ImaginativeHR e-bulletin Jan 2015

ImaginativeHR January 2015 e-bulletin - more at www.imaginativehr.com

Exploring what's new and innovative in the world of HR and talent management 1

This bulletin:● Page 2 - Luke Bennett on Effective

team-based senior career transitionsupport

● Page 3 - ImaginativeHR / iPEC London:Coaching Excellence Survey 2015(Launch)

● Page 4 - ImaginativeHR update onInternational HR-to-HR Mentoring

● Page 5 - Clayton Glen on Rolling outyour international coaching pro-gramme

● Pages 6-8 - Paul Leonard on After thewar: a unique international careertransition project

Welcome to our January 2015 e-bulletin.

Exploring what's new and innovative in the world of HR and talent management 2

ImaginativeHR January 2015 e-bulletin - more at www.imaginativehr.com

Integrated teams offer the most effective senior careertransition support

Senior one-to-one programmes, delivered flexibly over 3 to 12 months, typically provide the bestopportunity for self-challenge and creativity in considering career next steps.

The most effective senior outplacement programmes are those which are led by highly engaging and commercially astute,world class coaches, capable of supporting a broad and/or complex range of career transition objectives, e.g. local andinternational re-employment, self-employment, business start-ups, non-executive directorships, voluntary leadershipassignments, further education, professional development, professional sabbaticals, commercially active early retirementand/or a combination / portfolio career transition strategy.

Assuring one-to-one ‘chemistry’ is key

A prerequisite to a successful career transition relationship between a senior exec and his/her career coach is positive‘chemistry’ from the outset. Very often this is a by-product of intelligently matched personalities, professional andcommercial competence (on the part of the coach), appropriate levels of challenging behaviour (by the coach) and thecoach’s empathy for the senior candidate’s specific circumstances.

While ‘chemistry’ is essential for a positive start; successful senior outplacement support often requires creative followthrough and energy - and this is often best achieved via a strong and engaging team approach to the delivery of theprogramme. High calibre, senior career coaches draw on extensive career transition ‘toolboxes’, however programmeswhich include access to a coordinated and handpicked team, immerse the individual in a much broader and deeper pool ofexpertise and experience.

A concerted team effort works best

In our experience, truly bar rising support is achieved by combining one-to-one coaching support (delivered face-to-faceand/or remotely) by a dedicated lead senior coach with a range of team inputs – thus assuring a comprehensive and highlycustomised career transition experience and outcome for the individual. For this reason, all ImaginativeHR supportprogrammes are centrally coordinated, but often delivered via multiple members of our career transition team to providetailored:

● core one-to-one senior transition coaching● access to proactive and targeted senior candidate marketing via our dedicated senior candidate marketing team● access to the most appropriate 360s, psychometrics and strengths assessments● access to specialist coaching for e.g. self-employment, interim management, early-retirement, social networking,

professional presence, etc.● access to specialist seminars, webinars and podcasts● access to authorised vocational learning, within the limits of individual programmes● peer-to-peer networking contact with others in transition● interview and psychometrics practice● access to personal finance services, where applicable● seamless access to international job opportunities and relocation support● onboarding (first 100 days) coaching into new roles● access to ImaginativeHR’s Online 24/7 Outplacement Programme resources

Luke Bennett is co-founder of ImaginativeHR and has worked in the HRconsulting space since 2006. Prior to his time in HR consultancy, Lukeheld a number of senior (service industry) client relationship / opera-tions management roles in the UK, the USA and France. Contact : ++44(0)845 548 4321

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Exploring what's new and innovative in the world of HR and talent management 3

ImaginativeHR January 2015 e-bulletin - more at www.imaginativehr.com

Participate in our ImaginativeHR / iPECLondon Coaching Excellence Survey 2015

Unlike training, business coaching is always bespoke and designed specifically around individual needs, objectives,learning style and personality - and, of course, best linked directly or indirectly to clear business ROI objectives.

Coaching is increasingly acknowledged as the most impactful leadership development activity, however interna-tional coaching practices and preferences are highly variable and inconsistent. At the same time, few comprehen-sive studies have been conducted which seek to identify local, regional and international coaching best practiceand / or the definitive building blocks of effective ‘coaching cultures’.

ImaginativeHR is partnering iPEC London; independently ranked as the world's No.1. ICF accredited coachtraining programme, to survey business international leaders, HR, L&D and Talent professionals during Q1/Q22015, to identify current coaching trends within their organisations.

We will be delighted if you take the time to participate in our survey here or by clicking on the image below:

Individual survey responses will of course be treated in complete confidence.

Participation in this survey will mean that you will automatically receive a copy of our coaching best-practicewhite paper and related media clips. Randomly selected survey participants will also be eligible to receive copiesof a range of excellent business coaching books; including author-autographed books.

The ImaginativeHR team.

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Exploring what's new and innovative in the world of HR and talent management 4

ImaginativeHR January 2015 e-bulletin - more at www.imaginativehr.com

Mentoring HRThe positive outcomes of mentoring are increasingly cited and discussed…most recently by no less than Sir Richard Bransonin a media clip which was presented at a HR briefing in London - where he described mentoring as the missing link whichseparates “a promising business person and a successful business person”.

Starting out with the simple idea to make a practical and tangible contribution to the international HR community’s ongoingdevelopment, rather than just talk or write about supporting HR, ImaginativeHR established the world’s first independentHR-to-HR mentoring network in Q1, 2013.

While HR is clearly a great career stepping stone to business awareness, HR individuals and teams can often find themselvessomewhat un-empowered, non-commercial and not necessarily aligned with their organisation’s business / commercialobjectives - despite major shifts in the role of HR, driven by new workplace needs, new technologies and commercial ROIdemands. Our underlying idea nevertheless, was that effective HR leadership is underpinned by effective relationship-building, so developing mentorship relationships within the professional HR community, was clearly going to help.

From there, we identified three core objectives for our international mentoring network:

1. To provide early-career HR professionals with the opportunity to absorb learned experiences and wisdom, on aone-on-one basis, from seasoned HR director-level professionals, in their resident country or internationally –across all sectors and/or particular specialities within HR

2. To provide seasoned HR director-level professionals with the (‘give-back’) opportunity to practically develop theirmentoring skills, and develop their commercial reputations/ personal brands

3. To develop unique enduring relationships based on mutual learning, dialogue, experience-based guidance, chal-lenge and trust.

2 years on from launching this initiative, our team, mentors and mentees have learnt an awful lot and experienced manysurprises along the way – including:

1. The success of virtual (e.g. Skype based) mentoring where geography has been a factor, both across the UK andinternationally. (Our most distant mentoring relationship so far was separated by 16 time zones)

2. Opportunities and the appetite for reverse-mentoring – whereby early career stage mentees have reciprocated -thus benefiting and enriching the experience for their more experienced mentors

3. The solidity and level of trust generated within the mentor<>mentee relationships we have facilitated

4. The trend for more experienced HR professionals (who have often had a less formal entry into the HR profession),opting to benefit from mentoring, later in their careers.

If you are a seasoned HR director-level professional with a track recordof success in HR and consider yourself approachable, encouraging,patient and motivating; regardless of your qualifications or professionalaccreditations; we will be delighted to hear from you via our volunteerHR-to-HR questionnaire here:

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Exploring what's new and innovative in the world of HR and talent management 5

Rolling out your international coaching programmeImaginativeHR delivers a range of individual and team coaching solutions; including coaching solutions with

clients across multiple countries.

Unlike training, coaching is bespoke and designed specifically around individual needs, objectives, learning style andpersonality. Coaching is usually underpinned by both organisational and individual objectives.

Our recommended approach when engaging business coaches internationally is to seek coaches who:

1. Are prepared to challenge your coaching and business objectives; e.g. whether the individuals in question are likely torespond positively/negatively to being coached or e.g. whether coaching is/is not the optimum solution for a particularscenario or individual – versus alternative interventions.

2. Demonstrate the ability to balance the needs of the individuals they are coaching, whilst remaining focused on achievingthe business/corporate agenda. It seems obvious, but as a business coaching relationship is a complex, three-way relation-ship (i.e. the business / the senior leader / the coach); it is essential to ensure that the proposed coach remains focused onthe ‘bigger picture’ versus solely focusing on the development and enablement of the individual they are coaching.

3. Offer a track record of enabling behavioural improvement, achieving commercial ROI and of working with a similar levelof seniority or coaching complexity.

4. Offer a (no charge) telephonic or face-to-face ‘chemistry’ session. Ideally individuals should have the opportunity to selecttheir preferred coach from a short listed selection following initial discussions with those put forward. This makes absolutesense, given the intimacy of the coach <> coachee relationship. High calibre coaches/coaching providers will advise if the‘chemistry’ is not there from the their perspective – and if appropriate, make further recommendations of alternativecoaches or interventions.

5. Offer a range of coaches and options, (including multi-lingual and multi-country options, as well as local, native speakingcoaches for multi-country coaching initiatives). Often, following a successful chemistry process, the coachee may opt towork in a second language remotely and virtually, (e.g. via Skype) versus locally, face-to-face – if the chemistry with oneparticular coach stands out. Equally, some individuals respond optimally when working face-to-face, communicating in theirmother tongue, with a coach who they feel is culturally empathetic to their situation or personality. Either way; thecoachees should have the option to choose what is most appropriate for them.

6. Reflect an industry and scenario-relevant empathy and credibility – particularly in e.g. some newer sectors. Typically, thiswill be a function of the coach’s experience, confidence, professionalism and time invested to become familiar with thesector.

7. Are appropriately qualified. While there are range of recognised coaching qualifications and accreditations recognisedwithin the coaching community, the most highly regarded qualifications do not of course automatically translate to the bestcoaching results. Nevertheless, coaches who have invested time and money developing knowledge via e.g. the ICF, EMCC,AC and ICC accreditations are certainly worthy of consideration and ultimately these accreditations are likely to impactpositively on the coachee’s experience / the coaching objectives.

8. Are able to identify how success could be measured - during and at the conclusion of thecoaching programme.

Clayton Glen is co-founder of ImaginativeHR and has worked in the HRconsulting space since 2003. Prior to his time in HR consultancy, Claytonhas held senior commercial and HR roles in the UK, the USA, continentalEurope and in Southern Africa; in fmcg, automotive, digital consulting,and technology. Contact : ++44 (0)845 548 4321

Exploring what's new and innovative in the world of HR and talent management 6

ImaginativeHR January 2015 e-bulletin - more at www.imaginativehr.com

After the war: a unique international career transition projectPaul’s story: Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) July – September 2001

The expansion of world class outplacement and career transition capability has developed athighly varied rates around the world; impacted by a broad range of factors, including:historical, economic and socio-cultural factors, regulatory and legal requirements, tax-relat-ed benefits, and also technology-related country differentials.

While we have delivered career transition and outplacement programmes in over 30countries on all continents; perhaps the most unusual location that a member of our teamhas delivered career coaching support is in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina.

While it is an older story from a number of years ago, we thought it would be interesting forour colleague, Paul Leonard, to tell his unique story about overcoming various difficulties to assist others to achievecareer transition success. Paul’s story follows:

Background

I was approached to gauge my interest in a potential project in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a view to apparentlylooking after 16 ex pats who were finishing a project in B&H at the end of September.

The group included 8 British nationals and 8 American nationals, all at International Project Management levels andabove. All were experts in supporting fledgling and start up businesses who had been given a loan by theInternational Bank.

I put an outplacement programme together which involved mainly one-to-one coaching sessions and variousworkshops, dependent on interest and needs; covering 3 locations. My plan was accepted by the recruiting agentand I was given the go ahead within 2 days to fly out that weekend.

Upon arrival I was warmly greeted by the Chief of Party and introduced to various heads of department in Sarajevo,at the Head Office. Upon discussing my plan it was clear that the recruiting agent had given me the wrong brief.

Their expectation was for me to look after 86 B&H nationals who were being left behind in Sarajevo, Mosta, Tuz-la, Banja Luka and Brcko. (Continued on next page…)

Case Study

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(Continued from previous page)

I asked for 24 hours to put together a different plan at my hotel and the following morning I presented my plan to all headsof departments from all 5 locations and it was unconditionally accepted. My new plan included a series of CV workshops, toput together short and long-form CVs, with a view to put all short form CVs into a presentation folder to be presented to allInternational companies based out of Sarajevo.

The workshops would be delivered by me with in-house translators, followed by one-to-one coaching.

The one-to-one meetings included CV fine tuning and counselling support where needed. When all CVs were in place I put inplace final workshops for interview training. The workshops delegates were separated in terms of their level of responsibilityin Sarajevo only.

Within 48 hours I started the workshops, organised with help from the Chief of Party’s PA and with the added benefit ofhaving a full-time driver allocated to me to get me from location to location.

The time plan was fluid, with a vision of completing the CV workshops for the senior staff at Sarajevo first. Then organiseworkshops for senior and reporting staff in all the regional offices, and finally return to Sarajevo to complete the workshopsfor reporting staff.

Delegate issues

Very quickly I established that the biggest concern for most of the delegates was the lack of ability to converse and writeEnglish in an attractive way to create initial impact to generate interviews with international companies.

They had an overall lack of personal confidence, coming from a communist upbringing and recent experience of living in awar zone, where most of what they owned was lost. They consequently also had a lack of understanding and misunderstand-ing of individual value to any organisation.

Finally, they were concerned about not securing a new position with an international company vs a B&H company; the mainmotivation being the vast difference in pay rates.

Difficulties

The biggest difficulty was logistics. The state of the roads between cities was awful. There was only one piece of dual carriageway in the country and that was only half a mile long!

The distance between venues was not great but the travel time was extensive; e.g. the distance between Tuzla and Sarajevois only 124 kilometres but it would take over 6 hours to get there, given that the route consisted of single track roads, full ofcraters and pot holes, sometimes flooded. Travel time hence had to be planned into daily schedules and extended theworking week.

Other difficulties included having to rewrite/fine tune all CVs received , in short and long form, to ensure impact whilstworking with a very basic IT system that had very poor internet reliability and was constantly under threat of virus infection.

(Continued on next page…)

Email us at [email protected] or call us at ++44 (0)845548 4321 to speak to ImaginativeHR about how we can supportyour international outplacement needs on all continents & forcomplimentary access to our online career transition pro-gramme.

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Continued from previous page)

Just before launching the Interview workshops I was informed that staff contracts had been extended by US AID, the projectowner, to finish at Christmas, rather than the end of September. This gave me a training issue of rather than “Do it now”;changing the delegates emphasis to keep researching but not to start applying for new roles until the end of October. Fromresearch, recruitment happens twice as fast in B&H if relevant vacancies were available.

One-to-one coaching / counselling sessions

After completing all CV workshops and all CVs were in the presentation file, I started to meet with all individuals on aone-to-one basis with a view to fine tune their recruitment activities towards their individual goals. On almost every occasionthey used the opportunity to talk about their recruitment activities and anxieties and also relay their war time traumas. WhilstI am a trained counsellor I was initially overwhelmed by their suffering and how they recovered their lives.

I delivered motivation counselling to most and kept everything as practical as possible. With hindsight this would have beenan ideal time to introduce a professional trauma counsellor on a needs basis.

Personal Learning

Upon starting the contract and beginning to build relationships and trust with the delegates who spoke English, I had to getused to and not be challenged by a very abrupt delivery style.

When working with a translator the training delivery had to be slower and very specific. I also learnt that you have to trustthe translator to convey your messages in their interpretation.

Results

I left the project mid-September as per my original end date. I left my contact details at all locations for anyone to contact mebefore the contract finished.

Over the following weeks I spoke to many delegates and received emails asking for advice. I spoke to the Chief of Party mid-December and he was happy to tell me about his new project in Sri Lanka and also to tell me that all the employees had foundnew jobs apart, from one.

A really rewarding and unforgettable project.