Equinix Brings Personalized Development to EmployeesEquinix is a global leader in colocation and digital interconnection, providing digital services and ecosystems that allow leading businesses to securely connect their digital infrastructure to serve their customers, employees, and partners everywhere. Equinix has grown rapidly in recent years, quadrupling the size of its business since 2010 with more than 7600 employees in over 24 countries and operating more than 200 interconnected data centers worldwide.

During times of fast growth and change, one of the most common challenges for companies is attracting and retaining talent. Employee development is key, but organizations are often challenged with how to scale talent programs that support the increasingly varied and complex needs of its workforce.

Michelle Johns, Senior Manager of Talent Management at Equinix, is responsible for Equinix’s global talent management programs, focused on leadership and organizational effectiveness. As the company grows, her top focus is to support the ongoing development and growth of employees—ensuring the company has the right talent and skills today, and into the future.

Nurturing Talent Through GrowthLooking ahead at Equinix’s growth trajectory, Michelle and the broader HR team are clear—finding and keeping the right talent is critical to success. “During the last couple of years, we’ve been focused on scaling the business to optimize its next wave of growth, and an integral part of that is supporting our talent,” said Michelle. “The complexity of our talent needs has expanded as we’ve

“Equinix is focused on scaling the business to optimize its next wave of growth, and an integral part of that is supporting our talent.”

Michelle Johns

Senior Manager of Talent

Management, Equinix

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grown, and we have varied levels of people management skill and experience across the business. Our challenge has been—how do we provide meaningful and impactful opportunities for development and growth that can serve a broad spectrum of highly personal, individual needs?”

The company has also recognized the potential impact that change can have on employees. “There have been significant organizational and leadership changes recently, which at times has created some uncertainty for our employees,” said Michelle. “As we navigate growth, we always want our employees to feel engaged, supported, and have a true sense that they belong here.”

Personalizing Development for AllPrior to the company’s rapid growth, Equinix offered talent programs for its employees but they became less accessible as the organization matured. According to Michelle, “We found that the more complex and bigger the organization became, the harder it was to find high-quality solutions that could serve all different types of employees.”

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One talent program that had proven successful was individual coaching focused on developing leadership capabilities. While historically it had only been offered to select Equinix executives and senior level talent due to high costs and logistical challenges, Michelle and the Talent Management team wanted to find a way to bring this level of individualized development to employees at different levels.

For Michelle and her team, coaching was a way to personalize development and accelerate growth. “Coaching can sometimes be offered as a remedial solution, but it was important to us that we leverage normal performance management channels for those situations and show that coaching is truly developmental and an accelerator for someone who’s already doing well and wants to take their skills and capabilities to the next level,” said Michelle.

Partnering with BetterUpEquinix chose BetterUp to provide coaching to employees across multiple regions and functions of the organization. Several factors were important in the decision to partner with BetterUp. “BetterUp’s mobile platform enables us to provide customized and personalized development to our employees with the efficiency and scale not possible before,” says Michelle. “Employees are able to connect with their coaches and receive meaningful development support with the click of a few buttons,” said Michelle.

Supporting the company’s employees outside of its U.S. headquarters was also critical. “It was important to us that our regional teams saw how this coaching solution could serve their unique needs, so that they felt comfortable supporting and engaging in the program.” said Michelle. “The quality and accessibility of BetterUp coaches really stood out. They were local, understood the context and culture, and were available in the same time zone as our employees.”

Michelle also knew that having highly qualified coaches who understood the business was key. “We were adamant about making sure that the coaches were well versed in our business, values, culture, and what our talent, across functions and regions, really need,” says Michelle. “BetterUp took the time to make sure coaches were grounded in the context of our business. BetterUp’s Whole Person approach, focused on addressing how individuals thrive as people while also inspiring as leaders, also aligns closely with our company culture and values.”

Developing Leadership TalentEquinix launched its BetterUp coaching program in February 2018 with a focus on developing key talent and leadership across the organization. “As the business has become more complex, the demands on leadership are greater than they’ve ever been,” said Michelle. “We wanted to give leaders the opportunity to work with a coach on navigating the challenges that come with growth and developing as a leader, on a new level.”

One area that Equinix has focused on is helping female leaders continue to grow in the company. “We knew from our employee engagement and workforce data that we had an opportunity to further support women leaders across the company,” said Michelle. “Through this program, we wanted to say—you matter to our business, we want you to be successful, and we want to give you an opportunity to work with a coach to take your skills and capabilities forward.”

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Coaching Makes an ImpactAfter nearly one year with BetterUp, Equinix has seen strong results. “So many of our employees are saying how much they love their coach and how this opportunity has been impactful for them this year,” said Michelle, “The internal feedback we’ve received makes me feel confident that we’ve retained and accelerated the trajectories of key talent through BetterUp coaching and have been able to show that Equinix truly cares about their development in the process.”

Employees have shared how coaching has impacted their performance and overall well-being, and several have requested extending their experience for another year. One employee shared, “these sessions have really helped me re-discover my core strengths and helped me find ways to work through the various things that have been holding me back.”

Turning Skeptics into BelieversFor Michelle, one striking impact of the BetterUp coaching program is how quickly skeptics of coaching shifted their views. “There were some employees who had never received coaching before or who had a previous negative experience at other companies, which led to some uncertainty,” said Michelle. “But after a few coaching sessions, it was amazing to see the shift in how people felt. Some of our biggest skeptics have logged the most time with their coaches!”1

Michelle pointed to two critical drivers of this change in attitude. “The quality and accessibility of BetterUp coaches were

key—they understood our business, the local context, and were available to meet employees when it worked for them, such as on breaks or during commutes,” she said. “This made it easy for our employees to integrate coaching into the normal course of their lives.”

Linking Behavioral Data to Broader Talent NeedsEquinix is using aggregated data gathered from its BetterUp programs to measure the progress of employees and the value from its investment. “One benefit of BetterUp that you typically don’t see with a traditional coaching engagement is the ability to assess the progress of your group and their behavior changes with hard quantitative and qualitative data,” said Michelle.

Equinix employees experienced measurable behavior changes while working with their coaches in areas such as providing feedback and developing influence, as well as cultivating strategies to maintain energy and composure under stress. They have become strong BetterUp recommenders. Equinix saw a substantial increase in participants’ scores on key behavioral dimensions, and a strong Net Promoter Score (NPS). Whereas the average NPS by non-HR professionals for US-based corporate learning and development programs is 15 [Source: Bersin by Deloitte HILO 2017], Michelle shared that, “We were seeing double digit improvements in behavioral scores and a NPS of 83. The data gave us confidence that the program was having an impact on our employees.”

1. While Equinix can monitor the frequency and total time employees spend on coaching, everything that takes place during a coaching session is strictly confidential, and only shared between the coach and their member.

“After a few coaching sessions, it was amazing to see the shift in how people felt. Some of our biggest skeptics have logged the most time with their coaches!”

Michelle Johns

Senior Manager of Talent

Management, Equinix

betterup.co

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“We were seeing double digit improvements in behavioral scores and an NPS score of 83. The data gave us confidence that the program was having a meaningful and positive impact on our employees.”

Michelle Johns

Senior Manager of Talent

Management, Equinix

The qualitative assessments from coaches also provided Equinix insight into its workforce and helped the company identify capability gaps and priority focus areas. “While we were adamant about maintaining strict confidentiality for our employees, we are able to see overall themes people have been working on, such as navigating conflict, managing stress, and

change management,” said Michelle. “This consequentially gave us evidence and insight into our roadmap for talent management and the offerings we will build in the future. For example, change management is something that we’re really going to emphasize this year, and BetterUp data helped contribute to our decision to focus on that.”

About BetterUpBetterUp is the first leadership development platform to connect coaching to lasting behavior change.

Learn more at betterup.co

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A Solid Foundation for GrowthThrough the partnership with BetterUp, Michelle continues to see positive behavior change and meaningful growth in employees across the company. Looking ahead, she plans to build on these successes, and is currently working on plans to expand and integrate BetterUp coaching into other talent

To learn more about how BetterUp can support people across your organization, we encourage you to reach out to sales@betterup.co.

programs, such as its pivotal leadership development program.

“I look forward to working with BetterUp and our business to expand the program and identify more opportunities to optimize our solutions with scalable approaches that meet the complex and varied needs of our growing and evolving talent,” said Michelle.

“The internal feedback we’ve received makes me feel confident that we’ve retained and accelerated the trajectories of key talent through BetterUp coaching and have been able to show that Equinix truly cares about their development in the process.”

Michelle Johns

Senior Manager of Talent Management, Equinix