Unilever Case Study

Unilever has a systematic approach to coach selection

Coaching has fast become a significant part of many organisations' learning and development strategy as world-class companies are increasingly looking at ways to optimise the performance of their critical talent. These are the people who will make the difference between the success and failure of a business, from top management downwards. This, in part, explains the recent rise in the use of executive coaching. However, due to its relatively recent emergence and growth, few HR professionals have in-depth experience of managing coaching activities, and in particular selecting and supervising external coaches.

As a result, many practitioners are struggling with a variety of issues that are preventing them from gaining full value from their current coaching activities. Among the challenges noted are confusion around the terminology in use, a lack of agreement about what a good coach looks like, engaging different stakeholders in coaching relationships, ensuring a good match or fit between coach and client and drawing up contractual arrangements and evaluating the impact of activities. These are significant challenges for HR professionals if they are to leverage the value to be gained from a really successful coaching assignment.

Assessing coaching skills

Caroline Horner is director of i-coach academy, a world leader in the development of professional coaches. She has been working with Unilever to apply learning from her work assessing professional coaches. This is part of an education programme to design a selection process for coaches working at the executive level within Unilever worldwide.

Horner has worked with Sam Humphrey, head of global coaching at Unilever to design the process. Humphrey is responsible for developing the coaching frameworks and processes and for setting standards for coaching within Unilever to ensure that coaching meets the business needs. The company currently has 28 coaches on its Global Preferred Supplier List.

Humphrey's role evolved when Unilever recognised that whilst the company was spending large amounts of money on coaching it was questioning the return on investment. Commented Humphrey: "We recognise that coaching is still in its infancy and that as an unregulated profession that has become commoditised, it is difficult to know where to go and who to buy coaching from. There are no barriers to entry and the market has become increasingly crowded with coaches. There is clearly an issue of minimising the risk of damage that the wrong coach could inflict on the business and its executives but the truly elusive goal is to maximise the opportunity, to move away from small impact coaching and strive for hugely impactful coaching for both the executive and the business. We acknowledge that there are numerous players attempting to evolve as a professional body and that it's just a matter of time before a dominant player is established."

I-coach academy in conjunction with a number of organisations is currently in the process of creating a consortium to jointly run a selection process for coaches working at senior levels in organisations. Many of the processes are similar and will allow organisations to benefit from learning and working together whilst accessing high quality coaches who have been through a rigorous assessment.

Unilever recognised that i-coach academy shared the same values and ethics and modes of integrity with them and favoured i-coach academy's framework for developing professional coaching practice. Together, Humphrey and Horner acknowledged that it was not lack of skill in selection that was missing from Unilever, rather the understanding of coaching. So the combination of i-coach academy's coaching framework and its unique approach to assessment of professional competency made i-coach an ideal partner.

What is a coaching framework?

I-coach believes that every coach will coach differently based on their experiences, education, beliefs and values, regardless of whether they use the same tools and processes. Instead of expecting coaches to use existing coaching models, the focus is on supporting individuals to design their own coaching framework. Each framework should make explicit what informs and underpins their coaching work and have a clearly articulated approach and purpose. I-coach academy also believes that there is no one and 'right' model and approach to coaching and that different outcomes require different approaches.

The i-coach academy programme does not attempt to teach coaching but to coach students to develop their own understanding of what their coaching can offer clients, who they are as individuals and how to enhance the way they work in practice. I-coach academy worked with Unilever to determine what coaching could deliver for the company. It mapped their coaching levels against i-coach academy's masters level professional coaching criteria to determine appropriate criteria for Unilever.

The selection process

The selection process includes an initial screen of a coach's biographical and technical data as well as participation in a criteria based interview. Having successfully completed this stage, the coach is then invited to take part in an assessment that involves a presentation of their coaching framework and a demonstration of their coaching approach. Business partners, coaching specialists and likely coaching candidates all participate as assessors. To date, the process has been run three times at Unilever in the UK and once in Australia.

Once the selection is complete, the matching process starts - matching the right coach to the right executive. Humphrey noted: "Matching is crucial if the coaching intervention is to be successful. It is essential to ensure that the coaching need is explored, firstly to ensure that coaching is the appropriate intervention and secondly, to identify if there is a coaching approach that will work better with the particular issue and/or the particular client. Once a short list is complied, the executive will meet at least two coaches before making a selection.

Added Humphrey: "The business leaders who participated in the assessment centre process were surprised to learn that coaching at this level is a complex process. To date, 69 have taken part in the i-coach academy/Unilever assessment process and 28 have got through."

For Unilever, the process has achieved great results. The investment in time in the selection process has paid off. People may interview well and then fail at the next stage of the process, there is such a fundamental difference between talking well about how one coaches and delivering good coaching.

Positive coaching

The programme has been well received at Unilever and is having a positive impact on the business. To those cynics who claim that coaching is a fad, those at i-coach academy and Unilever say that until the market matures, there is a lot of coaching wheat and chaff to be sorted. Unilever has taken the step of trying to define what purpose coaching serves at different levels in the organisation so that coach selection criteria are clearer and more informed selection decisions can be made. If organisations continue to let themselves be overwhelmed by this new and growing market, they will continue to miss the real value added opportunities that coaching can bring.