Coaching as a Retention Strategy: How to Keep Key Talent Before They Start Looking Elsewhere
Coaching works as a retention strategy because it answers a question people ask quietly: "Is there a future here for me?"
Mariia Despe de Echemendia, founder of M.K. Despe Consulting and a Professional Certified Coach with nearly 20 years of experience in HR, recruitment, and talent development, said that coaching for employee retention gives people a private space to think about their growth, and it teaches managers to support it. To start, focus on coaching your managers first, pick one overlooked group, and track one metric.
Retaining top talent matters because every exit takes knowledge with it. Employee turnover also has real costs associated with it, such as recruiting and onboarding.
What is job hugging, and why do employees stay in jobs they question?
Job hugging means holding on tightly to the job you have. People do it because they worry about layoffs and AI. But staying is not the same as being committed.
77% of employees plan to stay, but 56% stay out of necessity and only 18% truly want to. (MetLife benefits study)
57% of US workers identify as “job huggers,” up from 45% in August 2025. Eight in 10 still browse job opportunities. (Resume Builder, February 2026)
20% global employee engagement in 2025, the lowest level since 2020. (Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026)
22% manager engagement in 2025, down from 27% a year earlier and nine percentage points since 2022. (Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026)
Half of the people who stay out of necessity are still engaged. That means you can still reach them. A real reason to stay with a company can change their minds.
Retention rates can look fine while engagement drops. A resignation is often the last step of a long process.
Company size changes how fast you feel it. Large companies have a cushion, so quality slips slowly across big teams. Smaller companies have little bench to backfill, and key organizational knowledge sits with a few people.
What pushes someone to leave?
The speaker's answer was career development and employee growth. Professional development matters here too. People want to see a future at your company.
41% named lack of upward mobility as their top reason for leaving; uninspiring or uncaring leaders came next. (McKinsey, six-country study)
Career opportunities became the second most important reason employees stay committed between 2021 and 2023. (Culture Amp)
43% more likely to leave: Employees whose managers show no interest in their career are 43% more likely to leave. (Culture Amp, over one million responses)
Employees feel that good opportunities are rarer than before 2020. So effective strategies for retention must make growth visible.
How is coaching different from other training?
Most training covers the functional side of work, like a new system or a technical skill. Those matter. But they do not answer the quiet question: is there a future here for me?
Typical training | Coaching | |
Focus | Skills and processes | The person's own growth and options |
Privacy | Open to the company | Confidential with an outside coach |
Who does the thinking | The trainer | The employee |
Who benefits | The person trained | The person, and the people they lead |
Three things make coaching different.
It gives people a private space. An employee who doubts their future is often told to talk to HR or a manager. Both represent the company, so many people say nothing until they are ready to leave. An outside coach keeps the company's interests apart from the person's, and can focus on employee needs. A coach certified by the International Coaching Federation must follow confidentiality rules.
It gives ownership to the employee. Good coaching is client-led. The employee does the thinking and finds their own options. Policies become part of the talk, not the starting point.
It spreads through leaders. When leaders get coaching, they develop others. Team dynamics improve, and the benefit goes beyond one person.
Most people do not want a promotion every year. But they do want to feel that their growth matters to someone.
Does coaching work?
Yes. Research on the effectiveness of coaching is strong. A study by Erik de Haan and Viktor Nilsson combined 37 randomized controlled trials. This is the same standard used in medical research. It found a moderate, clear benefit from workplace coaching. The average effect size was 0.59, and results were better with qualified coaches.
During our webinar Mariia Despe de Echemendia shared two company examples.
Intel | SmallPDF | |
How it started | Volunteer coaches worked with one group of managers. The team measured results, then grew it | A pilot, then coaching for all employees |
Key results | 2.7 times higher promotion rate. 91% of coachees reached business goals. Net promoter score above 80 | 6 times stronger retention. 1.7 times more promotions. 2.3 times return on retention (about €356,000) |
Reach | More than 1,100 leaders coached, about 11,000 employees reached | Built into a coaching culture |
Read with care | Intel links the program to about $1 billion a year in operating margin. That is Intel's own figure | Figures come from a customer story by its coaching provider, BetterUp, so they are vendor-reported |
Intel won the International Coaching Federation's PRISM Award in 2022. The promotion and goal results are strong even without the $1 billion figure.
Both examples show how coaching can help reduce turnover and support talent retention. You also get better leaders and a stronger internal bench. People who leave anyway are more likely to refer others, and some come back.
Why is the manager as coach the best place to start?
Your managers are the multiplier. Their reach is wide, so their coaching skills matter most.
8× more likely to be highly engaged, and 1.7× more likely to plan to stay for 12 months when employees have a coaching manager. (Forrester)
54% of employees now see their manager as a coach, up from 46% in 2023. (Forrester)
79% of managers are engaged in best-practice organizations, compared with 22% overall. (Gallup)
Managers need support to thrive. When they get it, you get more engaged employees too.
Many managers get promoted for technical skill, not people skill. The speaker said to screen for this. Ask what experience they have and what help they need. Then plan support for their first six months.
Our guide to learning cultures covers training programs and the other one on performance documentation explains what to write down.
What should a coaching program for employee retention include?
A good program ties tailored coaching to your business strategy. Use two formats:
Personalized coaching sessions for leaders and high-potential people.
Group coaching sessions for manager cohorts. They cost less.
Invest in coaching that helps equip leaders and managers to hold career talks. Employees feel valued, and they grow within the company.
Effective coaching builds self-awareness and helps improve leadership skills. Coaching can support structured career development and career advancement. It also shows people career development opportunities they did not know about.
Pair it with continuous learning and other retention strategies. Then development and retention work as one plan.
What does coaching look like at different company sizes?
You do not need a big program.
Company size | What it can look like |
About 50 employees | One-on-one coaching for the leadership team or a small group, with an outside or fractional coach |
About 150 employees | Group coaching for all managers, plus coaching skills in regular one-on-ones |
Larger | One-on-one coaching for leaders, group cohorts, and programs for key groups |
Coaching used to be an executive perk. Now more companies offer it widely.
Two groups get missed most often:
Quiet performers. They do excellent work but do not promote themselves.
Long-tenured, experienced employees. They say they are fine, but have no clear next step on the job ladder.
Both are good places to start.
How can you spot a key employee who may leave?
There is no single sign, the speaker said. But some patterns repeat, and companies that keep their best people notice them early.
Sign | What it looks like |
Extra effort fades | They once volunteered for projects. Now they do the bare minimum, for a quarter or two |
Work quality slips | Check for personal factors first and ask how you can help |
The data flattens | Performance stops trending up. It goes flat or dips |
If you want to retain top performers, watch for these signs. They overlap with quiet quitting. See our guide to preventing quiet quitting.
How do you calculate coaching ROI?
The speaker shared a simple formula from the Phillips ROI method:
ROI = (value − cost) ÷ cost
Step one matters most. Give coaching only its fair share of the result. Other factors always play a part.
A company pays $5,000 for six months of coaching for a new manager who leads six people. The share of the team who say their manager supports their growth rises from 55% to 80%. Nobody leaves.
Step | Calculation | Result |
1. Cost of one exit | Half of a $60,000 salary | $30,000 |
2. Give coaching its share | $30,000 × 50% | $15,000 |
3. Subtract the cost | $15,000 − $5,000 | $10,000 |
4. Divide by the cost | $10,000 ÷ $5,000 | 200% ROI |
Every dollar spent came back as $3 of value.
You likely have the data already. The speaker grouped it into four areas:
Area | What to track |
Retention | Turnover rates, intent to stay, turnover on coached managers' teams |
Quality and productivity | Error or rework rates, cycle time, customer satisfaction |
Engagement | Pulse scores, net promoter scores, engagement on coached teams |
Leadership readiness | Promotion readiness, internal fill rate, 360-degree feedback changes |
Measure before you coach, then measure after. Without a baseline, you cannot show improvement.
How do you start when budgets are tight?
Start small, and let a real need lead.
Look at your managers first. They reach the most people.
Pick one group. Choose one that is overlooked or critical to the business.
Track one metric. Take a baseline, then check again in six months. Intel and SmallPDF both started this way.
On cost, the speaker said a six-month program of about $5,000 per person is not unreasonable for many companies. Options exist at every level. An annual coaching allowance allows employees to use coaching flexibly before you spend more.
To win support from leaders, show your own version of the ROI formula.
Where does recruitment fit in?
Coaching helps you keep people. Some roles will still open. People relocate, retire, or move on for reasons no program can change.
We fill those roles. Talentuch is an international recruitment agency with 10 years of experience. We fill IT, tech, and digital roles in more than 60 countries. You can work with us through pay-per-hire or a subscription.
See our subscription plan and pricing. Or watch the full coaching webinar in our library.
FAQ
Can coaching solve a retention problem on its own?
No. Coaching targets one cause: growth people cannot see. People also leave because of uninspiring leaders and worry about the market. Start with one group and one metric, and see what moves.
What are the biggest challenges in employee retention?
The webinar pointed to growth people cannot see, and managers who lack support. Worry about layoffs and AI adds to both. Coaching helps employees work through the first two. It cannot remove the worry about layoffs and AI.
How much does employee retention coaching cost?
It depends on the service. The webinar example used $5,000 for six months for one manager. Cheaper options exist, and an annual allowance is a flexible way to begin.
