Situation
PwC is one of the world’s largest professional services firms with over 146,000 employees spread across 150 countries. Employees of PwC are continually encouraged onto training programmes throughout their career. Partners in the Italian subsidiary had already experienced individual coaching; however it was felt necessary to offer their senior managers a more flexible programme tailor-made to their needs. In 2007 Corium were chosen as PwC provider of coaching services.

Approach
Due to the hierarchical system within PwC, personal career development is essential for managers to meet the objectives of their team as well as their own personal goals. As senior managers they are responsible for the effective performance of their team, therefore they must undergo individual coaching to be able to meet goals set by the company.

These are:

• Team motivation
• Supporting team development
• Develop a coaching approach to enable effective communication to teams in order for them to know there strengths and weaknesses.

In 2007, Corium proposed that their senior managers should each embark on an individual coaching programme. Spread over 7 sessions the programme included an initial awareness session followed by an exploration of personal goals and action plans. In 2008 Corium then proposed further steps for developing senior managers at PwC. A second set of programmes were offered to fellow senior managers along with the option of shadow coaching. This is when the individual chooses to be observed by their coach whilst practising giving evaluation feedback to the employee.

For those senior managers that were not included on an individual programme, Corium developed a Team Coaching Program (10 people per group). This lasted over two and a half days and was called ‘Tell or Ask?’ - training them on how to give feedback to employees. Finally, so that all employees within PwC had access to this information and an understanding of its importance Corium developed a ‘Best practice book’ which included a collection of the senior managers’ experiences of the feedback evaluation process.

Results
The individual coaching programme proved very successful amongst PwC senior managers. Motivation has increased for them personally and their teams. There has also been improvement in the levels of personal awareness as individuals are now able to identify problems and solve them accordingly.

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