How Organizations are Rethinking Coaching, Training, and Development
BY Sheryll Poe December 29, 2022Marriott International is embarking on a massive technical transformation in its hotels in the coming years, which means 120,000 employees will need to be trained on the new systems put in place. So what will that training look like in a post-pandemic, hybrid work environment? “We have a strong focus right now on designing what will that learning strategy be to get folks up to speed more quickly,” said Jayana Garvey,VP of global performance and brand talent advisory for Marriott, during a panel discussion titled “Innovative Ways to Build Skills in a Hybrid Workplace” at From Day One’s Washington, D.C. conference. The days of week-long, in-person training to learn a new system are gone, Garvey says. “We’re seeing an exploration and shift in terms of learning and the flow of work.” That shift includes delivering tips and skills-based content in a more invisible way throughout an employee’s workflow. “Rather than sitting through four days of training on how to use that new piece of technology, you will be served up prompts and information in the flow of using it,” Garvey said, while comparing the concept to getting a new iPhone. “When you get it, you just know how it works. You don’t need to read five manuals. It guides you. It prompts you.” Developing Soft Skills Marriott, like many other organizations, is trying to figure out how to build skills in a hybrid workplace, in particular, those so-called soft skills. “It’s just more impactful when you can hear things and do things daily,” Garvey said, while noting that many of Marriott’s general managers do a daily standup with their people so they can deliver information every day that helps drive performance in the business. “I think we'll be seeing more and more of that, where you're figuring out how to embed it in one's day to day where it doesn't always feel like a one and done event.” The U.S. General Services Administration, which manages and supports the functioning of federal government agencies, is taking a similar, organic approach to training, sharing information, and relying on personal interaction to develop leadership and management skills, says Merrick Krause, GSA’s deputy chief human capital officer. “We’ve been actually trying to move away from the term soft skills and into just skills or I think of it as leadership,” Krause said. “And it’s leadership training all the way up. That’s something that we’re trying to build into the career paths for at least our mission-critical jobs and then hopefully many others–this idea of soft skills development and skills development that follows someone throughout their whole career arc.” Other panelists said they rely on outside sources, such as LinkedIn courses, to ensure that employees and candidates have the core qualifications needed. “One of the things we were able to do very successfully during Covid was to implement our connection with our learning management system to LinkedIn. We now have a strategy for developing others that includes the first-level supervisor, all the way up to the leadership team that is congruent,” said Lin Burton, chief learning officer with the U.S. Department of Justice. “The second step is to take those skills and embed them within the engagement. We’re not only practicing it, but we’re giving them an opportunity to apply and others to observe.” Meeting Worker Development Goals Through Coaching Career coaching also took on new importance during the pandemic, says Sarah Sheehan, co-founder and president of Bravely, an employee coaching company. “The No. 1 reason that people are using coaching is for development,” she said. Young employees, in particular, expect to have development resources–including coaching–available to them. “We’ve seen a huge shift over the last couple of years, and that this next generation, they’re not going to stay at your company for very long, potentially. But the expectation is that you’re going to serve them while they’re there and you’re going to give them everything that they want and the need to be successful and develop is one of them. They want to figure out how to get to the next level.” Hannah Denham of the Washington Business Journal moderated the panel discussion But even beyond professional development, coaching can give employees a sense of connection with their organization and their fellow employees, says Krause. “When Covid hit, it rapidly became clear also that coaching and mentoring was really necessary. I think even more necessary when people were separated,” he said. “Now we've evolved our coaching to all grade levels, including executives [who] are required to have coaches.” Junior employees are generally coached internally, but for supervisors through management, GSA makes sure external coaching is available, “and I think that’s been very popular,” said Krause. The Department of Justice also introduced coaching–and leadership coaching in particular–at the beginning of the pandemic, Burton says. “We did leadership coaching at every level,” she said. Teams received not only executive coaching in conjunction with George Washington University, but also peer coaching from those who have gone through the GWU program. “We see a lot of movement and staff value for the work that they’re doing and how it's really helping them in the work that they do and how they vision their careers,” said Burton. Supporting the Individual In many cases, delivering training in a hybrid work environment comes down to recognizing and supporting the individual, whatever their learning style, Sheehan says. “When you think about historical learning and development programs, everybody gets the same content. We’re not the same, we’re uniquely different. It’s really important to think about, you know, who your people are individually, and what their goals are and create development plans based on that because my skills are different than your skills.” Sheryll Poe is a freelance journalist based in Alexandria, Va.
How a Tradition-Bound Agency Attracts Workers in the Flexible-Work Era
BY Sheryll Poe October 25, 2022Workers are redefining work in the post-pandemic world, with expectations for more remote work options, a significant increase in pay and benefits, and greater work-life balance. While all of these new worker demands can be a challenge for private sector employees, it can be near impossible for a government agency with 400,000 employees responsible for America's largest integrated health care system, according to the Veterans Health Administration’s chief of human capital management, Jessica Bonjorni. “People are re-evaluating what’s important to them,” Bonjorni said during From Day One’s Washington, D.C. conference on how organizations can build stronger bonds of trust with their workers and their communities. “They’re looking for flexibility in how and where they do their work, which isn’t easy in a healthcare environment.” Bonjorni spoke in a fireside chat with Sam Fulwood, dean at the American University School of Communication, to discuss how the relationship between employers and workers has changed and how employers can figure out how to compete for labor, whether it’s through compensation, total rewards, or a sense of mission and purpose. Empowered Workers and High Turnover While the VHA has a strong sense of mission and purpose that resonates with job candidates and incumbents alike, its charter as a government agency can constrain the agency’s ability to provide compensation and benefits that can compete with the private sector. The VHA, which is faced with thousands of job vacancies and high turnover, has to ask Congress to set higher pay caps and provide funding for expanded benefits. “Right now, there are more jobs than people,” Bonjorni said. “There’s a sense of empowerment among workers and high turnover, especially among entry-level workers, many of who were able to shift to virtual work during the pandemic. That [job] loyalty is not really there anymore.” Bonjorni emphasized “letting people talk about who they are and what’s going on in the world” What the agency and HR professionals like Bonjorni can do, however, is focus on work culture. While the VHA can’t offer a 100% remote work option in most cases, some flexibility, for example working from home one or two days a week, makes a big difference, Bonjorni said. “Giving people some choice, some flexibility it goes a long way,” she noted. The agency is also touting its growth and development opportunities as well as a commitment to employee empowerment. That includes investing in training and coaching for VHA leaders, as well as those in entry-level positions. Tackling Tough Conversations at Work Bonjorni pointed to VHA’s “Own the Moment” initiative, which reminds employees that they are in control of how they connect with one another and how they treat each other. “It’s important to bring your whole self to work,” Bonjorni said. With the recent racial justice movement, and changes and protests around social and ethical issues including voting rights and abortion, more employees want to feel free to discuss what’s happening outside of work, she noted. “Letting people talk about who they are and what’s going on in the world, which a lot of times is reflected in the streets outside my office,” allows employees a chance to be seen and heard, rather than just being treated like cogs in the machine, Bonjorni said. “We’re all going through something.” The focus, Bonjorni said, is as much on retaining existing workers as it is on attracting new ones. “In HR, if feels like we are in a thankless job. What you can do is focus on retention doing ‘stay’ interviews rather than ‘exit’ interviews,” to figure out what employees need to stay in a job. Keeping a worker is easier than getting a new one. Bonjorni recommended that organizations can make existing employees happier by looking for ways to get rid of “administrative nonsense” and bureaucratic red tape, she noted. “People want to have hassles reduced in their lives.” Sheryll Poe is a freelance journalist based in Alexandria, Va.
How Different Generations Responded to the Pandemic and Remote Work
BY Sheryll Poe June 16, 2022While the switch to remote work was stressful for most employees, people over the age of 50 tended to handle pandemic stresses and remote work much better than their younger coworkers, according to Heather Tinsley-Fix, AARP senior advisor of Financial Resilience. Research from the Stanford Center of Longevity and Nintex, a process-management and workflow-automation company, found that older people had more positive emotions throughout the day and were less likely to experience a change to their personal wellness by working remotely during the pandemic, “despite the fact that both groups reported the same levels of stress,” Tinsley-Fix said in a presentation at From Day One’s May conference in Washington, D.C. Tinsley-Fix theorized that with age comes the development of coping skills and resilience. “The older we get, the more we’ve weathered, the more we know our own skills to cope with difficult things or in some cases, with once-in-a-lifetime things like the pandemic. While we experienced the same amount of stress or are facing some of the same challenges, we have developed more of those skills to deal with it, and so we report higher levels of happiness or ability to concentrate.” Getting Back to the Office In terms of returning to work, there is also a generational gap, Tinsley-Fix noted. The Conference Board’s Return to Work Survey found that while 43% of Baby Boomers are comfortable returning to the office, only 24% of millennials said they were. In addition, 55% of millennials said they don’t see a need to return to the office at all, while only 35% of Baby Boomer respondents felt the same. That “return to the office” gap also becomes more apparent when comparing the attitudes of those in leadership positions versus non-leadership positions. Among the CEOs surveyed, 66% said they were comfortable returning to the office, while only 23% of individual contributors felt comfortable returning. “So again, there’s this interesting tension between not only generationally what people expect and want, but also between leadership and individual contributors,” Tinsley-Fix said. Heather Tinsley-Fix, AARP’s senior advisor of Financial Resilience But while there is an expectation that going forward, the work environment will be a mix of in-person, remote and hybrid—according to a PwC Next in Work survey, only 19% of companies think their workforce will be all in-person—younger generations, in particular Generation Z, has struggled the most in the all-remote environment. “They’re more likely to say they’re struggling to speak up in meetings, to bring new ideas to the table and to just cope in general,” Tinsley-Fix said, while noting that some Gen Z workers started their careers in a fully remote-work environment. “I can understand how that would be difficult to not have met any of my colleagues in person and to try to maintain a presence in meetings. The younger generations are needing just a little bit of extra help to stay engaged, to feel part of the fabric and culture of your organizations,” she explained. In terms of engagement, productivity and work-life balance, most of the data suggests that working remotely has been positive for employees. According to research from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 40% of workers reported they were more productive at home during the pandemic than they had been when in the office and on average, people’s productivity at home was about 7% higher than they expected. “So we know that productivity did not take a hit when we moved into the remote environment, which is very good thing, obviously for all of our organizations, but also paved the way for this new mode we’re entering now,” Tinsley-Fix said. Office Space of the Future All of this data will impact what offices look like in the future, moving from an office-centric environment to a more human-centric one, Tinsley-Fix theorized. She pointed to recent research by Gartner, which categorizes four types of arrangements: working together-together, working together-apart, working alone-together and working alone-apart. “Previous to the pandemic, you would think there are telecommuters and there are people in the office and that’s the only axis: in or out. But I like this new way of looking at it that Gartner proposes,” she said. “Even though we’ve gone virtual, and went virtual sort of overnight, we were still thinking of a virtual office environment, which leads to expectations of things like consistency of schedule, serendipitous meetings, visibility into what people’s schedules are like and what they’re doing at any given time during the day,” she said. “What we really need to accomplish is a shift in thinking towards a more human-centric way of viewing work or the office. We’re not really thinking of the office as a physical place anymore.” Editor’s Note: From Day One thanks its partner AARP for supporting this Thought Leadership Spotlight. Sheryll Poe is a freelance journalist based in Alexandria, Va.