- licensed “life counsellors” (Lebens- und Sozialberater)
- registered psychotherapists
- most medical doctors
Professional and business coaching, on the other hand, is restricted to coaches holding a “business consultant” (Unternehmensberater) licence. Licensed life counsellors have to complete a three-year mandatory curriculum including coach training. Coaches opting for the business consultant licence have to fulfil training and management experience requirements stipulated by their chambers of commerce/UBIT (Unternehmensberater, plus IT consultants), the section in the Austrian Chamber of Commerce (ACC) that represents all licensed business consultants, including those in IT consulting.
Werner Vogelauer, president of the International Coach Federation (ICF) Austrian chapter, in co-operation with the Austrian Coaching Council, is working with the ACC to define a set of entry roads and quality standards for professional coaches. The aim is to build a specific coaching qualification on the legal basis of the business consultant licence. The ACC, UBIT and ICF hope to agree standards this year and plan to announce their conclusions at a joint conference in Austria in early 2009.
UBIT is reviewing the credentialing procedures of the ICF and the professional and master-level coach examinations held by the three ICF-accredited Austrian coach training institutions: Trigon, Trinergy and Future, to see if they should be given the green light legally. Medical doctors, psychotherapists and certain registered psychologists providing coaching services are not currently subject to any formal coaching training requirements, nor are those practising coaching in fields such as sports fitness and education. In theory, anybody calling themselves a coach in unregulated fields is likely to remain unregulated for some time yet.
The legal situation in Austria regarding the shaping and profiling of the coaching profession remains a work in progress. There is still an unhelpful lack of clarity, to the detriment of the client, who has access to few standards and yardsticks to help them choose quality coaches with professional clout.
Some coaches have even used imputed or absent legal licensing to act against competing coaches. However, the as-yet unclear legalities can also serve as a welcome competitive weapon to protect certain individual and group “turfs”. That is why the ICF welcomes the ongoing effort to provide entry-level qualifications for business coaches, just as has been established for life coaches, rather than risking client confusion and competitive denunciation against half-defined standards.
The benefits that coaches offer may have little meaning to some, but coaches still need to be well-trained and supervised, and diversely qualified. A restricted training path cannot equip coaches for the adventures of a coaching relationship.
Ursula Peter-Heinrich is a personal and business coach and a board member of ICF Austria
ursula.peter@utanet.at
Volume 3, Issue 2