Skeptical of Coaching ROI Studies? Build a Business Case with 5 Key Metrics

Every coaching vendor will hand you their ROI study. Ours included. You should be sceptical of all of them. The sample is theirs, the definition of success is theirs, and the companies that ran it look nothing like yours. Here's the version that actually survives a CFO meeting: build the case out of five numbers that are already sitting in your own HRIS. → Regretted senior exits, last twelve months. Not total attrition — the ones you'd have fought to keep. → Time-to-fill for those specific roles. Every week in that number is a team running without a head. → First-time managers promoted last year. This is your risk concentration. Most of them were promoted for being excellent at the job they no longer do. → The engagement gap between teams under a first-year manager and everyone else. If you run engagement by manager tenure, this cut takes ten minutes and it is usually the most uncomfortable slide in the deck. → Internal promotion rate at senior levels. Low means you're buying leadership at market price instead of building it. None of those five numbers is a coaching metric. That's the point. They're business numbers you already report, and they describe the problem before anyone mentions a solution. Put a cost against the first two. Put a headcount against the next two. Then ask what it would take to move them. That's a business case. Not a belief. #CoachingROI #CHRO #IndiaLnD