At Unilever, BCG have partnered with the Learning and Development team to provide a global Executive Coaching Service that meets Unilever’s business needs around the world. BCG’s work has included the development of coaching strategy, process and procedures. In helping them provide an international coaching service, we have drawn on BCG’s global coaching network.

We supervise all the coaches that work with them, which enables us to both enhance the quality of the coaching, and enable us to maintain the consistency of quality in different centres, as well as helping us generate further value through extracting organisational learning from across the coaching activity. In addition we are developing the capability of HR Business Partners to act as internal coaches. This is an intensive process which increases their ability to coach individuals and teams. After an initial module we use a mix of learning groups and one-to-one supervision sessions to help them apply their learning.

Through BCG’s network of global coaches, we provide coaching to executives wherever Unilever is based including Europe, The Americas, China and India.

Our coaching service includes three critical components: 

1. Contracting: We work with a three-way contract between the coaching client, his/her manager, and HR. This ensures confidentiality but is also outcome- focused and gives the ability to evaluate results. The coaching can focus on performance improvement or on particular developmental issues.
2. Evaluation: We evaluate the coaching by getting both the client and the organisational representative to complete an account of the benefits gained, setting these against the stated objectives for the coaching. We capture this data and feed it into the organisational learning.
3. Supervision: In line with best practice and in order to maximise the benefit of the coaching, all coaches receive regular supervision of their coaching practice. This increases the transformational impact of the coaching as the supervisor will notice things in the dynamic between coach and coachee that will enable the coach to shift their approach.