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Bridging Differences: Techniques for Building Conflict Competence

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Interpersonal conflict is unavoidable, but the good news is there are many strategies you can develop to help strengthen your conflict resilience to make your life easier. The realities of the last few years have led to important conversations about mental health and wellness; increased stress levels have been felt far and wide and have spilled into all areas of life. Learning how to advocate for yourself, navigate challenging conversations, and effectively communicate when situations become difficult will have a direct impact on your overall sense of wellbeing. The truth is most of us have never learned the skills to manage conflict which means we need to prioritize this work for ourselves. And as Vital Smarts (the Crucial Conversations gurus) point out, we often act our worst when it matters the most.

I remember years ago, I had a colleague who had a totally different working style from mine. We were co-facilitators and together, responsible for program design. She was someone who thrived last minute; this meant she would send her materials in the night before we were set to teach, and the morning of class she would fly in at the eleventh hour, after I had been there in time to do sound checks, test computers, presentation decks, and greet participants. I was endlessly frustrated because I felt like she wasn’t detailed enough, but more than that, I didn’t feel like she was a team player or setting me up for success. I decided that she was selfish, disorganized, and unprofessional. She thought I was uptight, perfectionist, and lacked flexibility – a real recipe for success.

It got to the point where every time I interacted with this colleague I would seethe; I could feel the heat of my disrespect rising and I would do what I could to avoid her. It was around this time I was also being trained as a facilitator in the Vital Smarts Crucial Conversations program (the irony!). Through my facilitator training I was learning about my conflict style. Vital Smarts talks about the spectrum of communication as silence on one end and violence/aggression on the other. Regardless of which end of the spectrum you are prone to, either approach is an indicator that safety has been compromised. This was my AHA moment: I was on the silence end and she was on the violence end – I would shut down when things got tense and she would become more assertive. After much brooding I decided to set up a meeting with her to talk about our working styles and to explain the “why” behind how I work.  She shared the same, and with that we came up with a few ground rules. We were never close colleagues, but we did learn how to work together and sometimes that is the best you can do.

There are no hard and fast rules about how to best navigate conflict, but there are several approaches that can certainly help. These are a handful of strategies to support skill-building and confidence when confronted with challenging interactions.

1.    Understand Your ‘What’ and Your ‘Why’

A helpful starting point is to reflect on what it is about the interaction that most frustrates you to get beyond the immediate reactivity of the situation. This could be the irritation that surfaces in response to what feels like a short or snippy email, or the frustration that bubbles up when we feel like someone constantly shuts down ideas, or the annoyance felt when someone is perpetually late with their deliverables. Acknowledging the frustration is the first step, and the next is to shift focus from retaliation to getting to your root cause. The ‘what’ in this example could be that you value collaboration and teamwork and you feel that is not being respected. The ‘why’ is connected to your personal values and if someone is behaving in ways that contradict those, it is going to trigger a strong response. What is important to remember is that they likely have a different set of core values; perhaps flexibility and creativity are important to them, and they may be less deadline driven. The point is, it’s not personal, it’s about preference, and understanding the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ for all parties involved is key to managing conflict and improving interpersonal relationships.

2.    Practice Active Listening

There is not enough to be said about developing and refining your active listening skills. This is arguably one of the most under-developed leadership skills, and without listening effectively, you can never truly understand someone’s position – or their what and why. In a study by Zenger and Folkman[1] people perceive the best listeners to be those who ask questions that promote discovery and insight. They also found that good listening was “characterized by the creation of a safe environment in which issues and differences could be discussed openly” Inviting in difference as an opportunity to collaborate and ideate can be the difference between delivering mediocre results vs. knocking a project out of the park.

There are a few more tactical strategies you can employ when practicing active listening. Developing the skill of paraphrasing is a great way to demonstrate you are listening, and it will also test your understanding of what is being communicated.  Non-verbal cues can also provide a lot of insight into emotion; pay attention to tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions which can be very revealing. You can mirror back emotion by saying something like ‘I hear how passionate you are about the outcome here’, which is a powerful way of acknowledging the other person’s feelings and perspective.  One final thought is to notice your instinct to interrupt, talk over, finish someone’s sentence; or the familiar habit of focusing on your response as opposed to a powerful/insightful question.

3.    Expand Your Perspective

When we get fixated on a specific outcome, or when our focus is on trying to control someone else’s behaviour, it causes immense suffering, stress, and anxiety. Expanding your perspective by challenging your position is a strategy to alleviate your own stress and open up to different possibilities. Amy Gallo[2] suggests that we challenge our own perspective by reflecting on these questions:

  • How do I know that what I believe is true?
  • What if I’m wrong?
  • How would I change my behavior?
  • What assumptions have I made?
  • How would someone with different values and experiences see things?

Reflecting on any flaws in your perspective will create the space to improve outcomes for you and your colleagues. By asking these questions, you may also gain clarity about your your what and why, which can free you from your own limitations.

Another suggestion that is critical in expanding your awareness is to understand how your unconscious bias could be influencing – and narrowing – your perspective. One of the best tools available is the Harvard Implicit bias test[3] which is a free test that assesses attitudes or stereotypes that influence perception and behaviour. The reality is we all have biases, and being aware of, and questioning these, can make you a more effective, objective, and self-aware leader.

4.    Get Curious

When we get locked into a challenging dynamic with someone at work, we often get entrenched in negative thought patterns or a set of assumptions; suddenly everything they do becomes problematic or suspect! The reality is the magnitude of our negative judgements/assumptions are far greater than the truth of the situation. Getting curious about how your thought patterns are negatively influencing your own behaviour, and potentially feeding negative assumptions about you, can snap you out of unproductive and reactive ways of being.

5.    Have a Clear Outcome

In order to establish next steps and to find resolution, you need to understand what it is that you want. That can often be masked by the immediacy of our emotions when things are stirred up; I want this person to stop being so unreliable, I want this person to stick to the plan, to be on time… The key here is to get underneath that. Is it that you want to get the project past the finish line or is it that you want to strengthen the relationship? It could also be a longer-term goal, perhaps the outcome of this project could set you up for a promotion. You need to understand your goal post and stay focused on that and be prepared to ask for what you want, and also be prepared to compromise. Identifying and communicating a desired outcome brings clarity to the situation and can help defuse heated dynamics.

There is no perfect recipe to navigating the complexity of human relationships, especially in times of stress. What you want to do is to focus on building interpersonal resilience so that you feel less stressed when you’re engaged in a conflict. Practice with some of these strategies, start with a strategy that feels most comfortable, and remember to go easy on yourself.  You aren’t aiming for perfection; you are aiming to build your conflict competency one strategy at a time!

 

About the Author

Wylie BurkeWylie Burke is an innovation consultant, facilitator, and leadership coach. She has over 15 years of experience in business administration, human resources, strategic and operational planning, and leading high performing teams. She brings a unique perspective to her work, having had the pleasure of working for a diverse range of organizations including United Way Toronto, CIBC, SickKids, WSIB, and Toronto Metropolitan University. Wylie is recognized for creating inclusive environments that inspire insights, connection, fun, and shared learning, that result in personal and organizational integration. She thinks of her work as community building and recognizes that there is never a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s about learning and applying concepts in an adaptive way that brings about sustainable change, taking into account the dynamic, unique, and varied needs of individuals and organizations while also nurturing a shared understanding and appreciation of differences. Wylie holds an MBA from Queen’s University, an Honours Degree in Sociology from York University, and she is an Adler Trained Coach.

Wylie is the lead facilitator for the Queen’s IRC Strategies for Workplace Conflicts program, as well as Talent Management.

 

References

Gallo, A. (2022). How to navigate conflict with a coworker. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved August 16, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2022/09/how-to-navigate-conflict-with-a-coworker.

Grenny, J., et al. (2021). Crucial conversation: Tools for talking when stakes are high (Third). McGraw-Hill.

Project Implicit. Harvard Implicit bias test. (n.d.). Retrieved August 16, 2023, from https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Zenger, J., & Folkman, J. (2016, July 14). What great listeners actually do. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved August 16, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2016/07/what-great-listeners-actually-do.

 

Footnotes

[1] Zenger, J., & Folkman, J. (2016, July 14). What great listeners actually do. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved August 16, 2023, from https://hbr.org/2016/07/what-great-listeners-actually-do.

[2] Gallo, A. (2022). How to navigate conflict with a coworker. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved August 16, 2023, from

https://hbr.org/2022/09/how-to-navigate-conflict-with-a-coworker.

[3] Project Implicit. Harvard Implicit bias test. (n.d.). Retrieved August 16, 2023, from https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Better Leadership: Focus on a Coach Approach

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Coaching is a leadership style that is growing in organizational cultures. It is shifting from an optional leadership skill to an expectation of the culture – especially for the retention of employees and leaders. How do you as a leader develop this skill? How do you keep growing and enhancing your coaching ability?

During the pandemic, many leaders found themselves interacting in new ways with their teams – because they had no choice. This was especially true if remote work was new to the organization. Employees were alone in their separate spaces, away from their leader and their peers. Leaders weren’t in close proximity so there were actually less direct statements and less telling. As a result, leaders found themselves asking more questions to check in, rather than walking by giving direction and regularly being present and accessible.

Let’s consider a real situation. I coach leaders, and many of our coaching conversations involve them trying out new ways to better engage with their people. One leader comes to mind. His goal was to learn and use a new skill to better engage his team of ten people. After six months of using more questions and staying curious longer during one-on-one conversations, he reported feeling less overwhelmed and more connected to what was really going on for his team. What did he do differently? He took a coach approach.

Coaching is an approach to facilitate individuals to draw on their own experiences and capabilities, to set and reach their own objectives. Make sense. Yet, many leaders find themselves holding back from adding a coach approach to their leadership style. According to Michael Bungay-Stanier, The Coaching Habit (2016), coaching helps leaders break away from three vicious cycles. Which one describes how you may be feeling?

  1. Creating overdependence: In this vicious cycle, you have trained people to be over reliant on you. You are a bottleneck. This may have developed unintentionally, yet here you are. If you take a coach approach, your team will be more self-sufficient, and have an increased level of engagement and autonomy, which could lead to their own mastery of skills.
  2. Getting overwhelmed: In this vicious cycle, you are so overwhelmed with the never-ending quantity of work, that your quality is hard to focus on. You continue to lose focus. If you take a coach approach, you can direct your own work efforts. Your team can focus on what has real impact, and grow to solve their own challenges.
  3. Becoming disconnected: In this vicious cycle, you have become disconnected from the work that matters. If you take a coach approach, you will reconnect with your team and the truly impactful and meaningful work. Coaching can fuel your courage to step out of your comfort zone and increase the potential of your team.

I poll the participants in our Coaching Skills program, and the number one reason is creating overdependence, followed by getting overwhelmed. I will add three more reasons that holds leaders back from adding a coach approach to their leadership:

  • The lack of training, or a poor experience with training whereby they didn’t walk away with implementable tools.
  • Not having been the recipient of a coaching style themselves. If you have never been coached properly, you may not know what a coaching conversation looks and feels like.
  • And finally, an organizational culture that fosters a solely a directive leadership style.

Let’s conclude with celebrating a real situation where a participant embraced her desire to become more connected to the reality of her employees. This leader came into the Coaching Skills program wanting to get ideas how to move forward with a decision to release or keep a struggling employee. At the end of the Coaching Skills program, she realized that there was one approach she hadn’t tried yet – a coach approach. Why? She didn’t know what process to follow or what her role was, however after the program, she had both, including confidence that her employee deserved the better version of herself as a leader.

Think about what holds you back from using a coach approach and taking a coach approach more often. Leadership is like a muscle that we need to exercise, stretch and challenge to do more. See you in the Coaching Skills program!

About the Author

Linda Allen-HardistyLinda Allen-Hardisty is an organizational development professional (Queens IRC OD Certificate), an executive coach (ICF MCC professional designation), a team coach (EMCC Global Accreditation), and a Forbes Coaches Council contributing member. She’s built a reputation as a vibrant, contemporary voice in the business world by blending her grounding in OD with a practical approach to addressing organizational challenges and opportunities. With a Masters of Education from the University of Regina, Linda’s uniqueness is that, prior to private practice, she fulfilled corporate leadership roles including the Director of Organizational Development in a company listed on the Hewitt Top 50 Employers in Canada and became the first Manager of Strategy and Performance for a municipal government undertaking cultural transformation. Over her 20-year OD career, she has helped many leaders – from corporate executives to entrepreneurs – improve their personal and professional success. She is a sought-after facilitator, coach and advisor for executive development, strategy and change, team effectiveness, and emotional intelligence.

 Linda is the lead facilitator for the Queen’s IRC Coaching Skills program, as well as Building Trust Using Emotional Intelligence and Performance Management.

 

Talent Management Truths: 5 Lessons from the Field to Help Solve Today’s Workplace Challenges

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Talent management has been in the spotlight recently as many organizations face historic talent shortages, a workforce struggling with fatigue and burnout, and the ongoing pressure to reduce costs and increase productivity. Not only do organizations need to find talent with the right skills for today, but they also require an agile workforce who can adapt to the constant changes in job demands. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report, half of all employees will have to reskill by 2025.[1] The pressure is on talent leaders, and organizations alike to ensure their people are prepared for the future of work and this pressure is not likely to dissipate any time soon.

At the same time, the balance of power has shifted, and employees want to choose where, when, and how they work. Employees have altered their expectations of work following the pandemic, and are prioritizing meaning, purpose, and balance in their work lives. These changing expectations have placed organizational culture and leadership behaviors at the forefront, with many organizations lacking the critical leadership capabilities to address the changing organizational and workforce needs.

While the work of talent management remains the same – attract, select, hire, develop, perform, and retain the required talent to meet current and future needs – the environment in which organizations operate has changed dramatically. With the rapid pace of change, the rise of modern technologies, and ever-changing customer, organizational and employee demands necessitate a more fluid and agile approach to talent management. What is a priority today, may not be one tomorrow, and this means that talent leaders need to create a compelling vision for the future, yet be flexible and nimble to course correct as required.

But where do you start? How do build a talent management strategy that works for employees and organizations alike? What are some of the ‘do’s and don’ts’ that will make your organization  successful?

I’ve seen lots of changes in the 20+ years of talent management work. Here are 5 core talent management strategies that will serve organizations through this next wave of change:

1. Build Your Talent Strategy to Meet Business Needs

It can be easy to sit at your desk and craft a talent strategy on your own, but do so at your own risk! An organizational talent strategy should consider the diverse needs of each unit, business or function. Implementing an overarching talent strategy is typically the default method, but be careful not to build a ‘one-size-fits all’ approach that does not address the urgent needs of each function.

It is critical to partner with business leaders to get their input on the top priorities that will have the greatest impact. It is easy to focus your plan to address the talent needs in the current fiscal year, but what are you doing to build the skills of your employees to meet the needs of tomorrow? What are the next most important strategic shifts that will require you to build, buy and/or borrow new skills and capabilities to meet tomorrow’s needs? How will you start working on tomorrow’s needs today?

Business challenges and needs often change, make sure you meet with your leadership team at least quarterly to review your plan.

2.  Keep Your Strategy Simple, Usable, and Meaningful for Your Customers (not just a boring PowerPoint deck)

The customers of your talent strategy are the employees and leaders of your organization. The first principle of a solid strategy is to ensure that it resonates with your audience. It should be simple, meaningful, and relay a compelling story about the impact it will have on employees and the business. I believe that developing a plan-on-a-page is a great approach because no one has the time, energy, nor desire to read a 25-page deck anymore.

Talent management is about crafting impactful and engaging talent experiences for internal customers. In today’s world, our default position seems to be that it is better to add more features to existing talent programs (e.g., performance management) because we believe our customers want them. If you are adding more processes/ features without considering if they add incremental business or customer value, you better think twice. Make sure you solicit employee/manager feedback on your talent programs before making changes. Remember that no one will complain if your programs are too simple to use. People love simplicity – it’s why the KISS principle is sage advice.

I learned the hard way that a simple, well-executed strategy beats a complicated, poorly executed one every day. It is not about the net number of initiatives you include in your strategy; it is about ensuring that you are launching sustainable, executable programs that add real value to your customers.

3. Make Sure Your Strategy is Interconnected (vs a set of separate activities)

The overall talent system (i.e., hiring, selection, onboarding, learning, performance, development, succession) is like a manufacturing process, in that there is an input and output of each sub process. It can be easy to optimize one area only to jeopardize the overall performance of another. To have an effective and efficient talent system, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts and every sub-process needs to be maximized to ensure successful outcomes overall.

One example of this is when a manager focuses on near-term priorities when hiring, while ignoring a longer-term need to develop a deeper leadership pipeline for their function. In other words, you can hire a technically strong manager today, who may not be the best candidate from a future leadership perspective. This decision requires that additional time, money and resources be spent on development down the line with no guarantee of success. You can solve a problem today, only by creating a bigger, more expensive one tomorrow.

4. Measure Talent Management Against Business Priorities (vs. leaving progress to chance)

I’ve learned that the best way to be credible to business leaders is to speak in the language of the business. Business leaders don’t care as much about HR terms as you do. It is important to be specific about what you are going to do, when you are going to do it, and the resulting business impact of each initiative.

I used to include many standard talent metrics in the strategies I developed until I learned an important lesson from a CFO. He informed me that if your initiative doesn’t end up with tangible results on the income statement or balance sheet (i.e., cost, sales, revenue, etc.), it really doesn’t matter. I initially thought that HR metrics were enough, and that cost avoidance was good metric to share with finance teams, but now I know otherwise. HR metrics are good, business metrics are great.

If you want to be a legitimate business partner, you must articulate how each talent initiative will impact that achievement of the overarching strategy and lead to favorable business metrics.

5. Help Everyone be Accountable for Talent (vs thinking it’s just HR’s job)

I mistakenly thought I had full ownership over organizational talent outcomes. Thankfully, I learned that this was an impossible and unrealistic expectation. The role of a talent leader is to establish the processes, systems, and programs required for success, and influence leaders to implement these programs to achieve expected outcomes. Every talent program starts and ends with a conversation between a manager and employee, meaning that managers are fully accountable for bringing these programs to life.

The impact of talent management is not measured by the implementation of a new system, process, or technology. You can have the most advanced systems or technologies, but people forget that the success of each talent program is measured in the quality of conversations had. Managers need to be supported, coached, and guided to make this happen with the support of their leaders and the talent team, and they also need to be held accountable for talent outcomes.

Talent management is a challenging, but a fun area to work in. The goal is to drive performance, development, and career outcomes for employees, and enable better business results for the organization. The external environment will continue to change, and the pressure will be on talent leaders to ensure the organization has employees with the required skills to be successful today and tomorrow. This means that talent leaders need to define a vision for the future, and continually review and adapt their strategy and plans required to address needs. A simple, well-defined strategy that results in measurable business outcomes is the goal, and to accomplish this, talent leaders need to design programs that create positive experiences for employees and leaders alike.

About the Author

Mark CoulterMark Coulter, MIR, CHRP, CHRL, is a talent management and organizational development expert and leadership coach. He has over 20 years of experience in human resources with a focus on leading talent management functions in automotive, retail, consumer packaged goods, and beverage organizations, including Fortune 500 and Fortune 50 companies such as Campbell Soup and Lowe’s. Mark has expertise in implementing end-to-end talent solutions in the areas of talent acquisition, employee & leadership development, performance management, succession planning, and career development. He currently works as the Director, Talent Management Solutions at HRSG, where he partners with clients to design and implement competency-based talent management solutions to achieve business and workplace outcomes.

 

References

Whiting, K. (2020, October 21). These are the top 10 job skills of tomorrow – and how long it takes to learn them. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/top-10-work-skills-of-tomorrow-how-long-it-takes-to-learn-them/.

 

[1] Whiting, K. (2020, October 21). These are the top 10 job skills of tomorrow – and how long it takes to learn them. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/top-10-work-skills-of-tomorrow-how-long-it-takes-to-learn-them/

 

6 Ways to Assess Your Organization’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

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How can leaders rethink the implementation of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) training and initiatives to maximize returns on their people and culture?

Successful EDI training involves the embedding of equitable practices, procedures, and policies in every facet of an organization, and it is not offered as a stand-alone training or performative.  Organizations that rush to implement EDI training programs without reviewing their motivation, internal practices, policies and programs have difficulty sustaining the changes they wish to see, and return to the previous paradigm for their organizations. For an organization to develop, value, and profit from EDI training, it requires authentic buy-in to the benefits that can be had for all stakeholders; from employees, managers, customers and owners: to move from traditional “Human Resources” organization to a “People and Culture” organization[1].

When recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce, leaders should consider reflecting on the institutional, systemic, and personal biases they hold, as it is these biases that form the cultural inertia which undermines real lasting change.

Bias, in all its forms, is an integral part of who we are and is developed, nurtured, and sustained by our upbringing, culture, and society at large. There is no escaping it, and understanding how it impacts marginalized workers is essential in creating a work culture that is inclusive and financially successful. Bias is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the action of supporting or opposing a particular person or thing in an unfair way because of allowing personal opinions to influence your judgment.”

Biases can be unconscious or conscious beliefs, opinions or actions. For example, implicit biases are unconscious attitudes or stereotypes that affect our decisions and treatment of others. Explicit biases are conscious attitudes and beliefs we have about individuals or groups. In the work environment, biases begin at the recruitment phase and can affect who we interview and hire. It impacts the retention phase of employment by affecting worker evaluations, promotions, and salary advancement. Simply put, bias (whether explicit or implicit) impacts our interactions with others and at times creates situations where others are excluded or unjustly treated, creating a toxic work environment. This can impact professional and personal outcomes, build resentment, and discourage full commitment to the organization. Meaningful improvement in these channels requires leaders to have the courage to actively interrogate and challenge their own personal and institutional biases; to build better, more resilient, more diverse cultures to get the best out of their people.

Cultural competency-based questions are used in schools by educators to determine how to best to support diverse student communities. Organizations can use a similar framework as a pre-emptive guide before hiring or implementing diversity initiatives.

  1. Whose voices are present?

Take the time to consider who is heard, who isn’t, and why they aren’t being heard? What settings silence the participation of employees? What settings enable fulsome participation of employees?

  1. How are they represented?

Does the diversity in your workforce go beyond visible characteristics of race and gender? Are there any invisible diversities/characteristics such as social status/class, gender identity, expression or orientation, and disability (physical, mental, or neurological) and do they intersect? How does this intersection of identities impact the employee and their employment?

  1. Whose voices are absent?

Are there voices that are absent due to a lack of representation or a lack of presence in decision-making settings? Is dissension appreciated or undervalued and silenced? Are neurodivergent thinkers given time to voice their opinions and thoughts?

  1. What and whose knowledge is recognized and valued?

Is knowledge that is not Eurocentric, colonial based or ableist valued? Are the same employees recognized and why? Is the recognition culturally competent?

  1. Do resources acknowledge as many people and perspectives as possible?

Are employee handbooks, procedures, and policies aware of visible and invisible biases in their presentation, the language used, and expectations? Are the documents and resources easily accessible?

  1. What assessments and evaluation tools are mostly used and are they equitable?

What are the metrics involved in employee evaluations? Is the assessor cognizant of any biases they may hold when evaluating an employee? What are the mechanisms to mitigate bias in evaluation, or to provide re-evaluation when complaints arise?

Review and reflect on the responses to the cultural competency based questions by considering the following:

  1. Did the responses challenge your understanding of the organization and how it functions? Why?
  2. What is the organization doing well? What are they not doing well?
  3. What areas require change?
  4. What type of learning will you and your organization engage in to implement these changes and initiatives?

Organizations who have unpacked their workplace culture by reflecting on past and current inequities and who lean into the discomfort can begin to develop initiatives that focus on recruitment and retention strategies, policies, procedures, and expectations to create a progressive work culture. It is the responsibility of leaders to communicate their commitment in making EDI a part of every facet of their organization by sharing the results of their discussions, their vision, next steps and learning opportunities for employees. EDI initiatives are not quick and easy solutions to reduce the impact of discrimination and employee flight, they take time, and require ongoing conversations that provide the tools for employees to navigate the workplace.

Taking the time to reflect on the people they employ, the organizational culture that includes the policies and procedures implemented, and investing in strategic needs-based training is essential. Embedding time and flexibility to have ongoing, meaningful conversations with follow-up so that changes can be made to move forward must be a priority. Continuing to review, reflect and strategize allows for integration of strong EDI-based initiatives that are flexible and supportive of current and future employees is the new way of doing business.

When implemented with care and empathy, EDI initiatives and training can support previously marginalized and historically excluded employees to feel a greater sense of belonging and inclusion,[2] while also allowing others to step up and help create a positive work environment.

 

About the Author

Kalpana Makan

Kalpana MakanOver a 30-year career in the education sector, Kalpana has worked to facilitate the success of students and teachers from all backgrounds. Embedding the principles of an anti-oppressive framework in her career as a Teacher and Elementary Vice Principal with specialization in inclusive education, language development, and mental health and well-being, has provided her with the skills to navigate various situation with compassion and empathy. Kalpana’s roles as an Executive Staff Officer at the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) in Equity and Women’s Services, and most recently in Professional Learning and Curriculum Services, has helped her develop an expertise in the benefits of EDI and its integration in diverse organizational cultures.

For more than 15 years, Kalpana has led ETFO membership programs both locally and provincially; provided organizational environmental scans on programs, policies and demographics; and facilitated presentations at universities, school boards and not for profit organizations on supporting and promoting diverse leadership roles and inclusive and equitable practices.

She has trekked to more then 16 countries and has volunteered as an educator and mentor in many of them. She currently lives in the Toronto with her family.

 

Recommended Readings

Asare, J. G. (2022, October 7). Have We Been Wrongfully Vilifying DEI Training? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2022/10/07/have-we-been-wrongfully-vilifying-dei-training/

Broomhall, T. (2020, September 8). Are your colleagues really, ok? How to ask and offer support. Checkpoint. https://checkpoint.cvcheck.com/are-your-colleagues-really-ok-how-to-ask-and-offer-support/

Carter-Rogers, K., Smith, S., & Tabvuma, V. (2022, November 27). Diversity in the workplace isn’t enough: Businesses need to work toward inclusion. The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/diversity-in-the-workplace-isnt-enough-businesses-need-to-work-toward-inclusion-194136

Dobbin, F., & Kalev, A. (2016, July 1). Why Diversity Programs Fail. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail

Government of Canada, S. C. (2022, October 26). The Daily—Immigrants make up the largest share of the population in over 150 years and continue to shape who we are as Canadians. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026a-eng.htm

Karimi, A. (2022, December 22). How equity, diversity and inclusion policies are becoming a tool for capitalism. The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/how-equity-diversity-and-inclusion-policies-are-becoming-a-tool-for-capitalism-196534

Langton, J. (2022, October 26). Immigration boosts workforce, combats aging. Investment Executive. https://www.investmentexecutive.com/news/research-and-markets/immigration-boosts-workforce-combats-aging/

Lobell, J. (2021, December 7). Liberating Human Resources: Finding a Path to a New HR Paradigm. Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/liberating-human-resources-finding-a-path-to-a-new-hr-paradigm/

Peiker, S. (2023, February 8). Council Post: Why And How To Evolve From Human Resources To People And Culture. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2023/02/08/why-and-how-to-evolve-from-human-resources-to-people-and-culture/?sh=fa4e9c54c454

Secretariat, T. B. of C. (2020, September 14). Many Voices One Mind: A Pathway to Reconciliation [Education and awareness]. https://www.canada.ca/en/government/publicservice/wellness-inclusion-diversity-public-service/diversity-inclusion-public-service/knowledge-circle/many-voices.html

Stewart, J. (2022, March 15). 4 Steps to Achieve Sustainable DEI Transformation | Queen’s University IRC. https://irc.queensu.ca/4-steps-to-achieve-sustainable-dei-transformation/

 

Footnotes

[1] Peiker, Sarah (2023, 02, 08); Why And How To Evolve From Human Resources To People And Culture, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2023/02/08/why-and-how-to-evolve-from-human-resources-to-people-and-culture/?sh=5d58a3dd4c45

[2] Gassam Asare, Janice (2022, October 07), Have we been wrongly vilifying EDI training? https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2022/10/07/have-we-been-wrongfully-vilifying-EDI-training/?sh=139c0f973b35

HR Metrics and Analytics: So Many Numbers, So Little Time…

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To show the importance of what this article covers to an HR professional’s effectiveness – and sanity! –  we want to start with a brief “cautionary” tale. We were asked to help the executive leadership team of the IT department of a Canadian bank determine the data they needed to improve hiring decisions for specific senior IT positions. They had asked an HR analyst with the bank to provide them with data to make better and often urgent decisions. Competition for these mission-critical positions is very acute between financial institutions. A bank needs to move quickly when a need or opportunity arises. And that was the extent of the instruction they gave to the analyst: “Bring us the data!” The analyst worked for two weeks gathering data and then made a presentation that included over thirty slides of dense charts and complex graphics; the analyst had basically downloaded every piece of information on senior IT positions across the bank. Unfortunately, it was of little or no help to the executives who were formulating strategy, managing risks, and making hiring decisions. As the executive who brought us in to help said: “After the 3rd slide my eyes started to glaze over. I had no idea what I was being told or what insights I was supposed to take away from it all. There was no structure and no viable conclusion.”

The evolution of data capture technologies now means that organizations have oceans of data to work with. The problem with this – and it is a “problem”, not merely a “challenge” – is that we need to boil this ocean of data into a drink of water that will help us and our leaders make key HR decisions across a range of issues: hiring, resourcing, training, compensation, performance management, health and safety, inclusion, diversity, employee engagement, and more. HR data analysis is a critical management tool, but only if used in a way that supports, not hinders, informed decision making.

In this article we will share two structured ways to look at organizing your thinking and your data analysis that will make more effective use of your time and lead to more timely and informed decisions. First, we will overview the HR Metrics Cycle which leads in clear steps from defining the opportunity or problem, to decisions and a relevant action plan. Secondly, we will dig more deeply into the Define step of the cycle. Starting any project with clearly defined goals and agreed terminologies and metrics is critical to a project’s relevance and success.

For those of you want to learn more about these models and their applications, we encourage you to join us for Queen’s IRC’s HR Metrics and Analytics program where we cover them in more depth, and where you can actively apply them to both case study material and one of your own “real world” live projects.

Leading Human Resources in Transformative Times

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The field of human resources has experienced incredible change and transformation over the last five years. These include the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and changing expectations about work, to significant labour market challenges and new views of organizations’ responsibilities related to issues of equity. There has been much to navigate within this context.

Accompanying these external influences and pressures are equally dizzying shifts occurring in our identity as human resource leaders. With a view to every corner of an organization, human resource leaders are critical players who contribute invaluable perspective and insight on how to leverage human, team and leadership potential.

This makes it an opportune time to pause and reflect on where we are and how to prepare for what’s ahead. How do we define ourselves within this context of increased complexity? What are our priorities and critical “must have” skills to support us within this environment? Who are we as human resource leaders and what roadmap should we be using to gain insight into our leadership journey?

Refining our focus to the “what” of HR leadership

A helpful tool and starting place to explore these important questions is the HR Competency Model designed by the RBL Group. Co-founded by renowned author and HR expert, Dave Ulrich, the RBL group has partnered with the University of Michigan for over 30 years to collect a significant amount of data from organizations around the globe to examine three questions:

  1. What competencies do HR professionals need to deliver personal, stakeholder and business results?
  2. What qualities exemplify an effective HR department?
  3. In what way can HR create circumstances to maximize business and organizational success?

In 2021, the group completed its eighth round of the comprehensive Human Resource Competency Survey, which identified shifts in how HR professionals’ success factors are characterized. Of note is that these most recent findings identified the importance of moving from a list of “traits” that HR professionals “need to develop” and instead focused on “actions” to support business and organizational success. This interesting shift may reflect the imperative that HR professionals be increasingly agile and responsive to their environmental context. The last five years have certainly shown the success with which many HR professionals have been able to do this.

The latest study recommended that HR professionals focus on the following five actions to be effective leaders within this context:

  1. Foster collaboration: The ability to build trusting relationships with others to achieve organizational goals.
  2. Mobilize information: The ability to anticipate impacts on the organization – from technological innovations to social challenges – and then acquire, analyze and apply information to navigate change and support better decision-making.
  3. Simplify complexity: The ability to sift through vast amounts of information to understand a situation, apply critical thinking, and respond calmly on issues of greatest importance.
  4. Advance human capability: The ability to understand what skills are needed for an organization to effectively meet the demands of its competitive environment. This entails ensuring that the organization supports the development of its internal talent as well as knowing which practices, systems and structures are required for the organization to succeed. This action also encompasses HR’s important contributions in creating a workplace that embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion.
  5. Accelerate business: The ability of HR professionals to contribute to bottom-line results through understanding the organization’s external environment, how it competes in the marketplace and how it creates value for stakeholders, clients and customers.

Each of these five actions is worthy of exploration and contextualization within your organization. As an approach of discovery, HR leaders may want to layer each of these five actions onto their unique organizational and business context to identify which should be prioritized and enhanced. This will inform strategy and enable you to measure impact across the organization.

Summary

The HR Competency Model shared here is only one of many frameworks available to HR leaders. You may find that a different framework is better suited to your needs. Whichever you choose, a framework has value in providing context and support for your work as an HR professional – creating guideposts to keep you on track in what is an increasingly complex landscape.

As HR professionals, we have seen how the global shifts in values over the last five years have led to new organizational pathways and approaches to HR practice and leadership. There are no indications that this rate of transformation is slowing. What won’t change is the importance of the HR leader. It is exciting and thrilling to be part of the journey.

About the Author

Janet Stewart

Janet Stewart is an accomplished human resource leader with a deep understanding of both theory and practice. As a consultant and leadership coach, she supports leaders across Canada to maximize workplace capacity, potential and harmony. She is a skilled facilitator on topics related to leadership, organizational wellness, workplace diversity, and building inclusive cultures. Janet is a Professional Certified Coach (International Coaching Federation), a Qualified Mediator (ADR Institute of Canada), holds a CPHR (BC & Yukon) and is PROSCI® change-management certified. She is a regular contributor to publications on topics related to HR leadership.

Janet is the lead facilitator for the Queen’s IRC Leading Human Resources program.

 

References

Ulrich, D., Ulrich, M., Wilson Burns, E., & Wright, P. (2021, April 21). New HRCS 8 competency model focuses on simplifying complexity. The RBL Group. Retrieved January 18, 2023, from https://www.rbl.net/insights/articles/new-hrcs-8-competency-model-focuses-on-simplifying-complexity.

How Do You Determine the Best Work Model for Your Organization or Team?

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Many organizations that implemented post-COVID-19 work models (remote, hybrid or in office) should be evaluating their choice regularly, to ensure that they retain their competitive advantage and continue to attract the right human resources. It is my recommendation that a review be conducted after the first six months to ensure that the model continues to support the strategic direction of the organization.

61% of Canadian organizations have moved to a hybrid work environment because this was the preferred model by many employees.[1] We know that a hybrid work environment assisted with employee engagement and made some jobs more appealing to individuals who preferred to work from home some of the time.

Fully remote work (or working from home) provides organizations with a greater geographical human resources pool to harness. Remote workers can live far away from the office, and as long as their IT systems are intact and they have high speed internet, they are productive. There is a very limited requirement to return to the office for work.[2]

When re-evaluating your model, organizations need to review several steps to determine the best model prior to making any changes. These steps must consider the organizational philosophy/ culture, rules of work including collective agreements and employee relations, and ongoing productivity.

[1] Benefits Canada Staff. (2022, August 3). 61% of Canadian employers using Hybrid Work Model: Survey. Benefits Canada.com. Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://www.benefitscanada.com/news/bencan/61-of-canadian-employers-using-hybrid-work-model-survey/

[2] Wigert, B. (2022, March 15). The future of hybrid work: 5 key questions answered with data. Gallup.com. Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://www.gallup.com/workplace/390632/future-hybrid-work-key-questions-answered-data.aspx

How to Lead Your Life with Resilience

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Are you feeling tired or frustrated chasing elusive happiness? A full life does come with setbacks. This is a reality we all face. The better able you are at handling these setbacks, the more stable your level of happiness will be. This is why learning how to move through life’s many adversities is important. You can experience consistent happiness while overcoming your life’s challenges by leading your life with resilience. Below are the six holistic essentials from the Circle of LITE[1] personal leadership framework to help you do so.

1. Self-esteem is at the center of the Circle of LITE, and your work and life. This area of your life can run very deep and require some inner healing. Your beliefs have been shaped and formed from a very young age based on the life experiences you’ve had. Some of your beliefs may be serving you and your potential, and others not so much. Breakthrough moments in life coaching are co-created by transforming your self-limiting beliefs. While healing can be an outcome of life coaching, it is important to note that life coaching is not therapy. Life coaching can help rebuild and maintain a healthy level of self-esteem that is fundamental to leading a life of resilience, by bringing out your strengths, passions, interests and innate gifts. Revisit every milestone in your life, every obstacle you overcame, and every mentor you admire to discover what you are made of and what more you want to develop in yourself. By knowing who you are in essence and your life purpose, you can then begin to envision your possibilities and potential, and lead the way.

A powerful question for self-reflection
How do the circumstances in your work and life affect your level of self-esteem? Notice and describe the triggers and your self-talk in these circumstances. Self-awareness is the first step in creating positive change.

2. Leadership starts with an inspiring vision that you believe in and is reflective of your purposeful life, values and essence. Knowing your personal life vision will enable you to make choices that are in alignment with who you are and what matters to you. Aligning with yourself first helps you align with other like-minded people, cultures, and opportunities. Shared visions are what guide and mobilize people to synergistically co-create exceptional outcomes. When a stressful problem arises, finding the common ground in a shared vision can also be a healthy and effective way to solve it and keep moving forward with clear focus.

A powerful question for self-reflection
What is your work/life vision five to ten years from now? Journal how your future self will be living life, what your future self’s surroundings and community will be like, and the meaningfulness of it.

3. Intellect is a medium with which you can lead effectively and creatively. How you use your mind in your leadership can elevate or stagnate your growth and performance. A mindset that is open to learning from experiences (including failures), integrating new knowledge and information, and listening to shared wisdom, will outperform a closed mindset. Cultivating an open mindset begins by noticing and transforming your self-limiting beliefs. Your self-talk is a good indicator of the transformation called for. Journaling your negative self-talk can point out the underlying feelings and beliefs that drive your habitual patterns in certain situations and block your progress. Exposing yourself to new situations with different habits can help renew your feelings and beliefs, liberate your mind, and propel your progress.

A powerful question for self-reflection
What changes to your self-talk, if any, do you need to make? Journal your daily self-talk to notice its impact on your work and life’s outcomes, and the underlying beliefs that need renewal.

4. Teamwork will sustain the unity you need to fulfill your vision. No matter what your endeavour is in your work and/or life, the people you surround yourself with can help you drive its manifestation. To sustain unity, keep your eyes on the big picture, seek the higher ground, and honor your mutual values. When conflict arises, return to these basics to get back on track. Keep in mind, that as each member of the team evolves, a misalignment can surface that makes it difficult to sustain unity and get back on track. Every relationship has its arch. Progressive leaders accept this and normalize parting ways amicably as a viable and dignified option.

A powerful question for self-reflection
What values do you share with the people in your work and life? Write down your top 10 values. Notice the ones that are shared with others in your life and how they support your vision.

5. Expression that is a real reflection of who you are and who you want to become takes courage and confidence. There are many forms in which to express oneself authentically, responsibly, and respectfully; speaking, writing, and drawing are just a few. The form you choose can be an extension of who you are and a stretch into who you want to become. The most important step you can take is to stop holding yourself back. Every voice counts and has a positive ripple effect when expressed constructively in an encouraging environment. Often, it is where many coaching clients hold themselves back, out of fear of rejection from any tense discourse. Yet, the best ideas and solutions to problems come from open and healthy communication. Revisiting some of the learnings from the previous four essentials of the Circle of LITE and asking for support or facilitation can help foster greater expression.

A powerful question for self-reflection
What would you need to do differently to fully express yourself in your work or life? Think of a time you held yourself back and wish you hadn’t. What would you do differently today?

6. Work-life balance and stress management support the entire Circle of LITE. To experience balance, priorities need to be set. Priorities are best set when you have worked through all of the other essentials in the Circle of LITE and gained the clarity you need. Clear priorities can then help shape your calendar meaningfully and hold your focus on the key milestones that need to be completed with renewed determination. Having a better handle on your time also helps reduce your stress. Other stress reducing activities include breathwork, yoga, massage therapy, exercise, a good night’s sleep, healthy nutrition and positive social interactions. Including such self-care activities in your daily, weekly and monthly routines can help you recharge and increase your productivity. Improving your work-life balance and better managing your stress will enable you to respond proactively to your life circumstances instead of reacting to them.

A powerful question for self-reflection
What personal habits can you incorporate into your life with consistency to maintain your vitality? Schedule them in your calendar.

You can experience unwavering happiness when you know how to coach yourself through any of life’s circumstances. The Circle of LITE is a personal leadership framework you can lean on at any time. When faced with a challenge, crisis or change, you can revisit the above six essentials to determine the shift you need to make to move through it. You can also revisit it to monitor your own progress and celebrate your successes. With it, you will be able to tap into your inner resources and transform your well-being.

About the Author

Helen RoditisWorking with progressive business leaders for over 15 years, Helen Roditis helps co-create sustainable high-performance, and retain top talent by delivering customized, blended, and holistic leadership development programs that engage team members and their customers. She also brings forward her diverse experience in finance, marketing, talent management, and consumer experience best practices to offer a balanced approach that links people and business strategies. Wellness practices for stress relief and high-performance are also integrated throughout her coaching programs. Helen is the author of LITE Up Your Work and Life, and the creator of the Circle of LITE personal leadership framework.

 

[1] For more information on the framework, check out this video: “LITE Up to Express Your Full Potential” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UegTb5reJ8k.

The Talent Management Revolution

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Talent management has emerged as a top priority for organizations over the last decade and has only been accelerated by the pandemic as employees were sent home, many displaced, and employers had to radically shift business operations. Human Resources (HR) led the charge in supporting business units to make this transition as seamless as possible – while stabilizing a very disrupted workforce. Not only has HR been thrust into the spotlight over these last few years, but progressive HR leaders have played a significant role in shining a spotlight on a much-needed talent management revolution.

Talent management has historically been designed to support more siloed organizational structures, which also tend to be process heavy and administratively onerous. This type of talent model is challenged in its ability to support agility, innovation, and speed to market. While these more traditional systems have guided employees through their employee lifecycle by creating a systematic and predictable set of processes – from acquisition, hiring, onboarding, development, performance management, to offboarding – they are not employee-centric by design, nor do they provide the kind of flexibility people strategies now require. What is more, employee expectations have evolved as demands for more autonomy, internal mobility, meaning, career development, and work-life balance have forced organizations to rethink overall talent management systems.

One of the most notable, and widely reported on outcomes of this shift in employee expectations has been coined ‘The Great Resignation’[1].  As employees are leaving jobs by the throngs, reprioritizing work life and focusing on well-being, employers have been tasked with finding new approaches to support employee engagement and retention. Employees want to gain a deeper sense of meaning from their work and are calling on their workplaces to invest in their development and career mobility.

Another key issue that has been accelerated by the pandemic is known as the ‘skills gap’ which emerged as organizations have increased their reliance on technology. As the World Economic Forum projects, 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025.[2]  This focus on skills development is an opportunity for organizations to invest in their employees; the key will be for organizations to have a multi-pronged learning and development strategy that targets the development of specific skill sets, taps into individual interests and development goals, while supporting business priorities and creating a strong succession pipeline. As Amy Borsetti, Senior Director of Talent Solutions at LinkedIn notes, “skills are the new currency at work and organizations play a critical role in creating the conditions to learn, advance the learning process, and offer effective learning opportunities for people to grow, get promoted…and contribute to the organization’s vision, mission, and business outcomes.”[3] These kinds of strategies will set organizations apart and become part of the employer value proposition.

A talent model that is emerging as a more practical and contemporary solution to address some of these challenges is the Talent Marketplace, defined by Betterup as an internal system within an organization focused on developing talent. “The talent marketplace lets employees promote their skills and pursue aspirations. It also allows companies to post projects, gigs, new roles, or even mentoring opportunities.”[4]

These platforms have the capability to capture and share data about employees’ current skills, and through personalized profiles, allow employees to update their skills as they complete training, participate in projects, and share their career aspirations and interests.  This is a more networked, interactive, and engaging space where organizations can communicate more effectively, improving speed to market by having the right talent deployed to the right projects. This is a significant shift from more traditional talent management solutions which have lacked mechanisms to capture these kinds of insights, ultimately inhibiting internal mobility and career progression.

As Taylor and Lebo note in their book, The Talent Revolution, 40% of employees feel they are stuck in their jobs. Revamping current career path options requires organizations to take notice of the large, productive workforce available to them.[5] Leveraging the platform as a centralized skills database – where organizations can conduct a skills inventory and gap analysis – does just that; it provides the kind of insight organizations need to understand workforce capability, inform succession, and acquisition planning, and enable internal talent mobility.

There are several talent marketplace solutions that can be adapted to meet the specific needs of your organization; however, you can start to implement some of these practices more immediately by leveraging your organization’s intranet. Creating an internal site where employees are encouraged to post information about their interests, showcase their project work, and update their skills is a great starting point. Similarly, leaders can use the portal to share business updates, workplans, and job opportunities. This can also present an opportunity for organizations to develop mentorship programs where matching interests and development goals to people can become a great, cost-effective development strategy.

4 Best Practices to Support Staff   

In terms of more immediate strategies to help you better support your staff, here are some best practices that you can implement that will help to get you started.

  1. Regular Check-ins are an important activity to build trust with your employees. These regular 1:1s allow you to provide ongoing and relevant support to your staff, and help you determine if additional supports are needed to stay on top of deliverables. In addition to your employee 1:1s, make sure you schedule regular team meetings. This gives an opportunity for staff to showcase their work, consult other team members, and build team trust and collaboration.
  2. Stay interviews are a great way to manage involuntary turnover – especially for high-performing employees. These conversations can help clarify employee motivation and career aspirations, it also provides an opportunity for employees to provide feedback, identify any barriers they may be experiencing in their roles, and what incentives can be put in place to support their retention. These conversations will build trust, instill a sense of reciprocity, encourage engagement, and improve employee morale. The HR department would typically lead this process.
  3. Development Plans help to align business priorities with individual development goals. They also provide strategic stretch and development opportunities. They can include secondments, mentorships, and gig assignments. Development plans should also address any feedback provided in stay interviews and annual performance discussions. The goal here is to help support the development of employees while also mapping career progression. Actively investing in employee development also serves engagement and retention strategies.
  4. Performance conversations should be happening regularly through in-the-moment feedback and your regular 1:1 meetings. Employees shouldn’t be surprised by feedback in their annual performance reviews. Use coaching skills in your regular conversations with employees to support development areas, address any issues, and to revise annual goals and/or expectations as business needs evolve throughout the year. And don’t forget to ask employees to provide you with feedback as well. Stay open to building a reciprocal relationship.

About the Author

Wylie BurkeWylie Burke is an innovation consultant, facilitator, and leadership coach. She has over 15 years of experience in business administration, human resources, strategic and operational planning, and leading high performing teams. She brings a unique perspective to her work, having had the pleasure of working for a diverse range of organizations including United Way Toronto, CIBC, SickKids, WSIB, and Toronto Metropolitan University. She has led large-scale merger and integration initiatives, cultural transformation and change strategies, and is recognized for taking a people-centred and creative approach to her work and is inspired by helping people and organizations realize potential and reach new heights. As a sought-after coach, consultant, and facilitator, Wylie is recognized for creating inclusive environments that inspire insights, connection, fun, shared learning, and that result in personal and organizational integration. Wylie is passionate about her work with clients in reimagining the overarching HR function, turning it from a process heavy one into a strategically designed talent hub. Employing a design thinking methodology, Wylie helps to evolve talent models, programs, and strategies into innovative, agile, flexible, relevant assets that connect talent decisions to value-creating outcomes.

Wylie is the facilitator for the Queen’s IRC Talent Management program.

References

Borsetti, A. (2021, March 2). Skills are the new Currency in the World of Work. LinkedIn. Retrieved, May 1, 2022, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/skills-new-currency-world-work-amy-borsetti/.

Boudreau, J. (2016, March 17). Work in the Future Will Fall into These 4 Categories. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved May 1, 2022, from https://hbr.org/2016/03/work-in-the-future-will-fall-into-these-4-categories.

Chung, A. (2021, November 29). What is the ‘Great Resignation’? An Expert Explains. World Economic Forum. Retrieved, May 1, 2022, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/what-is-the-great-resignation-and-what-can-we-learn-from-it/.

Deloitte Insights. (2020, September 18). Activating the Internal Talent Marketplace. Retrieved May 1, 2022, from https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/technology-and-the-future-of-work/internal-talent-marketplace.html.

Maggioncalda, J. & Yacoub, S. (2020, December 4). 4 Ways to Reskill the Global Workforce – and this is where it’s already happening. World Economic Forum. Retrieved, May 1, 2022, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/4-ways-to-reskill-the-global-workforce/

Miles, M. (2022, March 17). What is a talent marketplace and why do employees need it? BetterUp. Retrieved May 1, 2022, from https://www.betterup.com/blog/talent-marketplace#:~:text=A%20talent%20marketplace%20is%20an%20internal%20system%20within,projects%2C%20gigs%2C%20new%20roles%2C%20or%20even%20mentoring%20opportunities.

Schreiber-Shearer, N. (2022, January 24). What is a Talent Marketplace? Inside The Talent Marketplace: Game-Changing Platform That Unlocks Workforce Agility. Retrieved, May 1, 2022, from https://gloat.com/blog/the-talent-marketplace-explained/.

Taylor, L. & Lebo, F. (2019) The Talent Revolution, Longevity and the Future of Work. University of Toronto Press.

Footnotes

[1] Chung, A. (2021, November 29). What is the ‘Great Resignation’? An Expert Explains. World Economic Forum. Retrieved, May 1, 2022, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/what-is-the-great-resignation-and-what-can-we-learn-from-it/

[2] Maggioncalda, J. & Yacoub, S. (2020, December 4). 4 Ways to Reskill the Global Workforce – and this is where it’s already happening. World Economic Forum. Retrieved, May 1, 2022, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/4-ways-to-reskill-the-global-workforce/

[3]  Borsetti, A. (2021, March 2). Skills are the new Currency in the World of Work. LinkedIn. Retrieved, May 1, 2022, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/skills-new-currency-world-work-amy-borsetti/

[4] Miles, M. (2022, March 17). What is a talent marketplace and why do employees need it? BetterUp. Retrieved May 1, 2022, fromhttps://www.betterup.com/blog/talent-marketplace#:~:text=A%20talent%20marketplace%20is%20an
%20internal%20system%20within,projects%2C%20gigs%2C%20new%20roles%2C%20or%20even%20mentoring%20opportunities.

[5] Taylor, L. & Lebo, F. (2019) The Talent Revolution, Longevity and the Future of Work. University of Toronto Press.

The Gift of Workplace Coaching

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Many employers of choice offer coaching to their new generation of leaders because it’s a tool with transformative powers. Given the ever-changing business landscape—including the transition back to the office after COVID-19—smart employers provide their employees with the tools they need to succeed—from day one. For new leaders, that includes coaching.

In this article, I will talk about what coaching is, the transformative power of coaching, what new leaders can expect from employer-sponsored coaching and how to get the most out of the gift of coaching.

Attitudes About Coaching: Then and Now

Some time ago, I was a young mother working my way up the corporate ladder. Shortly after I secured a management job, I was called into my boss’s office. She told me, “We see your potential and we’d like to support your transition from employee to manager. You’re a young employee with a bright future and it’s important for us to invest in you.” She then announced that they had secured six sessions over the next few months—all confidential—with Susan, a retired HR professor from a Toronto university, who consulted as an executive coach.

Sounds amazing, right? I didn’t think so. Back then, coaching wasn’t popular or common, so I didn’t know how to handle this information. The only time I had heard about a third party being called in was to assist employees getting back on track before they went down the termination road. Prior to having this conversation, no one had ever mentioned coaching in the management transition process. I ran home and said to my husband, “Oh, my God, I don’t understand what’s going on. They just gave me this job, I thought I started off well and now they want me to talk to someone.” My mind raced with questions like, “Was I not communicating properly? Was I not handling myself during meetings? Did I do something wrong? Do they want to get rid of me already?”

After a brief panic, I reflected on what my boss really had said, which was nothing like my initial interpretation. Why was I doubting myself? I had worked so hard to get here. I deserved to be at the table. I decided to trust myself and the process and I called Susan the next day. To my wonderful surprise, getting coaching changed my life—I continued up the ladder and became one of the top female executives in the organization. I was ambitious and hard-working, so I probably would’ve got there anyway, but I’m positive my path was smoother because of the opportunity to work with Susan early on in my management transition.

Fortunately, times have changed; coaching is no longer a mystery or reserved for the executive suite and misbehaving employees. People at all levels—whether they’re in the office or on the shop floor—appreciate coaching for what it is: a gift that brings positive results for months, years and decades.

What is Coaching?

Coaching is a developmental practice; coaches use their knowledge and skills to help their clients achieve specific personal or professional goals. Coaches create a learning environment and, as such, there shouldn’t be power struggles in a coaching relationship. Coaching is a two-way communication and feedback process between the employee and the coach with the intention to reinforce strengths and bring awareness of possibilities.

For those that are fortunate to participate in employer-sponsored coaching, it typically starts with six sessions lasting from 60 to 90 minutes each. Coaching often begins with discovering a bit about yourself, setting goals and making solid progress when dealing with issues that might arise in the future. Coaching is a tool that your employer purchases to put in your hand. For leaders—especially new leaders—coaching is essential, just as a measuring tape is essential for a master carpenter. Coaching is an opportunity to help people understand new concepts, learn about themselves and make positive change in their lives.

Coaching sessions are meant to be confidential; this means that what you and your coach talk about stays between you and your coach.[1] In the context of workplace coaching, coaches are accountable to the organization which means they provide attendance updates and perhaps a sentence or two about progress. If the sponsor has asked the coach to work on specific areas, this will be discussed briefly. However, progress reports are generally vague such as, “I met with Taylor, and we worked on some goals. Taylor is a pleasure to speak with and I can see why you consider Taylor leadership material.” The content and limits of the reports are discussed and reviewed during the first coaching session.

The Difference Between Coaching and Mentoring

Coaching is different than mentoring though a coaching relationship can transition into a mentoring relationship. Coaching is goal-oriented and focused on gaining the skills required to navigate issues that come up at work. Mentoring is relationship-oriented; a mentor is a role model you can turn to for guidance and support. Some examples of mentors could be a school principal mentoring a vice-principal or a help desk team leader assigned to mentor an employee working in IT as a clerk, who would like to move to the help desk team to provide IT support.

The Transformative Power of Coaching

Coaching is ultimately about change. Coaching transforms professionals by helping them engage in different ways of thinking, become more effective working with people and increase their ability to handle challenging situations. At the core, coaching helps people learn about themselves and identify what they need to move forward in pursuit of a personal or professional goal.

When Susan and I sat down for my first coaching session, it was in a coffee shop. Despite my reservations, I immediately took to coaching with Susan and was grateful to have the skills and expertise of a female HR executive at my disposal. It was great to have someone to talk to. With Susan, I didn’t have to be “on” all the time; I could be myself while learning about myself. She taught me a different way of looking at things and helped me work through issues and goals so I could go to work and perform.

After our sessions, Susan became a friend and mentor who I spoke to for many years before she passed away. As my career progressed, I became a mentor to other young leaders; one of those women recently sent me a note about how I helped her and her colleague when they reported to me years ago. She said, “You are a huge part of our confidence, giving us a chance. It didn’t matter what we asked, you always had another question for us to answer, and made us walk out of your office feeling like we could conquer the world.” I trace their success back to my time with Susan; this multi-decade legacy perfectly illustrates the transformative power of coaching. It becomes natural to pass on the power of coaching when you’ve been coached.

How New Leaders Can Get the Most Out of Employer-Sponsored Coaching

I’m known for saying every manager needs five superpowers and I believe coaching makes it easier and faster to develop and harness these superpowers, especially when you engage with the process. The more accountability and responsibility you take, the more you’ll get out of your coaching sessions.

Here are my five recommendations for getting the most out of coaching:

  1. Commit to the process – Your coach is there to help you grow, navigate challenges and achieve your goals and this only works if you go all in. Coaching isn’t about going with the flow; it’s about being an active participant in your own journey.
  2. Prepare for each session – Be on time, take notes and be ready to revisit unfinished business from previous sessions. If you have a pressing concern—such as an emerging power-struggle with an employee or colleague—bring it to your session and be ready to think differently about how to approach it.
  3. Be willing to give and receive feedback – Your coach doesn’t tell you what to do; instead, a coach asks questions to help you come up with solutions. These conversations aren’t always easy, so a successful coaching relationship involves two-way feedback. Listen to your coach’s observations with an open mind and tell your coach what’s working and not working for you. Both parties should try not to take feedback personally.
  4. Choose the right meeting place – Coaching can bring up emotions, so it’s important that you feel comfortable in your meeting place, whether it’s a private office, busy coffee shop or virtual.
  5. Speak up if there’s truly not a great fit – With employer-sponsored coaching, you don’t get to pick your coach and, most of the time, it works out well. However, if there’s truly a bad fit, talk to your director of HR or the person in charge of the coaching program. Keep in mind that having a coach who asks tough questions isn’t the same as a bad fit!

What New Leaders Can Expect to Get Out of Coaching

Transitioning from individual contributor to a leadership role is hard, especially without a formal system of support. When new leaders get coaching, they can expect to increase their on-the-job effectiveness, due to gaining new skills and setting their mindset right. With coaching, new leaders learn about themselves, become comfortable enough to be themselves at work and develop the confidence to address issues and create an effective working environment that facilitates success. The coaching process provides space and structure for the reflection necessary for learning and growth and, in many cases, helps people reconnect with what they love about life and work.

In my years as an executive in the HR, financial and operational fields, I’ve seen countless coaching success stories, including my own. Most people go into coaching expecting it to be somewhat helpful and are shocked at how transformative the process really is.

Supporting the First 90 Days: Why Employers of Choice Hire Coaches for New Leaders

“There is a pervasive lack of leadership management training happening when people are moving into management.”

  • Scott Miller, Executive Vice President of Thought Leadership, FranklinCovey

In many organizations, new leaders commit to a plan for their first 90 days on the job. The transition from employee to leader—sometimes described as drinking from the fire hose—is incredibly stressful, challenging and, at times, discouraging. Top employers provide coaching support when their employees move into leadership roles (and often when they welcome new leaders to the company). Employers of choice believe there’s no need for anyone to fail within the first 90 days; coaching mitigates this risk and gives new leaders a strong start.

And, in the era of the great resignation, employees want to work for organizations that care about their people and align to their values. Companies that offer coaching demonstrate their commitment to leadership development, succession planning and helping employees fit into their roles. They know that coaching helps employees feel a sense of belonging, find meaning in their work, and achieve greater happiness, productivity and performance. One great leader creates many others; that’s why top employers are thrilled to provide coaching to their leadership team at all levels.

If you’re a new leader and your employer offers you an opportunity to meet with a coach, take it! It can change your life and the lives of others, now and far into the future. So, what are you waiting for?

Further Reading

I highly recommend these two books to help you understand the transformational benefits of coaching:

  • Developing Leaders by Executive Coaching by Andromachi Athanasopoulou.
  • The First 90 Days, Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter by Michael D. Watkins.

About the Author

Filomena LofrancoFilomena Lofranco is a management consultant and executive coach with more than 25 years of human resource, finance, and leadership experience. Filomena strives to share her knowledge and expertise with professionals looking to grow and succeed in the workplace. She understood that there was a profound need for up-and-coming professionals to have the proper training and foundation from the start. Filomena works to identify areas within organizations that require attention and improvement, evaluating potential options and providing practical solutions that are cost effective. For Filomena, fostering relationships at every level of an organization is key when building a strong and prosperous business. She believes these relationships hold great value for an organization and can help mitigate problems when challenges arise. She has been instrumental in staff development, staff empowerment and in driving successful results across a wide range of cross functional teams. She is passionate about promoting and inspiring workplace culture that supports physical, psychological and emotional well-being for all.

[1] Limits to coaching confidentiality are much like limits for counselling. For example, if a client discloses threats of harm to oneself or others, a coach is obligated to alert the proper authorities to make sure the client gets the help they need.

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