Growing and keeping talent flowing along the leadership pipeline

Posted on September 08, 2020 by Solange Corm, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

Coaching is a powerful tool for personal and organizational development, and I believe that this will enable significant growth for individuals within this organization and for our organization as a whole.
Being in the Human Resources field in the hospitality industry for more than 15 years has given me so many rewarding experiences and exposure to so many people related issues.
Hospitality industry is a business of people serving people so imagine how much the people element is important and keeping that engagement and trust level with our people in the industry is key for our function in the Human Resources.

It is vital for us to keep talent flowing along the leadership pipeline. Through investing in our people, we can ensure that the right talent are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to fulfil the roles of the future.

My coaching services revolve around career coaching for talent in our organisation that we usually do since years now however presenting a more organised model now and a better approach from competency and leadership skills perspective and how we can coach around those to make the talent evolve in his career and climb the ladder to better roles, hoping to create a talent pipeline into leadership roles.

The WHY! Added Value: there are many advantages of having a structure coaching program for all involved. Some of the benefits for the organization, coach and talents are listed below
Benefits for the organisation:
Coaching will:
“Increase the skills base within Hilton through the development of both coaches and coachees
Expand the pool of future leaders
Enhance individual motivation and commitment to Hilton as an organisation and thus reduce turnover of valuable people
Promote a culture in which we believe in our people and value their contribution
Enhance communication across the organization”

Benefits for coaches:

Coaching will:
“Offer an opportunity for coaches to develop and grow their own skills
Boost coaches’ self-esteem and enhance their recognition in the organisation
Give coaches a sense of achievement in enabling a team member to realise their full potential”

Benefits for the Talent = client:

Coaching will:
“Offer employees individualized attention and support
Demonstrate the organization’s commitment to career progression

Give employees someone to turn to for guidance

Enable employees to achieve improved performance and enhanced self-esteem.”

The coaching relationship starts with an agreement where we highlight the expectations from both parties of this agreement as well as role of each party and what tools and resources will be used during the coaching process.

The Tools and resources used are solely based on my experience in talent management in my organization and the talent strategy we agreed to adopt – it has been used during the past years, reviewed and enhanced yearly and proved to be very helpful in identifying the set of skills and personality trait of each talent and compare it to the set of competencies and expectation from the organization to draw a development plan.

Online assessment: Using a third-party company “SHL” that provides a wide range of various psychometric tests and online assessments. For my coaching model, I will be using the following:

Tool #1: Leadership report
Leadership report
The framework used in this report differentiates management and leadership in terms of the widely recognised distinction between transactional and transformational styles.
This report estimates the individual’s potential using research-derived predictions from the responses they gave to the Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ32).
During feedback explore with the individual how they may have utilised strengths or overcome challenges in the pursuit of success. A deeper understanding of their personal attributes will help to identify their fit to different leadership roles and appropriate approaches to further build their leadership skills.
The SHL Leadership Model covers four leadership functions critical to leadership effectiveness in any organisation. Each of these four leadership functions can be considered in terms of a management focus and a leadership focus.
● Management (transactional focus) is focused on keeping the system running effectively and delivering dependable performance of specified objectives.
● Leadership (transformational focus) is focused on creating, developing or changing the system’s direction and inspiring both people and the organisation to achieve beyond expectations
Each leadership function is associated with two competencies, based on the SHL Great Eight Competency Factors. One competency is more relevant to a management focus and one to a leadership focus.

Tool # 2: Employee Motivation Report
This report describes the factors that are likely to have an impact on the client’s motivation at work.

It provides a high level summary of the client’s motivators and demotivators followed by more detailed information on what is likely to motivate and demotivate the client at work including tips and suggestions on how to keep him motivated.

This report is based on the client’s responses to the Motivation Questionnaire (MQ). The accuracy of this report depends on the frankness with which he answered the questions as well as his self-awareness.

This report has a shelf-life of 18-24 months and should be treated confidentially. If there are major changes in the client’s life or work he should complete the MQ again.

Tool # 3: OPQ – Occupational Personality Questionnaire
This report includes information from the Occupational Personality Questionnaire TM (OPQ32). The use of this questionnaire is limited to those people who have received specialist training in its use and interpretation.
The report herein is generated from the results of a questionnaire answered by the respondent(s) and substantially reflects the answers made by them. Due consideration must be given to the subjective nature of questionnaire-based ratings in the interpretation of this data.
The report details 3 areas listed below:
1- Relationships with people
2- Thinking Style
3- Feelings and Emotions

PS: the choice of use of every assessments and relevant report depends on each situation and each session and the goal of the session based on the client goals and what he/ she is rying to acheive. It is also depending on the level of each client ie: entry level vs Sipervisory vs Management level vs Senior leadership level.

Tool # 4: Exercise – “Your Personal Leadership Brand exercise” – from Harvard business school
The leadership Brand convey your identity and distinctiveness as a leader. It communicates the value you offer. If you have the wrong leadership brand for the position you have or you want, then your work is not having the impact it could.
It is future focused exercise to identify what you want to be known for a leader….

Once those tools are utilized, the coach can visit those reports with the client and go into the details of it with the purpose of understanding it as well as ability to help support the talent with the achievement of specific career goals based on the DRIVE model identified and explained earlier in my coaching model:
DRIVE coaching model:
D – Determine the goal
At the first meeting this may take the form of a discussion around the overall goals for the coaching relationship and what career goals the client has in mind to work towards it
R- REALITY
The next step is to become aware of the current reality of the client. Here is exactly where we conduct the above relevant and necessary online assessment and discuss the results to have better understanding the current status.

I – Idea Generation & Insights – Options
Once the client has explored their current reality they are able to explore the various options available to them. The coach helps the client to generate as many options as possible and discuss these. Career discussions at its best.
V – Visualize an action plan
Once the current reality and options have been generated, clients can draw his own career development plan

E – Execute the Plan – WILL
Once the action plan is visualized and identified, clients know how to achieve their goal. This knowledge alone is not enough; the client needs to have the will to work on the options to reach their goal. The coach at this stage motivates and enthuses the client to gain clarity and commit to specific action steps and execute the actions identified on the plan.

The line Manager plays a major role and take part of the career discussions in various steps of the coaching journey especially during the visualization and execution of the plan.
There will be open and honest channels of communication between the coach, the client and the line manager and this must include discussion of the action plan. Communication with the line Manager will be driven by the client.
Each and every step of the coaching process is backed up by templates that supports the tools implemented and used during the coaching journey.