Although study after study shows that professional development helps employers retain talent, many organizations are unwilling to invest in this type of focused training. And current economic pressures may further push coaching initiatives to the backseat. 

“In the good times, we want to focus people on the growth aspects,” said one CEO in a recent Wall Street Journal article about the prospects of a broad C-suite deprioritization of worker sentiment. “But when the economy appears to have the potential for that downturn,” the focus becomes, “How do I conserve cash? How do I focus the team to emerge from whatever this is stronger?”

Shalini Ramakrishnan, director of sales and customer success at Numly, a digital coaching platform, has noticed that when she and her sales-team members reach out to corporate people leaders, they’re often met with a similar sentiment. They hear responses like “The time is not right,” “We have other priority projects,” or “My CPO doesn’t want us to concentrate on this at the moment.” 

“There’s a big disconnect between what is being talked about and what is reality,” Ramakrishnan said in a thought leadership spotlight, “Building a Structured Framework and Business Case for Continuous Coaching and Employee Retention,” during a From Day One virtual conference. “Surveys, analysis and all that may show one picture, but the reality is that very little effective steps are being taken to stem the [attrition] problem, especially after the pandemic”–not to mention the Great Resignation.

The “attrition crisis cannot be solved overnight,” Ramakrishnan said, but that doesn’t mean leaders shouldn’t address it, over time, with mindful maneuvers. Those people leaders who wish to leverage professional development, and better retain employees to save their companies both money and resources, should first build a business case for coaching. 

To do so, they need to understand the reasons behind their attrition problem. Ramakrishnan posited that people leaders should initially collect data via employee surveys and then identify trends within that data, breaking the data points down by groups that may be experiencing “pain.” 

“It could be sales teams, new hires, new managers, women employees within the organization, anybody,” Ramakrishnan said. 

This will give the learning and development and talent management teams, which Ramakrishnan says are both required for successful cultivation of development initiatives, the information they need to forge a development pathway for workers, which could span a few months or even a few years. Red flags should go up when a specific demographic group or team shows more than a 12% attrition rate, she says. Anything below that is a relatively normal attrition rate, as workers routinely leave companies for benign reasons.

This is where coaching comes in. Simply getting employees to engage in coaching sessions “can help employees believe that their current organization is recognizing their value, making career paths more visible to them, and can help employees feel [companies are] investing in them, which is of paramount importance,” said Ramakrishnan.

To best leverage coaching, it should be rolled out in what Ramakrishnan called “a structured manner” that utilizes “skill strengths available internally within your organization.” This requires analysis of the “flow of work framework,” the relationship between teams and their managers. Once those dynamics are understood, coaching can be more organically implemented. 

And while some managers might not embrace the prospect of carrying out coaching duties themselves–they’re already tasked with so much, like examining employee performance–Ramakrishnan says it can prove beneficial for managers to develop their own workers whenever possible. It will build trust, confidence, and a stronger, more well-rounded relationship. Besides, because coaching is associated with lower attrition rates, managers will save time in the long run that they would otherwise have spent interviewing new job candidates.

But effective coaching is not a one-and-done proposition, either. Instead, Ramakrishnan says it should become habitual across an organization. And continuous coaching will also lead to good habits exhibited in the worker’s day-to-day activities. “The benefits of creating a habit of coaching, what it does is become a steadying and unifying force in the organization,” Ramakrishnan said, “even during times of uncertainty, which almost every organization, country, and culture is facing right now, and we have been facing for the last couple of years with the pandemic.”

So when it comes to gathering resources for coaching, in good times or bad, it behooves people leaders and the organizations behind them to resist the impulse to buckle down financially. To put it simply: find a way, and reap the benefits of coaching on talent retention in the long run.

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Numly, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.

Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.