What does it take to run an effective coaching session? Does the coach need to have undergone a comprehensive training program in order to provide value to their mentee? Do they need to develop a 12-step action plan following the session to help put their mentee on the right path?

According to coaching expert Michael Bungay Stanier, often it’s just about learning how to ask better questions.

“If you can coach somebody in five minutes or less, everybody wins. And sometimes that’s having the discipline to ask them good questions, and then [staying quiet] and listening to their answer,” he said in a recent episode of AHRI’s podcast Let’s Take This Offline.

His book The Coaching Habit has sold over a million copies worldwide because, in his words, it “unweirds coaching”.

“I didn’t write the book for coaches because they already love coaching. What I was trying to do was [write something] for all the people who are like, ‘My organisation is making the coach. I don’t really want to do it, but I have to. Where do I start?'”

He wanted to help them see that coaching can be baked into your everyday interactions without a huge amount of extra effort and time, which is exactly what time-poor managers need.

7 questions for an effective coaching session

Often, what trips managers up when running a coaching session with their team members is adding structure to their line of questioning. They might go into the conversation with the goal of learning about the employee’s learning and development ambitions or to understand more about how they want to progress in the organisation.

However, Bungay Stanier thinks it’s often best to just let the conversation unfold naturally and learn what’s on their mind.

Following decades’ worth of experimenting, he landed on what he believes are the seven most important questions to ask in a coaching session:

1. “What’s on your mind?”
2. “And what else?”
3. “What’s the real challenge here for you?”
4. “What do you need?”
5. “How can I help?”
6. “If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?”
7. “What was most useful for you?”

They might seem overly simple, but that’s the point. And he says that, time and time again, they prove to be fruitful questions.

One that he often gets positive feedback on is: ‘What’s the real challenge for you here?’. Because we’re prone to trying to solve other people’s problems, we often jump at the opportunity to impart our hard-earned wisdom and advice, but that’s not always useful.

“We’re all so wired to get on with stuff. Our advice monster shows up and we start trying to solve the first thing that has come up,” he says. “But the first thing that shows up is never the real challenge. It’s just the first challenge.”

“If you can coach somebody in five minutes or less, everybody wins. And sometimes that’s having the discipline to ask them good questions.” – Michael Bungay Stanier, author and coaching expert.

People are testing the waters, assessing how safe it might be to disclose the actual challenge they are facing, he explains. 

For example, they might mask their deep dissatisfaction with their manager by instead talking about frustrations they’ve experienced during a recent project.

“Curiosity takes you closer to figuring out what’s really [concerning] the person that you’re working with. So it works both at a strategy and a cultural level.”

For HR professionals, being the person who can figure out the root of an issue will make you “immensely more valuable to your organisation”, he says.

“And you have far more impact because you’re willing to say, ‘My job is to figure out what the real challenges are.’ That is a strategic act.”

The way the question is structured also helps, he adds.

“It’s not just, ‘What’s the challenge?’. Because, if you ask somebody [that], you’re going to get a bit of a restatement from what you’ve already heard, when you asked them, ‘What’s on your mind?’. When you add the word ‘real’, what you’re saying is, the first thing you told me isn’t the real challenge. So immediately, you’ve got them thinking. 

“You can feel the difference. What’s the challenge, what’s the real challenge? It’s like a different question, even though there’s only one word added. 

“But then I think the magic happens when you add ‘for you’ at the end of that question: What’s the real challenge here for you? Now they’re not talking about the problem out there. They’re talking about, ‘Here’s why I am wrestling with this. This is what’s hard for me around this.'”

Download a one-page guide to Bungay Stanier’s 7 questions for an effective coaching session.

Coaching the coaches

A lot of what Bungay Stanier talks about will relate directly to HR practitioners, who themselves need to be effective coaches to leaders, managers and employees. However, often they’ll be the ones teaching managers to level up their approach to coaching employees.

Sometimes that means being willing to tell managers that they’re prone to giving too much advice, rather than listening deeply to what their mentee is saying to them (or what they’re not saying).

 “You could say, ‘There’s a really important place for advice, just not as fast or as omnipresent as you’re currently delivering it. So let me introduce curiosity as an element of leadership that is underdeveloped in you right now,”’ he says.

But what about those leaders who don’t want to be coached?

“For most leaders, if you come up to them and say, ‘Hey, I’m from HR. I’m here to coach you.’ The typical reaction is [to resist that]. So I usually don’t make a grand announcement that the coaching has begun. 

“When you push into a system, it pushes back. It’s a survival mechanism driven by your lizard brain – your amygdala. So don’t make a big deal about it. Just be curious.

“So if I’m starting to work with a leader, I’ll go, ‘How can I help? So what’s the challenge here for you? And then I go, what else? So what’s the real challenge? So what do you need?’.

“You can call that coaching, or you can call it having a conversation where you’re trying to be as helpful as possible.” 

This is an excerpt of a conversation from AHRI’s new podcast, ‘Let’s Take This Offline‘. Listen to the full episode here.

The post 7 questions to make your coaching sessions more impactful appeared first on HRM online.

It had been 20 years since St Kilda beat Collingwood at Victoria Park, so the former team’s triumph at Collingwood’s home ground on 17 April 1993 should have called for raucous celebration or bitter commiseration, depending on which side you backed.

But expressions of both were few and far between that day, and instead replaced by a deluge of racist slurs hurled at two Indigenous St Kilda players, Nicky Winmar and Gilbert McAdam. The star players, who were jointly named ‘best on ground’ that day, had faced an onslaught of abuse well before that point.

Throughout the match, Winmar and McAdam were continuously spat on, and dodged drink cans pelted their way.

McAdam’s father, who flew down from Alice Springs especially for the occasion, was so appalled by the racism levelled towards his son, he left the stadium in tears. By the time the final whistle sounded, Winmar had copped more than enough. He lifted his shirt, pointed to his torso and announced to the crowd: “I’m black, and I’m proud to be black.”

His defiant pose, snapped by photographers and splashed across newspapers the following day, has since been viewed as a defining moment in Australian sporting history. 

More than two decades after the momentous match took place, Winmar’s stance against racism was immortalised in bronze outside Perth’s Optus Stadium. 

Although developing the statue was a collaborative effort, there was one person who was instrumental in seeing it come to fruition: Tanya Hosch. 

“This statue stands for more than just football,” says Hosch, SA recipient of the 2021 Australian of the year award.

It is one of her proudest achievements to date as the executive general manager, inclusion and social policy at the Australian Football League.

“It talks so cleanly to the impact of racism and how unacceptable it is. Nicky’s gesture of being black and proud is really wonderful, but it shows that even though the [racist behaviours against him] happened nearly 30 years ago, sadly, it is still extremely relevant today.”

Time for reform

Adam Goodes might be the most publicised example of racism in the sports industry, but he’s hardly alone in his plight. Héritier Lumumba, Nic Naitanui and Joel Wilkinson are just a small crop of AFL players to have also been the targets of racial abuse in recent years.

The sheer scale of on-field and online vitriol fuelled Hosch’s motivation to update the league’s anti-vilification rule earlier this year. Under the reviewed policy, the deadline for players to report racist and sexist abuse after an incident has been extended from two days to two weeks, with discretion to investigate complaints beyond this timeframe.

“We all have to take responsibility for creating safe workplaces and inclusive environments, and that is never just going to be up to me or people who have roles like mine.” – Tanya Hosch, executive GM inclusion & social policy, AFL.

In addition, witnesses such as umpires, office bearers, coaches and other players are able to report abuse, whereas previously the power to report often lay solely on victims’ shoulders.

Although the rule changes are active, Hosch says there’s still a “massive suite of recommendations that needs to be implemented to address the whole football ecosystem, from community football all the way up to elite”.

Effective implementation will require education and training to deal with the vilification of players, she says, as well as discussions with broadcasters and social media platforms to enforce stronger protections.

“Ultimately, we want to see racism eradicated from society, and sport is a really powerful platform to bring those conversations to life,” says Hosch, whose portfolio as an AFL executive also includes advocating for progress in the areas of gender equality, sexuality and gender diversity.

Against the backdrop of conversations about racism in Australia and the broader Black Lives Matter movement (BLM), Hosch will be speaking on the topic Are we ready? True transformation or simply progress? at the AHRI Convention TRANSFORM 2021 next month, now a fully virtual event.

Although pleased to see greater recognition of the prevalence and extent of racism, Hosch fears the BLM movement will culminate in being “just a moment in time” instead of “the great opportunity it has the potential to be”.

“We are seeing greater awareness of the existence of racism, and there have been people working towards that for decades. 

“I would love to say we can see a transformation happening, but I don’t think we have made a lot of progress in relation to addressing it,” she says.

An impactful mentor

Growing up in South Australia, Hosch and her father would bond over scouring away racist graffiti daubed on the walls of her primary school. With a sponge and a bucket of water in hand, they rid the corridors of offensive comments often targeted at Hosch.

“That’s where [my passion] stemmed from – knowing what racism felt like. There were a lot of people who suffered far more than me, and I knew how hard it was for me.”

The unwavering support of her family and friends helped her through, along with the opportunity to lean on mentors – both Indigenous and non-Indigenous role models who offered a nurturing place to debrief.

“Their objective perspectives, and them having so much more experience than me, but having gone through such similar things, was really valuable.”

Since paying the deed forward as a mentor to other professionals, Hosch says being privy to the challenges and vulnerabilities of her mentees has also widened her perspective.

“You can look at the most successful and confident person in the world and believe they are very self-assured, and you soon find out that’s not the case,” says Hosch. “We all have areas that we know we need to work on, and we can all be challenged.” 

Hosch’s reputation as a respected mentor and diversity advocate have placed her as a figure of authority on best practices for eliminating racism in the workplace. When she calls out racist behaviour, she’s often commended for her forthrightness.

“People will say to me on the way out of a meeting, ‘That’s great you said that,’ and I will say, ‘Well yes, but why didn’t you say it?’

“Often they’re a bit surprised, and it’s quickly followed by, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘I need to think about that’. It often paralyses people. None of us like to look silly, and you can make yourself vulnerable by raising questions that you don’t have an answer to yourself.”

While Hosch empathises with their trepidation, she says, “We all have to take responsibility for creating safe workplaces and inclusive environments, and that is never just going to be up to me or people who have roles like mine.

“We need to share the burden of responsibility and increase accountability.”

One of the key considerations in doing this is to delineate between comments intended to hurt someone or bring them down, versus those borne from a place of ignorance.

“It is clear not all comments are designed to deliberately offend, and I pay attention to intent. But intent doesn’t mean that racism hasn’t had an impact and hurt someone, and this is what should be dealt with. An apology from, and education for, the person who has caused the offence is essential.”

Hosch also advises HR to develop a protocol on how to respond to unacceptable behaviour, so victims and bystanders can feel more confident when communicating their concerns.

As a starting point, the Australian Human Rights Commission suggests following the ‘Support, Record, Report’ method by offering support to the victim, recording the incident, and reporting it to a senior employee.

Learning for Justice also offers some techniques for responding to racist remarks in the workplace including the following:

• Interrupt early to nip racist remarks in the bud. 
• If a racist joke is told, interrupt the laughter by querying: “Why does everyone think that’s funny?” and explain the effect the joke has on you, or others.
• Create an alliance with like-minded colleagues to work towards building a more inclusive workplace.
• Escalate the issue to a senior leader, particularly if the racist remarks are occurring on an ongoing basis.

Visibility matters

Startling figures from the Diversity and Inclusion Council’s recent Gari Yala report give further weight to the pervasiveness of workplace racism. 

Forty-four per cent of Indigenous employees reported hearing racist slurs sometimes, often or all of the time, and 63 per cent said they experience high identity strain – defined as the stress Indigenous employees can feel when they themselves, or others, view their identity as not meeting the norms of the dominant culture.

It is hardly surprising, then, that many companies are struggling to retain their Indigenous employees. 

Hosch believes a lot of the issues around retention stem from recruitment, which she says is typically targeted at more junior candidates. 

Many organisations run recruitment drives with government funding support and are successful in their efforts to hire Indigenous employees, but subsequently find themselves “hugely surprised” that they don’t retain Indigenous people.

The underrepresentation of Indigenous people at the senior level is a major contributing factor, says Hosch.

“The tendency to try to fill roles at the lower level with traineeships or apprenticeships is great, but if you don’t have Indigenous presence and influence at the senior levels of an organisation, younger staff of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background don’t see a forward path for them up the ladder.

“It can be very daunting for a young and junior Indigenous employee to raise a complaint if there aren’t more experienced Indigenous people in their workplace who may have already improved the culture of the workplace through their presence and feedback.

“It’s time we saw many more Indigenous people on company boards. It signals to employees that this is a place where Indigenous people are welcome, are treated seriously, and it’s part of what this organisation seeks to be and do.”

A version of this article first appeared in the July 2021 edition of HRM magazine.

Want to hear more from Tanya Hosch? Register to attend AHRI’s TRANSFORM 2021, a full virtual conference packed with amazing speakers, content and networking opportunities. Discover more here.

The post Tanya Hosch on why influencing from the top matters appeared first on HRM online.

Cheyenne Killen was relatively new in her role as HR advisor at Kane Constructions when the pandemic hit. Thankfully, she had an ace up her sleeve to help her get through a tumultuous year – something that made her feel ready for anything.

Killen’s secret weapon? Her mentor. Karen Johns, HR manager at M3 Property. 

“Having someone to hold me accountable, hear my stories, help me set goals and then make sure that I was working to achieve them really helped. I think it would have been really challenging if I didn’t have someone to support me, listen to me and guide me through last year,” says Killen.

Killen’s experience was so positive she ended up nominating Johns for the Art of Mentoring’s 2020 Mentor of the Year award. And Johns won.

Mentorship programs are a popular way to build skills. The Art of Mentoring, a mentoring firm, say it has helped over 20,000 people through their programs.

There’s also research to suggest mentorship programs benefit both mentor and mentee. One study found mentors were more satisfied with their job and more committed to their organisation. 

But being a good mentor isn’t as simple as finding yourself a mentee. It’s also about building structure around the relationship to ensure its creating value for both parties. HRM asked Johns to share her best tips for becoming an excellent mentor.

Think you’ve got what it takes to be a mentor? Registrations are closing on January 31st for AHRI’s mentoring program. Register now.

1. Have regular meetings

“One thing I appreciated about Karen was at the end of every meeting she’d say, ‘ok, when is our next meeting?” says Killen.

Regular catch-ups are important for several reasons. Firstly, as busy professionals it’s an easy way to ensure there is time in your schedule to commit to the program. 

Secondly, it establishes expectations of the relationship.

“Regular meetings at the beginning is a really good foundation piece,” says Johns.  “That enables you to set up that relationship, work out what you like and don’t like and what the mentee needs from you.”

Regularity also allows the mentor to hold the mentee to any goals they’ve set.

“When Cheyenne and I would meet, I would always try to pick up what we discussed the time before. ‘How did you get through this issue? Did you accomplish that thing?’ It just helps to get that progression,” says Johns.

Killen believes that having a meeting scheduled in advance stopped her from cancelling when she was too busy or just not feeling up to meeting. 

“It meant, for me, if I was not in the best mood, or something like that, I still went. I had a commitment to keep. I think that’s really helpful and I often came out with a reinvigorated passion for HR,” says Killen.

In the new WFH world, access to mentors has never been easier. Killen and Johns have their catch ups over Zoom, for example, and they feel it’s just as effective as when they meet up face-to-face. In fact, the two didn’t actually meet in person until near the end of the mentorship program.

 “I often came out with a reinvigorated passion for HR.” – Cheyenne Killen, HR advisor at Kane Constructions.

2. Mentor externally

There are definitely arguments to be made for pairing mentors and mentees within an organisation. In-house mentors will have organisational knowledge they can pass on, as the mentor is likely to be a senior and experienced employee, and they’re likely already in the same building, making catching up easier. 

But both Killen and Johns believe an external mentor is a better option. 

“It’s incredibly beneficial getting that outside opinion. They see everything objectively. Obviously, they’re getting it from your point of view, but they can look at problems from a very high level and not get stuck in the nitty gritty that might be obstructing your view,” says Killen. 

As the sole HR presence in her organisation, Killen had no choice but to seek outside mentorship.  Even so, Johns agrees in the value of an impartial third party voice.

Personal relationships and internal politics can have a big impact when working through an issue, says Johns. An external opinion brings a purely professional perspective. 

It also means the mentee can rest assured that there are no ulterior motives at play. The mentor isn’t trying to sway the situation in a manner that suits them or their buddy in the senior leadership team – they’re just offering advice that’s purely intended to help the mentee.

3. Prepare for honesty and vulnerability

Killen says Johns became a valuable emotional support person throughout the program. On one occasion, Johns spotted the signs of burnout in Killen and called her out.

“I try to turn up to all meetings positive and optimistic, but this one time Karen saw right through me. She just asked “What’s going on? You’re not yourself.

“She started asking me questions and I realised ‘Wow, I am really rundown. I’m wrecked’! Karen gave me some amazing advice by pointing out that I’d been really hard on myself and wasn’t allowing myself to have a break.”

Johns says to really benefit from a mentor/mentee relationship, you should prepare to let your barriers down and be vulnerable.

“I think there is a habit of bravado sometimes, particularly in HR. We tend to put on our armour. But the valuable part of having a mentor is you can be vulnerable enough to let someone see beyond that,” she says.

“I think there is a habit of bravado sometimes, particularly in HR. We tend to put on our armour. But the valuable part of having a mentor is you can be vulnerable enough to let someone see beyond that.” – Karen Johns, HR manager at M3 Property.  

4. Practice active listening

Johns has had many mentees over the years (and has recently become a mentee herself), and she says the key skill that makes or breaks a mentorship program is active listening. 

As HRM has covered before, listening is more than nodding at the appropriate moment. It’s about showing the other person that you are absorbing what they’re saying and taking the time to form considered responses.

“Give 100 per cent of your focus and think about the meaning behind the words. ‘Why are they saying that? What’s their body language saying?’ That’s how you know what they really need from you, so you can provide the best advice at that moment,” says Johns. Johns noticing that Killen was presenting signs of burnout is a perfect example of this.

“As a mentor, that’s really the best thing you can offer [your mentee]. Every mentee is different, but they all want to be heard.” 

Active listening clearly had an impact on Killen. She cites Johns’s ability to always ask the right questions and see beyond what she was saying as her main reason for nominating her for mentor of the year.

“That, and she deserved it!” she adds.

You too could be an award winning mentor. Register now for AHRI’s 2021 mentoring program. Registration closes January 31st.

The post 4 ways to make your mentorship work appeared first on HRM online.

Since October 2017, #MeToo, a movement created to raise awareness about workplace sexual harassment and assault has cost some men – most notably a few high profile men in Hollywood – their jobs. In the aftermath, some male professionals took their cue from US Vice President Mike Pence and said they would no longer have one-on-one meetings with women.

Since mentoring often involves senior professionals opening up doors for their juniors, this made many worried that a repercussion of trying to reduce sexual harassment might be the loss of career opportunities for women. But did this actually happen?

According to a 2019 survey of 3000 US workers by Olivet Nazarene University, 69 per cent of women currently have a female mentor and 82 per cent of men have a male mentor. So while there is a clear tendency for mono-gender mentorships, more women have a mentor outside their gender. 

There are no doubt many reasons for this, but the fact that men are still over-represented in senior positions seems particularly pertinent. In some industries, finding a female leader who can mentor you might be prohibitively difficult.

This makes findings from Pew Research Centre troubling. In a survey of attitudes towards sexual harassment in the workplace post #MeToo, it showed that about half (51 per cent) of respondents believed: “recent developments have made it harder for men to know how to interact with women in the workplace”.

In the report, a senior leader in the banking industry mentioned that several male colleagues had told her they were reconsidering mentoring women.

But mentoring relationships involving both genders are proven to be mutually beneficial. A report, The Role of Gender in Mentoring: Implications for Diversified and Homogenous Mentoring Relationships reveals that mentoring relationships involving diversified relationships provided more role modelling and psychosocial support. 

Belinda Jurisic, Veeam APJ’s senior director of Channels, says she is concerned about the negative impact of the #MeToo movement, saying that it’s disappointing as women need the support from men to step up to leadership positions.  

“Being in a male-dominated industry myself, and as an advocate of women in IT, we can’t do what we do without the support of men in our careers. We need them understanding the value that women bring to an organisation. Male-female mentoring relationships facilitate that.”

Jurisic has experience mentoring both genders, but doesn’t approach mentoring men any differently to mentoring women. She currently mentors Chris Eaton, national sales manager at Encoo. The two, who were paired through non-profit trade association CompTIA, had previous mentoring relationships. 

Based off Jurisic’s experience, she said the only difference in mentoring men versus women is the way conversations flow. “When I mentor women, the conversations are both personal and professional. Their personal experience emerges first in conversations – who they are, what their fears are, what their challenges are. Only then does the conversation move on to how that relates to them on a professional level and what is happening in their careers at that time. 

“Conversations with my male mentees are more around their jobs or career progression and less about their personal fears. To mentor or be mentored effectively, you need to be open about who you are.”

“Being in a male-dominated industry myself, and as an advocate of women in IT, we can’t do what we do without the support of men in our careers.”

Jurisic adds that her experience mentoring Eaton has given her a greater awareness of how to approach the men who report to her.

“I’m now more mindful of the different ways they may react to situations. I’ve also broadened conversations with them to include things beyond their roles and career paths.” 

Jurisic encourages everyone to mentor, or be mentored by a person of the opposite sex. 

“You need to dismiss the sex of a person and look to the person for their experience. As a mentor, you have to think about the right approach for them, be aware of how different the individual can process information, react to situations and what gets you the right result for that person.” 

A male mentee

Jurisic is Eaton’s first female mentor, but he doesn’t see the mentorship relationship as particularly different to others he’s had. But there are some shifts, says Eaton, mostly regarding communication. “When there are females around, I think more about what and how I say things, whereas with the blokes, the conversations are uncensored.

“Belinda has made me more level-headed. Sometimes I can be aspirational in my ideas, run off on tangents and try to do all things at once. She has taught me how to work on one thing at a time and reassess its impact before going on to the next goal.” 

Eaton says he finds women to be generally less pointed, resulting in conversations and advice coming across more seamlessly. 

“Men can be more confrontational and women less so. This makes women generally more approachable in conversations and advice. But we’ve got to move away from the gender stereotypes and be prepared to have open-minded conversations with everyone. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up to fail.”  

According to Eaton, a mentorship relationship should be free of stigmas related to race, gender, and any other stereotyped traits. It should be based on trust. 

“The whole #MeToo movement, or any other movement for that matter, will have extremists. Generally speaking, they are the minority.

I don’t think gender or anything else should make a difference. You’ve just got to ensure that both the mentor and mentee are suited to each other. And for that, you need to see if the mentor has the skill set you require to help deliver on maximum output and vice-versa.”

Two sides to a coin

Phil Hayes-St Clair, CEO and co-founder of Drop Bio, has been mentoring people since 2010. He currently mentors around 40 people, through a mix of both formal and informal mentoring initiatives. 

“I mentor entrepreneurs who seek advice or need access to me from time to time. In some cases, it’s very structured and part of a formal program. In other cases, I just mentor them through a Slack channel or book some time into my diary when they need help,” he says. 

Having mentored a mix of both males and females, Hayes-St Clair says he hasn’t noticed any difference in mentoring people of the opposite sex. 

“When I think about the way #MeToo has played out, I get disappointed because I enjoy a respectful relationship, dialogue and support with all my mentees. They all come with vastly different experiences and in these relationships, it’s about respect and not power imbalance.” 

According to Hayes-St Clair, when it comes to mentoring, there’s no real playbook. 

“Mentoring is a two-way street. If I don’t feel like either of us are getting any value from it, I reassess the relationship. Mentoring relationships are meetings of minds and you need to get to know your mentee to get the most value from the exchanges.”  

One difference that Hayes-St Clair enjoys about mentoring women is taking different approaches to solutions and being able to see varying perspectives on a problem. He experiences this with Sarah Collingwood, CEO of Four Winds Vineyard.

“Men and women look at things differently. The way women solve problems is often more interesting. With Sarah, we brainstorm different things for her business and I’ve realised that over time, she ends up teaching me as well. 

“Although there’s not a playbook for mentoring, it is essential to exercise high levels of compassion and empathy with every mentee. Otherwise, you’re probably not suited to be a mentor or a leader.” 

Hayes-St Clair has three mentors himself, a woman and two men, and added that it’s important for both genders to have diversity in the support structure around them. 

“If you engage with just the same gender, same industry, or people of the same level of experience, it narrows how much you can learn from those people. If you have a very diverse group, that increases your aperture for learning. 

“A mentor is also only useful for a particular period of time. Mentors need to know where they work best and operate in those environments, and ideally help their mentees transition to a new mentor who can help accelerate their learning journey, before they outgrow their relationship with you.”   

Applications for AHRI’s mentoring program open up on the 2nd of September. Submit your expression of interest for the 2020 program.

Collingwood, for her part, says she has learnt plenty. The mentorship with Hayes-St Clair is her first and only, and she has been catching up with him regularly since they were paired up about nine months ago through a mentorship program, Inspiring Rare Birds, which aims to boost female entrepreneurship. 

“We’ve been catching up every fortnight around what’s going on in his business, what’s going on in my business, where we face challenges and how our experiences may help each other,” she says. “We also come from very different industries – Phil’s from a fast-moving tech start-up space while I’m in a slower moving agricultural and retail sector. It’s very interesting to get his perspective.” 

“Mentoring is a two-way street. If I don’t feel like either of us are getting any value from it, I reassess the relationship.”

Collingwood says her mentorship with Hayes-St Clair has opened her up to other opportunities. She has tapped into Hayes-St Clair’s network of entrepreneurs, which has given her the chance to learn from other leaders across various industries. 

“The skill that I’ve learned from Phil is looking at the bigger picture within my business and understanding that as my business grows my role as a leader does too. Phil has helped me through the transition of mindset from running a smaller business to one that involves a greater leadership element.”

According to Collingwood, nothing has changed for her since the #MeToo movement. The pair keep things professional and enjoy a fruitful relationship.

“We talk about being entrepreneurs and parents of young children and how those two things can be challenging. The relationship is based on professionalism and a real mutual respect for each other’s work. Having a male mentor isn’t different to how I would have approached a female. I would recommend to anyone that gender shouldn’t be a factor for refusing a mentoring relationship.” 

This article originally appeared in the July 2019 edition of HRM magazine.

The post What mentoring is like after #MeToo appeared first on HRM online.

As a fresh-faced graduate ripe with potential and surging with passion, you feel as if you could take on the world. Tourism Australia (TA) is not only keen to harness that youthful exuberance and run with it, they go even further. They don’t just want the new perspective that comes with youth, they want the differences of opinion that come from a comprehensively diverse program.

Work experience has been an important thread of TA’s business for ten years now. Indeed, head honcho John O’Sullivan’s career sprung from similar beginnings. During his final year of study, Brisbane-born O’Sullivan utilised his spare time to chase work experience opportunities, launching his career into the tourism industry of which he is now a leading voice in as the organisation’s managing director.

“It’s almost a social responsibility for businesses to [host work experience programs] now. We’re in a really interesting time as a country. We’ve got great economic prosperity and we’ve also seen a big change in the way our economy is structured… and a rise in the services economy.

“I therefore think it’s really important that businesses in the service sector embrace the opportunity that these types of work experience programs offer – not just for yourself as a business, but more importantly for young people who are coming through [the workforce],” says O’Sullivan.

Dr Sandra Barker is a lecturer at the School of Management for the University of South Australia Business School and has been facilitating work integrated learning programs for students for the last nine years. She says not only can businesses benefit by having an extra set of hands on deck but they can also utilise the student’s knowledge.

“These students are going into their final years of  study, so they have a large amount of theoretical underpinning that they can bring into the workplace. This gives businesses the opportunity to tap into current research and theoretical backgrounds,” says Dr Barker.

“As a university, we’re here to teach the theory and some of the practical skills… but we can only give them so much background. To give them the practical skills, we need to send them off into the workforce.”

Hosting digital natives in your organisation is a great way to remain ahead of the pack with current trends, but you can also take your inclusion efforts a step further and host diverse talent in your work experience program. This approach could benefit organisations that might be struggling to get a solid diversity and inclusion plan on the agenda.

Not only is it the right thing to do, there are statistics outlining bottom line benefits. According to Diversity Matters, a study from the McKinsey Global Institute, gender diverse organisations are 15 per cent more likely to perform better and ethnically diverse businesses are 35 per cent likely to do so. And for a work experience case study, Indigenous internship program CareerTrackers delivers $4.40 in value for every $1 invested, according to Social Ventures Australia.

TA understand these benefits more than most. O’Sullivan says they take diversity very seriously. “Our organisation has 70 per cent female representation, our executive team are made up of 80 per cent females and we have 50 per cent gender diversity on our board.”

A balanced workforce

From a student’s point of view, appropriate work experience programs offer a foot in the door in a workforce crawling with keen, capable and determined graduates.

Jonathan Chim was excited to score a two year placement as an IT graduate for TA’s service desk. His responsibilities are widespread, ranging from technical support to maintaining systems to ensure smooth sailing across the department.

“What I like about my role at TA are the challenges that are thrown at me every day. An example is, one day the mailing servers were down, and [I was] trying to assure people that we were looking into it. The next day, I’m at a staff conference trying to absorb what’s going on. There is no such thing as a dreary day at TA,” he says.

Speaking on Chim’s impact, O’Sullivan is quick to offer praise. “He’s the future of our business. He’s got a great understanding of Asia and of technology, and he loves the diversity of our businesses.”

It’s also crucial that Indigenous Australians are represented. This is why TA operate a paid Indigenous Cadetship as part of their work experience program. Indigenous cadet Maddy Wright says the program allowed her to “ease her way into the workplace environment”.

“I have been tasked with responsibilities such as researching information that could help with upcoming campaigns, implementing ideas from our Reconciliation Action Plan, using information systems relevant to the team’s needs, coordinating and publishing booklets for distribution at career expos and organising internal staff activities during NAIDOC Week,” she says.

Students or new graduates are given the chance to work across different departments within TA with a focus on marketing – the organisation’s bread and butter. This means various departments can reap the benefits and experience firsthand the impact young, culturally diverse employees can offer.

“We see people come out with enhanced knowledge, a better understanding of how we operate and broader enthusiasm. Where we can, we try and keep people on full time at the end of their programs or give them offshore opportunities,” says O’Sullivan.

Work Integrated Learning programs are highly beneficial for international students, says Dr Barker.

“Their communication skills go through the roof. The opportunity to see how Australian businesses operate is very valuable,” she says.

“There can be some language barriers but international students are like sponges. They really want to learn. We had one international student who did her placement here at the School of Management, working on a research project. Since completing that, she’s had a full year contract working in our school office. She’s fantastic, a real asset to our team.”

Leaders of the future

To make the most of your workforce, and to encourage continuous professional development, look at the entire scope of your workforce and encourage people to look for learning opportunities outside of their regular responsibilities.

O’Sullivan supports this point, saying there could already be untapped potential hiding within your organisation – though the nature of his organisation means when he says “hiding” he really does mean in a remote location.

“Perhaps they’re working on a dive boat in tropical North Queensland or as a tour guide in Tasmania. These people could one day manage our business,” he says.

TA has embedded diversity in both their permanent hiring plan and f their work experience or graduate program – a great example of where most organisations should aim to be –  but others could take a bite size approach and start by taking on a diverse intern or new graduate. Their success could help to show your wider organisation why diversity should be more than just an idea thrown around at your next board meeting.

This was originally published in the December/January 2019 edition of HRM Magazine.

The post Tourism Australia’s approach to work experience appeared first on HRM online.

Many executives use the word “organisation” or “company” as if the noun were an extension of themselves. When they tell you, for example, “this company is focused on agility” they’re saying it’s a C-Suite priority. There’s nothing wrong with this, it means they care deeply about the company, however it does suggest a top-down way of thinking.

When David Smales, CEO of Energy Queensland, uses “organisation” it throws you, because he literally means the organisation’s people. He describes his role this way: “My job is about creating and maintaining the right environment for the organisation to thrive, both as individuals and collectives, and then getting out of the way and letting them create magic.”

To make sense of that sentence most people would switch “the organisation” with “our workforce” or “our staff”. It seems like a small thing but Smales’ word choice (and his statement in general) reveals the mindset of someone destined to foster diversity. So, it’s apt that he’s a finalist for AHRI’s CEO Diversity Champion Award (his fellow finalist is Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, CEO and MD of Mirvac).

Smales has been in the energy industry for 35 years and his attitude toward work and diversity developed early, in the 1980s, when he was an apprentice mechanical craftsman in the power industry in the UK.

“There was a forced environment of working with different people every day – meeting hundreds and hundreds over the course of a few years. And you’re in a learning environment, so you’re learning the job, but you learn so much from individuals – their behaviours, values, their thoughts,” he says.

Setting the agenda

Forcing a new philosophy on a workforce is much less effective than encouraging them to develop it naturally. The opposite might be true at first, because you can make drastic changes and hit early targets, but this is rarely the case in the long run. Case in point: Google’s diversity report only shows marginal progress, after five years of being published.

At Energy Queensland, Smales doesn’t make his staff embrace diversity, he gives them the information and lets them figure it out. “From a cultural perspective, we promote diversity and inclusion. We’ve got an I&D council and working groups that are able to select their own priorities. And what that does is harnesses the organisation to make cultural changes as they see fit.

Importantly, Smales doesn’t think quotas would work for Energy Queensland, so they have a different tack. “We don’t say to a leader, ‘you’ve got 25 per cent females in your team, in two years you need to make that 35 per cent.’ We say, ‘here are all the benefits of diversity and inclusion.’ We lay out the whole business case and rationale for it and then look to support leaders to achieve the outcomes they feel they’re able to achieve.’”

That support is varied and includes:

• A strong flexible work policy
• Access to the company’s recruitment drives
• A mentoring program: leaders are given access to other leaders who are already making progress in the space, in order to learn from them

“We also share a lot of stories around diversity,” says Smales. “And we have events throughout the course of the year at various different milestones. We launched our EQL Pride Network [for LGBTIQ+ staff] and we got something like 550 employees demonstrating their support for that. Change is being spearheaded on a number of fronts, but that’s been driven by the organisation itself. From a leadership perspective, we’re just trying to create the right environment for them to do that.”  

Storytelling

When asked to explain how storytelling works at his organisation, Smales would rather not go into detail – he doesn’t want to betray confidences. “Some of [the stories] are very extreme – both from a happiness perspective, and others from an extremely sad perspective.”

Smales talks a little bit more about this off the record, but considering what ‘diversity and inclusion’ is at its core – the embrace of marginalised groups – it doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to realise what the stories must be about. However, he can speak to the impact storytelling is having.

“The teams at Energy Queensland who become exposed to their colleagues’ stories become much stronger as groups. They become more supportive, more open and more caring. As people connect at the human level, rather than the role level, they’re more able to have conversations around how they feel and how they are doing at work,” says Smales.

Change from the top

HRM asks Smales if, considering his approach, he believes change has to come from the top of organisations. “I think to a large extent the answer is ‘yes’. Otherwise organisations don’t actually change. I think naturally people look to see what leaders think is important. So if a leader talks genuinely and authentically about the benefits of diversity and inclusion, then people start to become more aware and more open to that way of thinking.”

“We’ve got a long way to go even though we’ve made a lot of progress in the last five to ten years. Most energy companies are now sold on the benefits – the business case has been proven and it’s a non-issue.

“The issue that our industry faces is the ability to increase levels of diversity in a meaningful time frame. A lot of the challenges are around availability of people and the rate of vacancies – there are some practical issues. Some organisations have been very innovative around that; and some organisations are mandating change around their performance metrics.

“At the end of the day we’re all human beings. And it’s important to connect on the individual level because every person matters. People’s differences enrich our conversations, our understanding, and our perspectives. And if you’re open to listening, you get better outcomes – including better business decisions.”

The post A CEO shares his diversity mindset appeared first on HRM online.

The Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance (ANZIIF) is a member and learning organisation that works across the Asia-Pacific region. The organisation’s CEO, Prue Willsford and former head of people and culture, Vanessa Raso explain how they worked closely together to achieve organisational results.

Prue Willsford, CEO, ANZIIF:

In recent years we transformed our membership and educational proposition. But that hadn’t necessarily flown through to the leader team’s understanding of the sales experience. We had a problem of perception: lots of staff didn’t think of their roles as sales roles, and yet virtually everyone in our organisation supports sales and customer retention at some stage, in some way.

That was solved thanks to Vanessa Raso through her AHRI Practising Certification Program (APC) capstone project, the organisational benefits of which have been hugely valuable. We’ve had an uplift in revenue – sales were up 4.5 per cent last year. That’s a really tangible outcome. We’ve also made changes to a range of our marketing and sales materials. And there’s no doubt that there is now improved collaboration, understanding and empathy within the leader team.

A survey of our leader team before the project showed that 36.4 per cent believed they had a ‘detailed’ or ‘great’ understanding of the sales experience. Afterwards that figure had jumped to 92.3 per cent.

Another great thing for the business was that the HR certification process Vanessa went through included having a mentor. That person was really valuable. For Vanessa it was like having a personal coach with whom she could cross-check her thinking. For ANZIIF, we had a sort of independent consultant and senior HR perspectives that we didn’t have in our toolkit.

To Vanessa’s credit, she changed my thinking during the project – she made the organisation more open to exploring a range of ideas, some of which floated and some of which didn’t. She was appropriately challenging of what were, at the time, widely held beliefs and let us reflect on how we help build professional capability.

Vanessa Raso CPHR, former head of people and culture, ANZIIF:

There was anecdotal evidence that members of the leader team didn’t really understand each other’s revenue lines, what customers went through with ANZIIF, or when and how to collaborate on sales opportunities. We also wanted to increase our revenue and reduce wasted effort while giving the customer a better experience.

The certification capstone project started with an end-to-end process map of the sales experience (for the customer and us) for each of our six revenue lines. We held six workshops with members of the leader team and, using design thinking and Lean Six Sigma principles, we mapped out the sales experience, identifying duplication and inefficiencies.

A number of quick wins were identified and implemented, and four sub-projects were identified. The first was standardising offerings for customers. As part of that, we now have one-page guides on each revenue line which we give staff as soon as they come onboard.

The second sub-project clarified why customers should choose us. Traditionally, we were a membership organisation, but there has been a shift to digital learning, and not everyone understood that.

Third was a project on role clarity – setting out and understanding who’s responsible for different activities and projects. The final sub-project helped us embrace digital, where we have a stream of work, including a range of automation and improved web-design outcomes.

Before I did the APC I was considering doing a masters degree with a focus on organisational development (OD). But I was really attracted to the APC because of the practical element, the coaching provided and the recognition of prior learning. The process helped me broaden and further polish my OD skills.

It reaffirmed for me also that persistence pays off. Rather than thinking that you put a business case forward, wait for approval and then, if it is rejected, you walk away from the idea. Instead, it is an opportunity to keep reflecting, reassessing and reformulating ideas, to keep the momentum going, keep trying a different way of benefitting the business – particularly for a business seeking an innovative approach. It’s not simply about us as HR business partners, it’s about the long-term benefits to the business.

I left the program with a bigger skill bucket than when I entered and instantly became more employable, domestically and globally. Now I’m an HR business partner at Brightstar and part of my remit is organisational development for Oceania.

The post HR’s imprint on the c-suite appeared first on HRM online.

The “#metoo” movement helped expose the prevalence of sexual harassment in society, particularly in the workplace. While the spotlight has been on women working in Hollywood’s film and television industry, hundreds of thousands of women around the world have responded, bringing to light their own experiences of sexual harassment.

The impact that this has had on workplaces is profound. The Lean In organisation has recently done some research of US workplaces in the wake of #metoo. Troublingly, they found that since the reports of #metoo in the media, almost 50 per cent of male managers are uncomfortable participating in common work activities with women. Examples included mentoring, working alone, socialising and travelling for work. So far no similar studies have been done in Australia, but the trend is worrying.

Though #metoo encourages women and men to speak up and call out sexual harassment, inappropriate workplace behaviour and sexual assault, the Lean In research suggests that it may have a negative impact on gender equality in the workplace. If male leaders are discouraged from mentoring women, taking women to meetings or travelling to conferences with women, then women could miss out on vital opportunities for career development and advancement.

Here, we give you three important tips on how to support gender equality and help prevent sexual harassment in your workplace.

Mentor and sponsor women

In many organisations, the majority of key leaders and decision makers are men. Among the ASX 200 companies in Australia, there are more CEOs and chairs named John than there are women CEOs and chairs. There are also more men called Peter. And more men called David.

A key way for women to move into leadership positions in the future is for male leaders to mentor them. Generally, women who are mentored can be more confident in their abilities, take more opportunities to progress and are guided in their careers.

Another way to support women’s careers is through sponsorship. This moves beyond career guidance and involves a male leader taking proactive steps to assist a woman’s career progression. Women who are sponsored by people in more senior roles may be recommended for more promotions and advancement opportunities, and can be supported for pay increases and career development.

Encouraging more senior men to sponsor and mentor women in your workplace is a great way to ensure that your organisation is moving towards gender equality in leadership positions in the future.

Treat sexual harassment allegations seriously

The crux of #metoo is that by standing together and identifying as having experienced sexual harassment, female victims can no longer be ignored or dismissed. It raises awareness about the spectrum of harassing behaviour and the wide range of women it impacts.

A survey by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) in 2012 found that 25 per cent of women in Australia had been sexually harassed at work. The survey also found that only 20 per cent of people who were sexually harassed reported it. These numbers suggest that sexual harassment is normalised in many workplaces and that women consistently feel unable to report it. Unsurprisingly, the issues start appearing well before employees even make it into the workforce. AHRC’s 2017 report into sexual assault and harassment at Australian universities revealed that one in five students were harassed, and 87 per cent of sexual assaults went unreported.

All allegations of sexual harassment in your workplace should be treated seriously, investigated empathetically and dealt with in the framework of gendered power-dynamics. By this we mean that investigations and disciplinary outcomes should take into account the power imbalance that can exist between men and women; in which men feel entitled to treat women as sexual objects and women feel scared and powerless to stop it.

Ask women

Certainly don’t just take our word for it – ask the women in your workplace. Open dialogue is really the first step to making workplaces fairer and safer for everyone.

Ultimately, if you have questions or concerns about whether your workplace has a problem with sexual harassment, takes sexual harassment seriously enough or is moving in the right direction for gender equality, ask the women you work with.

Have an HR question? Access AHRI:ASSIST resources for HR guidelines, checklists and policy templates on HR topics such as absenteeism and stress in the workplace. Exclusive to AHRI members.

Aaron Goonrey is a Partner and Emma Lutwyche is a Lawyer in Lander & Rogers’ Workplace Relations & Safety practice. Aaron can be contacted at agoonrey@landers.com.au

The post A guide to handling #metoo in the workplace appeared first on HRM online.

To encourage better leadership during the Greek empire, mentoring was invented to expose young proteges to learning from wise elders ‘who had been there and done that’. Today we are seeing a major renaissance in the practice and art of mentoring, including at AHRI!

We all live in a global, digitally-connected business empire, where we have to fight off other tribal warriors seeking to enter our business patch, and take away our competitive advantages.

Life at work is full of ambiguity and uncertainty, and sometimes critical moral and ethical challenges. Mentoring has entered the workplace fray of business growth and survival with many mentees identifying that they aren’t coping, and in need of good counsel.

As the author and principal character of international bestseller and major Hollywood film Mao’s Last Dancer, Li CunXin, told me during interview for my own book entitled Make Mentoring Work: “A good mentor helps you walk in your own shoes, even if you start out just wanting to walk in theirs.”

So what makes for a good mentoring relationship? Evidence from my research, gives the following answers:

A harmonious set of values between mentor and mentee. One in six mentoring pairs end prematurely because that alignment of values and trust fails to exist – for whatever reason.

The mentoring relationship needs to be a safe haven of trust – especially for the mentee, who needs to expose their innermost fears and concerns to their mentor, in order to make material progress in overcoming them. You need to know whether you are getting into the water with a dolphin, or a white pointer.

So what are the key requirements?

Firstly, a level of discipline in setting objectives, regular meetings and the mentee doing homework in between times – such as reading a relevant publication the mentor has given them.

The strength of a mentoring relationship thereafter depends on the understanding and practice of the roles for each party. A good mentee:

• Patiently establishes trust with their mentor;
• Persistently probes the mentor for their real life experiences which can throw light and insights on the mentee’s own challenges;
• Respects the mentor’s time and commitment pressures and is flexible around meeting times; and is prepared to be open and honest on who they are and what they are trying to achieve.

A great mentor will usually:

• Work hard to present themselves as an equal to the mentee – ie stripping themselves of power body language, dress and behaviour;
• Demonstrates a genuine concern and interest in the mentee;
• Be an 80/20 listener /talker – and not the reverse;
• Ask probing and insightful questions;
• Pose critical learnings to the mentees primarily through powerful stories that parallel the mentee’s challenges; and
• Know when to let go, and when the mentee has reached their own moments of truth.

Mentoring discussions are mostly about complex interpersonal relationships, or ‘difficult people’ we meet in work and life. Other common topics relate to strategic challenges, moral and ethical dilemmas, or understanding and using power structures. No rocket science here – these are issues we all face each day on the job.

In writing Make Mentoring Work, I interviewed nearly 100 of Australia’s top leaders, all of whom had mentors, and they all willingly shared their mentoring stories. Further, I met with sponsors and managers of Australia’s 20 leading mentoring programs. The result was a book for the self-starter looking for a mentor, and those organisations that want to set up a mentoring program.

The mentoring motor is now active everywhere and shows no signs of abating. It’s a key to both success and survival in the global digital business world in which we now find ourselves.

This article was originally published in the January 2017 edition of HRM Magazine.

The post The power of mentorship appeared first on HRM online.

But how do you ensure you get the most out of your mentor relationship – both from a mentee and mentor perspective? It’s a big investment of time and effort (and sometimes money), so you want to ensure you’re prepared. What can you do even before being matched, or before your first contact with your partner to ensure you maximise the relationship?

When considering the need for a mentor

If you are thinking about joining a mentoring program or seeking a mentor to boost your career, it’s important to understand why now is the right time. Can you clearly articulate that to your mentor? You should also consider what outcomes you would like to achieve. How much time do you have to devote to catching up with your mentor and following up on any ‘homework’? The benefits of the program will be compromised if you can’t set aside the necessary time.

Your mentor will expect you to have a few very clear goals that you will work on together. A list of priorities that’s too long, or no clarity at all, will affect your success. What do you need the most help with, or which of your goals is the highest priority right now? Understanding your goals will also help to determine who is the best mentor for you. Choose whether you should enter into a formal program through an industry association, such as the Australian HR Institute (AHRI), or whether it should be more informal where you seek out a mentor with specific skills.

Before meeting with your mentor for the first time

Many formal mentoring programs will guide you through the process of preparing to meet your mentor for the first time. As the mentee, you should reach out first and introduce yourself. In fact, you should drive the process throughout, as the program is there for your benefit. Provide your mentor with your CV and some information about you: your background, your current role and challenges. It helps if they can understand why you have chosen to develop a mentor relationship at this point and how they might be able to help.

It’s also common to define a ‘mentoring contract’ when you first touch base. While it isn’t always necessary for this to be a formal document, it can help set the scene and articulate the responsibilities of each party, together with the commitment to meet at agreed times.

During the mentoring relationship

It is important to appreciate that your mentor is giving up their time to help guide you towards your goals. Of course they get a lot from the mentor relationship too, but don’t forget to be thankful and to respect their time. Take the initiative in setting up regular meetings and following up on any pointers your mentor might give. If your mentor extends an invitation to attend an event, join a group, or meet a connection, then ensure you take advantage of this wherever you can. Maximise the exposure and expand your networks and career opportunities through these introductions.

Maximising the mentor experience

As a mentor, you have a big role to play in ensuring the success of the mentoring relationship. While for you it might be a ‘been there, done that, got the t-shirt’ relationship, there’s a danger in providing all the answers. One of the best skills you can develop in your mentee is a problem-solving mentality. Use questions and ‘breadcrumbs’ to help guide them on journeys of self-discovery. Be mindful of this when considering your own drivers for becoming a mentor.

You will both learn so much through participating in the mentor relationship. To maximise the benefit, start out on the right foot. Things will run far more smoothly and both parties are more likely to grown and learn from the experience.

Applications for AHRI’s mentoring program available exclusively to members opens in December. To express interest in the next intake for April 2017, or to find out more, click here.

The post Want to get the most out of your mentor relationship? This is what you need to do appeared first on HRM online.