Professional coaching: where are we in 2022?

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In 5 years, the professional coaching market has grown considerably. The number of professional coaches has more than tripled. For the vast majority of them (over 90%), they are independent consultants. If more and more companies are using professional coaching to accelerate the development of their Talents, it is because they know that it will not be an investment at a loss. In fact, in 2016, a study by the International Coaching Federation, 86% of companies that chose professional coaching declared that they had received a “very satisfactory ROI.”

The current crises (Covid, Great Resignation, etc.) are also one of the reasons why companies are encouraging companies to offer coaching sessions to their employees to help them develop the resources they need to continue to perform.

In this interview with Valérie Rocoplan and Aude Bohu, Directors of Talentis, you will discover why and how this coaching company is positioned as one of the key references on the market.

In a few words, can you introduce us to the Talentis coaching firm?

Valérie Rocoplan, Founder and CEO of Talentis & Professional Coach: “Talentis' mission is to develop responsible leaders in responsible companies that want to develop a more responsible world. Talentis has been a partner of HR managers for 20 years and has co-built with them programs and talent development schemes tailored to their organizations, taking great care to understand their cultural specificities, their business and people challenges.”

Why do companies choose, today, to use professional coaching companies?

Aude Bohu, Associate Director of Talentis & Professional Coach: “Today, companies are facing a number of challenges that are multiplying and that require aligning all teams around collective ambitions and visions, mobilizing them and engaging them in the long term. It is for this reason that expectations in terms of coaching support have multiplied and have become defocused on simple individual coaching. Today, what businesses expect, and that is why they call on companies like us, Talentis, is to be able to respond to the multiplicity of their challenges, and therefore to develop populations and communities that are larger than before.”

Valerie Rocoplan: “According to the latest studies that have just been published, clients expect even more professionalization from coaching. For example, they want coaches to commit to results. They want more transparency throughout the duration of coaching, on the progress and on the sustainability of achievements. This is what Talentis has been defending for 20 years. I think that we are a certain amount of time ahead of the coaching world, which is still very much based on an obligation of means.”

Why do businesses trust Talentis?

Aude Bohu: “Customers trust us because they know that working with Talentis is a guarantee of quality, a guarantee of experience. For 20 years, we have been supporting the largest French and international groups in the design and implementation of their leadership programs and management development programs.”

Valerie Rocoplan: “At their side, HR managers can count on program directors who have designed more than 900 programs over the past 20 years and who are fully aware of the systems best suited to their needs, whether face-to-face, remote, individual coaching or team coaching. Our consultants know what might be most appropriate for the target populations assigned to us to achieve the skills development goals that we identify as critical and priority.”

Aude Bohu: “Talentis' project management is an important dimension of our projects and our systems. It is therefore also an important dimension within the Talentis team since we have an operations department that, today, oversees a team of Project Managers and Customer Success Managers who support the project from its launch to its closure. That is, until evaluations and recommendations for improvement for the future are presented. This “project” team will pay meticulous attention to all stages of support as part of retroplanning, which will allow each stage to take place as best as possible, in good coordination with customers, with learners and with the various coaches who will work on the program.”

In your opinion, does a professional coach have an obligation of means or results?

Valerie Rocoplan: “Talentis' DNA is a DNA that is very focused on results. All our programs are tailor-made for the organization and are, from the beginning, built around very specific objectives. Moreover, we are constantly conducting research to verify the progress of talent in individual coaching programs or group coaching programs. At the end of our programs, we check whether the goals we set out at the beginning have been achieved.

How do you recruit the professional coaches who make up your team?

Valerie Rocoplan: “Working with Talentis is also a guarantee of working with the top 5, or even the top 2% of the most experienced coaches on the market. Our coaches must have at least 10 to 15 years of managerial and executive experience in senior positions in large groups. They must have international experience and speak at least one language other than French or English. They must have at least five years of expertise and experience as a coach and therefore, around 1,000 hours of coaching on average, knowing that today, the Talentis coaching team has an average of 10 years of experience.”

Aude Bohu: “This is also our specificity at Talentis. The vast majority of our coaches, 95%, do both individual coaching and group coaching.

I take this opportunity to take a short break to say that we are the only ones to do this. The reality of the market today is that, 90% of the total turnover of the professional coaching market is made in individual coaching. So working on these two levels, individual AND collective, is really one of our specificities.

How does that make a difference? The difference is that we are able to develop and design tailor-made programs for organizations that guarantee the same level of quality with the same coaches, whether it is group support, individual support, both remotely or in person.”

Can you tell us about Click & Coach, the remote professional coaching solution developed by Talentis?

Aude Bohu : “Five years ago, we launched our Click & Coach remote coaching solution, which allows us to support companies in the deployment of large-scale programs on populations based in different countries around the world and who share the same development challenges. So, wherever they are based: in the United States, France or Japan, companies will find the same quality of coaching for all their employees.”

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