REVERSE MENTORING: HOW ARE HR LEADERS IMPLEMENTING IT?

What happens when a junior employee is asked to mentor a senior employee? How does the senior employee react? How effective is this form of mentoring?

When we think of mentoring, we often imagine a senior professional guiding a junior colleague, but with evolving workforces, there is a shift in the form of mentoring known as reverse mentoring. Reverse mentoring is a setup where younger employees are paired with executive team members to mentor them on various topics of strategic and cultural relevance.

A study by Moving Ahead found that 87 percent of mentors and mentees feel empowered by their mentoring relationships and have developed greater confidence.

In this process, the junior team members also benefit from the knowledge and experience of their more senior mentees whereas junior employees can share their expertise on technology and digital media topics with senior executives.

But even though reverse mentoring is a fascinating idea, the challenges in implementation still persist like setting up cooperation among employees of different generations is not an easy task. To get a better understanding of how reverse mentoring is being deployed, ETHRWorld interacted with HR professionals to get expert insight.

How effective is reverse mentoring?

As the idea of reverse mentoring is becoming more popular, how effective is it?

Speaking about the effectiveness of reverse mentoring, Partha Patnaik, Global HR Head, Prolifics, says that reverse mentoring helps in the development of leadership skills and generates trust among different generations working together.

“By becoming a mentor, junior employees can develop confidence in their own abilities as leaders. Additionally, they can also benefit from their mentee’s experience in the workplace and leadership roles. By bringing diverse team members to work with each other, reverse mentoring can help to build trust among team members and add to the company’s culture of cooperation and teamwork,” says Patnaik.

When different generations work together there is a change in age biases and discrimination coming up. Patnaik says that reverse mentoring could be a way to reduce such biases.

He says, “Younger colleagues might think their older counterparts are resistant to change, while the latter might think their younger team members to be spoiled and entitled. Reverse mentoring can help break these stereotypes and bridge the generation gap. Through such interactions, the realisation might come that each generation has a different perspective to share with the other, and accepting the ideas of people of all ages can make the company more innovative and competitive.”

Patnaik also highlights the role of reverse mentoring in employee retention and engagement.

He says, “By interacting with their senior colleagues, young colleagues also get a good insight into their place in the company and their potential career path. Reverse mentoring can have a positive effect on employee engagement, as through the acquisition of new skills the older workforce might show signs of higher productivity, lesser absenteeism, lower attrition, and less stress.”

Also, bringing another point about reverse mentoring helping to break organisational hierarchies, Vivek Mani Tripathi, VP - Human Resources, Newgen Software, says, “Reverse mentoring is highly effective in fostering a learning environment and breaking organisational hierarchy. It also helps the senior leadership understand what the young, millennial workforce expects from them. Young mentors also get an opportunity to highlight their work, gain recognition, and learn from senior leaders' experiences.”

“The entire approach sends a strong message that learning is a continuous process and is necessary for everyone. We should be open to learning from others,” he adds.

Challenges in implementing

Talking about the challenges that come while implementing, Tripathi says that the hesitancy of senior leaders and lack of commitment by mentees can be an obstacle.

He says, “Firstly, while the younger millennial employees are mostly open to the idea, some experienced employees might become hesitant to share their learnings or feel insecure due to their limited knowledge in some areas.

“Lack of commitment from the mentee is another challenge. There should be a strong commitment to the entire process from all stakeholders to avoid the cancellation of the sessions and to maintain momentum,” he adds.

Similarly, Patnaik talks about lack of time availability and says, “Because of busy schedules, there is a reluctance to commit time for these programmes. Only if both the parties commit and see tangible value in it, can this programme be successful. This can be done either by defining clear expected outcomes from this programme or sharing relevant case studies where such programmes have been successful.”

Moreover, Patnaik says that the relevance of the programme is also important for utilisation, and adds, “One needs to be aware that sometimes these programmes might not be relevant to all employees. These programmes can only work effectively when it helps the senior employee acquire new and relevant technical skills, learn about new and disruptive technologies, or learn about the ever-evolving market or industry.”

Dealing with challenges

Speaking about how these challenges can be dealt with, Patnaik suggests that identifying common goals and time management to pursue the programme can help in implementing reverse mentoring.

He says, “As the needs of each mentee will be different, the goals need to be customised accordingly. SMART (Specific-Measurable-Achievable-Realistic-Time bound) goals with specific milestones and timelines should be set clearly right at the start of the programme.”

“A list can then be published to potential mentees to help them in identifying the right mentors. Also, one-on-one meetings can then be arranged between them to discuss and agree on the terms, conditions, and expected outcomes from this programme,” Patnaik adds.

About time management, he says, “Both the mentor and the mentee need to decide how frequently (weekly, monthly, etc) and for what duration they will meet. Apart from the meetings, they can also agree on other methods like emails, chats, etc to monitor progress.”

Sharing about tackling challenges, Tripathi says that the right pairing of mentor and mentee is an important part of implementing the programme.

He says, “We arranged sessions with prospective mentors and mentees and explained the programme's intent to them. To ensure diversity, we paired mentors and mentees carefully. Extroverts were paired with introverts, and members from different geographies and departments were paired together.”

In a situation where an employee-oriented environment is gearing up, reverse mentoring is one of the steps to breaking the traditional workplace setups. Apart from its challenges in implementation, it is also a two-way street of learning being developed in modern workplaces.

-       Hr ET