaching psychology and leadership, here are evidence-informed ways to ensure your coaching investment delivers measurable business impact.

Make coaching part of how work gets done

A common mistake is treating coaching as a standalone intervention. To maximise its effect - and its return on investment - it must be embedded within a supportive learning culture.

Andy Lancaster, in Driving Performance through Learning, emphasises the importance of creating a learning “environment of ‘flow’ where learners become interested, immersed and free from anxiety or boredom.” He writes, “Learning design and delivery must provide room for pre-thinking, participation, experimentation and reflection.” He also shares: “Embedding coaching in everyday organisational life is vital for learning in-the-flow of work, and an effective coaching culture is rare and something to savour when you find it.”

This means fostering an organisational climate where coaching is part of the fabric of daily work - not an isolated event. Line managers should play an active role in reinforcing coaching outcomes and supporting ongoing reflection. Coaching conversations should be grounded in real business challenges, helping individuals experiment, reflect and apply insights in the moment, not just after the fact.

By aligning coaching with organisational goals and enabling space for pre-thinking, experimentation and reflection - as Lancaster suggests - you create the conditions for deep learning and sustained behaviour change. This not only boosts the impact of individual coaching engagements but also strengthens overall business performance as learning is continuously integrated into how work gets done.

Build new habits and mindsets through coaching

Understanding how people learn helps you shape coaching interventions that align with how the brain works. Neuroscience expert Stella Collins, in Neuroscience for Learning and Development, explains that the brain is wired for learning through repetition, emotional engagement and social interaction.

She says: “Things that seem to be considered genuinely useful both from the neuroscience and the practice of learning are: repetition, spaced learning, smaller group learning, reward and emotional and physical state.”

She highlights that: “Reviewing and practice are a vital part of memory consolidation – revisiting and repeating the learning over time helps strengthen the neural pathways and the opportunity to break old habits and create new ones.”

To support this, coaching should be designed with opportunities for regular review, reflection and practice - both within sessions and back on the job. Encouraging coachees to revisit key insights, experiment with new behaviours and reflect on outcomes helps embed new learning and build stronger neural pathways. At the same time, creating positive emotional states - such as curiosity, hope and excitement - can further strengthen learning by activating brain networks linked to motivation and cognitive flexibility. HR leaders can help by fostering a coaching culture where experimentation and ‘failing forward’ are encouraged, promoting both cognitive growth and emotional resilience.

Harness questioning as a leadership superpower

One of the most practical ways to amplify coaching’s impact is to encourage managers at all levels to adopt coaching behaviours themselves - especially the habit of asking better questions.

Laura and Dominic Ashley-Timms, in The Answer is a Question, make a compelling case that questioning is a “missing superpower” for managers. They write, “Learning how to retrain your brain so that it’s permanently on alert to incorporate more powerful questions into everything that you do will redefine you as a manager and leader and accelerate your career.”

They continue: “Adopting the behaviours that support the asking of more powerful questions into the heart of an operation can underpin a culture that’s more collaborative, inclusive and innovative with measurable improvements in engagement, productivity and performance."

You can reinforce this by integrating coaching skills - including the art of asking powerful questions - into leadership development, and by modelling a culture where curiosity and inquiry are valued. The more your managers can bring coaching behaviours into everyday interactions, the more coaching becomes a pervasive part of organisational life - not just an occasional intervention, but a strategic capability.

Follow the data – aim for measurable results

Rebecca J Jones’ Coaching with Research in Mind calls for a more rigorous, evidence-informed approach to coaching. To make the impact visible and credible, HR leaders need to define success from the start - and collect data that shows what’s working.

This can include pre- and post-coaching self-assessments, 360-degree feedback, relevant business KPIs such as team cohesion, and qualitative insights from reflection journals or exit interviews

Evidence doesn’t mean stripping coaching of its humanity. It means making its impact tangible and traceable - so that business leaders view coaching not as a ‘nice-to-have’, but as a strategic investment with clear business outcomes.

Align coaching to business priorities

For coaching to be seen as a business enabler, it must be explicitly linked to strategic priorities. Yet too often, coaching outcomes remain vague or generic.

You can drive alignment by working with business leaders to identify where coaching will have the greatest impact - whether it’s accelerating leadership transitions, supporting cultural change, driving innovation, or improving team performance.

Then, set clear expectations for coaching engagements to be outcomes-focused and to generate insights that can feed back into organisational learning. Demonstrating tangible links between coaching and business impact will help secure continued support and investment.

Foster a learning mindset across the organisation

Finally, coaching can be invaluable when it’s part of a wider culture of learning and adaptability. Andy Lancaster reminds us that organisations need to develop learning agility to thrive in a fast-changing world. Coaching is a key lever for this, but it must be underpinned by cultural norms that value experimentation, reflection and continuous improvement.

You can reinforce this by celebrating coaching success stories, encouraging peer learning among managers, and integrating coaching principles into HR processes such as performance management and talent development - so that coaching actively contributes to organisational resilience and growth.

Final thought: Coaching isn’t a silver bullet - but it can be a catalyst

Used well, coaching creates ripples. It sharpens self-awareness, builds resilience, fosters better conversations and helps people navigate uncertainty. But it only works when it’s embedded with intention, led by data, supported by neuroscience, and scaled through managers who ask the right questions.

For HR leaders, the challenge - and the opportunity - is to stop thinking of coaching as a perk and start using it as a performance strategy. That’s how you maximise the impact. And that’s how you help people - and the business - truly thrive.