How Reverse Mentorship Can Improve Your Company

Traditional mentorships have paired senior executives with younger employees to provide guidance and advice to the mentee's job and career. However, the face of mentoring changes as the nature of work changes.

Reverse mentoring is a new type of mentoring that is gaining popularity.

Reverse mentoring is when junior employees act as mentors to senior leaders or executives. The goal of reverse mentorship in many organisations is to provide leaders with a new viewpoint on emerging technological trends or the future of work.

The importance of reverse mentoring

Reverse mentoring is becoming more popular as a way to involve employees, particularly Millennials, in the process. It allows younger employees to feel like they are part of the mentoring process.

For instance, when a Baby Boomer employee reaches a Millennial employee to learn more about coding or social media, it establishes trust. Each participant takes on a mentoring role in this way. 

The younger employee will assist senior leaders in the organisation in developing their skills. As a result, senior executives gain new insights into the next generation of talent.

Reverse mentorship programme

Creating a reverse mentorship programme within a company provides a unique learning and development opportunity for employees at all levels. Here are the benefits of a reverse mentorship relationship:

• It develops a culture of learning,

• It can help overcome generational gaps,

• It's perfect for developing leadership among junior employees,

• It increases engagement and skillsets among employees,

• It can help reduce turnover rates for younger employees,

• Companies with remote employees can also use it to help create a unified culture.

The benefits of a reverse mentorship programme

• Retention of younger employees, especially Millennials. Based on Harvard Business Review research, reverse mentoring satisfies Millennials' desire for workplace recognition.

• Employees' digital skills should be improved. When it comes to learning and integrating technology into workplaces, younger workers have a lot to offer senior leaders. While many senior employees are familiar with social media, Millennials have a much better intuitive understanding of platforms and how to use them.

• Leadership training. Learning is a two-way street, even if the goal of your reverse mentoring programme is for younger employees to teach senior employees. Improved communication skills, for example, can help millennials become better future leaders.

Introducing a reverse mentorship programme to your organisation

Here are the steps to introduce a reverse mentorship programme in your company:

1. Establish the goal

Discover why you want to start a reverse mentoring programme at your company and what you hope to accomplish. Remember to identify a few measurable KPIs to determine whether your initiative is effective or needs improvement.

2. Fill in the details

Fill in the details of how the reverse mentoring programme will run once you've created an outline. It should include:

• List of participants?

• The process of registration and matching

• The length of the mentorship programme

• The commitment required from the participants

• The method to track and monitor the progress of mentorships?

3. Attract participants

Choose the employees who will be a part of your reverse mentoring programme. Do you want it to be open to anyone who wants to register, or will it be closed and invite-only?

You'll also need to think about how you'll attract people and inform them about your mentoring programme. Determine which promotional channels, such as the intranet and emails, are available to you.

4. Pairing

Decide how participants will be paired. 

5. Launch and track your mentorships

Once it's up and running, check in with participants regularly, solicit feedback, and track your KPIs to see if the programme is working or needs to be tweaked.

To improve the mentoring experience, encourage participants to think of new ways to connect and build trust. It's also a good idea to keep an eye out for toxic mentors, who can lead to poor mentoring experiences and, as a result, harm your mentoring programme.

Reverse mentoring is a relatively new type of workplace mentoring, but it's growing in popularity as a way to connect senior executives with the next generation of talent. Senior leaders can take on the role of a student again and gain a fresh perspective by turning the traditional mentoring relationship on its head.

Reverse mentoring can break down barriers between senior and junior employees, be it understanding how the new generation think about work or learn about emerging trends.