Swiss congress: Body membership not a factor in coach selection
2nd International Coaching Research Congress for German-speaking people, 5-6 June, Basle

There’s no need for evaluation of coaching, according to panellists at a coaching research conference, including from large companies such as Daimler and Credit Suisse.
The panellists’ challenge to the UK’s pre-occupation with ROI was the first surprise at the 2nd International Coaching Research Congress for German-speaking people, hosted by Switzerland. The second was that professional association membership does not figure in external coach selection.
The congress attracted more than 200 delegates from Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland and had the theme, Coaching Meets Research … Fields of Action in Focus.
As well as surprises, the cross-fertilisation of results from research studies, and practitioner contributions, led to high quality exchanges. Professor Harald Geissler of the Helmut-Schmidt University in Hamburg used his opening keynote to focus on blended coaching (telephone, internet and
face-to-face); Dr Regina Jankowitsch spoke on coaching politicians and Professor Gerhard Fatzer on the links between coaching and organisational development.
Dr Alison Carter, principal associate at the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), talked about the design of coaching programmes in work settings and introduced delegates to an IES model of the operational processes needed to support internal coaches.
“We’ve seen some excellent examples of programmes using senior managers and HR specialists as internal coaches…. There is usually an ongoing cost saving in comparison to using external coaches. However there is a concern about sustainability in the current economic climate, with business pressures making it harder for coaches to find the time needed to coach.”

Coaching at Work, Volume 7, Issue 5