Janet Harvey: Hello! My name is Janet Harvey. I am a professional coach and a member of the International Coach Federation. In this video I'll be talking about some basic research that's important to conduct when thinking about hiring a professional coach to work with your company. Coaches are employed by companies, government agencies, universities, not-for-profits and others to help meet strategic business goals and objectives. A professional coach will work with your staff to help improve communication, teamwork, leadership, product quality, customer service and the overall culture of your organization. It's good to talk to peers and others to see if they're using coaching in their business. Depending on the size of your organization there might even be another division that's already using professional coaches. If so, find out what their experience was with it, what did they used coaching to achieve, how did their employees feel about the experience. You may also want data to help you make your case for using professional coaching in your company. Browse the Internet for case studies, research on return on investment, satisfaction with coaching and other information on the effectiveness of professional coaching. It's likely you'll find reports or findings that support what your business is interested in using coaching to work toward. Organizations like the International Coach Federation conduct global research and publish their findings on their website. According to the International Coach Federation 2010 Global Consumer Awareness Study, the number of satisfied clients among those involved in a coaching relationship with an ICF credentialed coach is 92%, 55% of which were very satisfied with their coaching partnership. Well, this is helpful to know often companies need to build a strong business case in order to acquire funding for professional coaching. The 2009 ICF Global Client Study specifically references the retuned on investment that companies have seen from applying professional coaching. Professional coaching can produce a significant return on investment. According to this Study, 86% of those able to provide figures to calculate return on investment indicated that their company had at least made their investment back. Even better, the median return on investment for companies was reported to be seven times their initial coaching investment. And 19% of those companies indicated their return on investment was at least 50 times their initial investment. These are just examples of some of the findings available to help you make the business case to introduce professional coaching into your organization. There's plenty of evidence that demonstrates that professional coaching is effective.