Driving professional growth: coaching trends 2025

Why do we need innovation?

CEOs and business leaders across the world know the value of coaching, with billions of pounds invested into it each year.

However, businesses still face dwindling employee engagement and productivity levels.

Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workforce report found that Europe has the lowest regional percentage of engaged employees (13%), with the UK even lower at just 10%.

With Opus Business Rescue citing staff retention, agility and communications as top priorities for CEOs in 2024, coaching can provide the platform for professionals to drive personal change towards improving these qualities in 2025 and beyond.

Additionally, this article from People Management suggests that:

“There has never been a model designed specifically for leaders to help them to adopt coaching-related behaviours i.e. learning to use coaching skills as part of everyday management, rather than just doing the coaching session.”

These statistics and ideas are proof that coaching needs a new approach. Here are a few examples of current innovations and how they can ensure a brighter future for coaching.

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Exploring current coaching trends

Connecting with individuals as individuals

Coaching shouldn’t be considered a one-size-fits-all thing. Each person has individual needs and experiences and are on different paths towards their goals.

That’s why we believe each coachee should be treated independently and coaches should prepare bespoke strategies to help every person get the very best out of their coaching experience.

Building relationships

Whether coachees are building towards personal change, reaching new horizons in their work or building momentum towards completing a project or task, their relationship with their coach is crucial.

All the way back in 1999, Ehrich and Hansford listed “incorrect matching of mentors/coaches and learners’ as a key obstacle standing in the way of coaching’s success. Working with a dedicated coach is a helpful way to ensure nothing gets lost in translation.

This allows coachees to benefit from bespoke advice and guidance, building mutual trust with their coach and working collaboratively to achieve noticeable results.

Digging into data

Using data to track and measure the short- and long-term impact of coaching allows coaches to stay agile and adapt their coaching methods to better suit individuals.

Data enables coaches to identify patterns that affect their clients’ goals and use these to create new and improved coaching strategies.

Of course, when it comes to the lasting impact of coaching, data doesn’t show the whole picture. However, it provides a springboard for consistent progress after the conclusion of sessions.

The benefits of micro-coaching

As the modern workplace continues to evolve, it’s important that coaching embraces innovation too.

With a lack of visibility and clarity proving to be key issues associated with traditional coaching, which is typically between 60 and 90 minutes long, once or twice a month, micro-coaching invites individuals to take part in shorter, more frequent sessions.

Brandon Hall Group found that organisations implementing micro-coaching report 50% higher engagement and 17% greater job satisfaction, and that session durations can be reduced by as much as 60% without compromising effectiveness.

This method allows coaches to learn more about each person more quickly, enabling them to put together a plan of action and guide coachees towards their goals – in our case, in seven-minute sessions, taking place across fewer than 20 business days.

Why choose Carpe Diem Coaching™?

Our coaching programme, Carpe Diem Coaching™, embraces a new approach to coaching, centred around seven-minute coaching sessions.

Read more about it here.

This City & Guilds-assured programme prioritises sustainable change, building momentum and reaching new goals.

At OTD, we are always eager to hear how our clients responded to our Carpe Diem Coaching™ programme.

“It encourages you to get serious and really push towards your goals with a little bit of assistance each day.

I love the fact that the calls were short and sweet, so I could still get on with my day without too much disruption.”

Sabrina Dennis, CEO, First Class Foundation

10/10 coach evaluation rating | 10/10 Carpe Diem Coaching™ recommendation  

“My coach rapidly understood my goals and helped me to have an immediate impact on my team.

Progress occurred from almost the very first session and all of my goals were met – in many cases with far more success than I would have imagined possible.”

10/10 coach evaluation rating | 100% improvement in just four weeks

Read more of our case studies here.

It’s clear that these innovations and trends are paving the way towards a brighter future for coaching. However, it’s essential that innovation continues and evolves, and that businesses are open to a fresh, new approach that prioritises momentum, creating lasting change and reaching new horizons.

Find out more about Carpe Diem Coaching™ and get in touch for more details.