Focus On Serving Your People

Coronavirus Q&A series: Interview with Kristy McCann Flynn, CEO and Founder, GoCoach

 

Kristy McCann Flynn is the CEO and Founder of GoCoach. She has 15 years of experience as a Strategic Human Resource Leader, Change Manager and Organizational Development Expert. She has served in senior leadership positions throughout her career – most notably with Pearson Education and Constant Contact. Kristy brings a big picture perspective and a hands-on, tactical approach to her leadership that she is now bringing to life with GoCoach. Kristy’s goal is to help and educate companies to meet their ultimate goals by empowering their employees to take ownership of their careers.

The COVID-19 crisis has impacted various aspects of our lives - especially work. With remote working becoming the norm, employees and employers alike, especially the first-timers, are experiencing the ups and downs related to the situation.

On one hand, employees are worried about job security and the challenges of working as a team, on the other, employers are facing issues such as engagement and productivity drop, among others. It now falls upon the leadership to keep the team up and running.

How are the leaders handling the situation? HR.com interviewed senior-level executives from various organizations and asked them to share their lessons and insights.

How has the COVID-19 crisis affected your business?
COVID- 19 is impacting all businesses because it’s impacting all people. Our business and buyers (our HR Heroes) have been significantly affected the past 60 days with transitioning employees to remote work, re-writing and creating new policies, dealing with the health and welfare of their employees, changes to employee benefits and so much more. HR is at the frontline of companies right now executing on all the change and uncertainty every day. Just like how our HR Heroes have had to drop everything to navigate this for their companies, we’ve pivoted our day to day operations and offerings to be there for them and support them through this time of intense uncertainty and change. We’ve revamped our Management Training Series to offer it for free to anyone and deliver the sessions 100% virtually. We have sessions every week and focus on topics like Remote Employee Management, EQ, Critical Conversations, and more. 
 

We’re also donating coaching services for displaced workers through our coach community - these coaching services are available to anyone who has been laid off or furloughed due to COVID-19. We help people with resume writing, interview skills, and other skill development they need to land their next role and be an asset to an organization. So, while our buyers have been inundated with everything - we are here to provide them the resources that they need and to give back. As a former CHRO, HR has always been the heartbeat of the organization and it was never an easy role. HR plays as many roles as a CEO and supports the same amount of employees as company leaders. In times like this, our goal is to ensure HR has help to continue to be the front line heroes of companies. 

Are your employees working remotely? If so, what are some of the challenges you are facing while managing your remote workforce?
GoCoach has always been a remote company. We believe that talent has no borders or boundaries, which is why it was important for us to embrace an infrastructure that allows us to maximize our talent and capabilities. So, we created GoCoach as a remote company and built a learning platform that enables coachees to visit our virtual coach marketplace and work with a coach who meets their needs - regardless of where they’re located. We wanted the best coaches and the best team to create a place for people to upskill and learn, which is why we’ve been a remote company since our inception two years ago. Through our virtual Management Training Series, we’re teaching others how to work remotely, how to interview remotely and best ways to leverage technology in your day to day remote operations. We focus on how to use, not abuse, this technology and really leverage it to create an environment where your workers can stay connected, stay productive, and thrive. We emphasize the first rule of coaching: Meet them where they are. It’s important for managers to understand how their people work best and give them the flexibility to adapt their remote workstyle to their own personal style. 

A common challenge we see people experience in remote work is the tendency to micromanage. Managers who are used to seeing their employees every day need to re-learn performance management and ensure they’re establishing trust in their teams. It’s important to be flexible and allow people to choose how they will join a team meeting - whether on video, audio-only, dial in by phone, etc. Meet your people where they are and give them the flexibility to do the things that will allow them to perform at their best and remain engaged. It’s ok if someone isn’t online all day. It’s ok if they need to take a break to reset their brain or help their kids with something at home. It’s ok if they’re having an “off” day due to the stress and uncertainty of everything happening with this pandemic. Lead with trust and give them the space to take care of themselves and they will make sure the work gets done. Better yet, they’ll remain engaged and dedicated to their team and the company overall. 

What policies do you have in place to deal with such a crisis?
Our values reflect our policies, as does our Management Training Series. GoCoach is a people-first company, and we prioritize flexibility, transparency, servant leadership and emotional intelligence to best support our employees and coach community. It’s more important now than ever to know how our employees are doing, rather than what they’re doing. I built GoCoach to create a safe and supportive environment for people to learn and flourish. With COVID-19 we are doubling down on people-first and working with many companies to adjust to the “new normal.” It’s important that we provide clarity for our employees so they understand what’s expected of them, as well as a constant feedback loop so there’s always an opportunity to learn and adjust based on what’s working and what’s not working. We’ve built policies that protect the health, welfare and learning opportunities for our employees and coach community, and we’re thrilled to have the chance to lead by example as we go through COVID-19 together. Companies that build policies designed to help employees thrive are the ones who will come out of this on top. We are using our mission, vision, and values to help others see what a thriving and empowered workforce looks like: How that benefits the employees, the companies they work for, as well as their communities.

What employee engagement challenges do you come across, especially in the current scenario, where everyone is working from home? What are you doing about it?
While we are experts at remote management and change, everyone is being impacted differently in these uncertain times. We all know people who have been sick with COVID-19, people who have died, partners who have either lost their jobs or had their salaries cut, kids at home trying to navigate homeschooling, shortages in necessary medicine, etc. It’s draining to focus on anything other than survival on those days, and some days we have members of the team who need to check out completely to focus on their own health and their family.  So, we just take it day by day and see what people can do and who can cover whom. All we can do is continue to be together as a team, to be there for each other, and to be there for those who come to us for help. We operate in constant transparency, which allows us to take over someone else’s work when needed. We cover meetings for each other and are flexing our abilities in different areas to help someone move along a project that they’re struggling to complete. That is how we lead and serve others at GoCoach. It’s people first, always. We help each other and have the ability to help many others which have dictated our entire strategy pre-COVID and will continue to dictate our strategy as we move ahead.

Are you providing or planning to provide any emotional and mental health programs for employees?
At GoCoach every employee and coach has the ability to work with one of our coaches. This is how we continue to invest in our employees and ensure they’re set up for continuous skill development and lifelong success. We have coaches in our community who focus on mental health and mindfulness, as well as coaches with backgrounds in Psychology. We’re also looking to partner with mental health companies to further supply what people want and need most in these times. 

What leadership lessons has this health crisis taught you?
The biggest leadership lesson I have learned with the crisis is to let it go and hold on to what is most important. I have let go of all goals for the year since they are secondary to my goal of supporting this team and others who need help. We were planning a major product transition - a project that when complete is a major milestone to how far we’ve come and all the work we’ve put into building GoCoach the last 2 years. Compared to how we’re called to help and serve in times like this, that transition isn’t important. I have let go of anything that doesn’t matter because the only thing that matters this year is surviving COVID with my team and family. So, I recommend other leaders, need to let many things go and just focus on serving your people. 

What positive change has transpired that you would want to maintain?
A strength of ours as a company is our ability and agility to move with the market and provide resources that make major impacts on a company’s people strategy. Years of experience working in HR will do that. As we’ve gotten bigger, we wondered how quickly we could pivot to meet companies where they are and offer them solutions to their immediate challenges. This combined with our ability to make decisions quickly and execute swiftly as a team are the reasons why we were the first to provide HR teams and managers with a full roster of resources to navigate this pandemic as empowered leaders. We will continue to be more agile and more informed as we grow, no matter what comes our way.
 

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