Corporate mentoring can be an inexpensive and effective way to share knowledge and culture as well as to fast-track development of future business leaders. Larissa Bannister talks to Wesfarmers and Citibank about the success of their corporate mentoring schemes
Corporate mentoring can be an inexpensive and effective way to share knowledge and culture as well as to fast-track development of future business leaders. Larissa Bannister talks to Wesfarmers and Citibank about the success of their corporate mentoring schemes
Many of us have benefitted from relationships with older and more experienced people in our personal lives. Yet in a work environment, senior executives can seem inaccessible, even remote, and their knowledge can go untapped by younger colleagues.
HR departments around the country are seeking to remedy this through corporate mentoring – where a younger, often high-flying staff member is matched with either a senior manager or with an external mentor to promote development and encourage knowledge sharing.
More than half of Australia’s top 25 ASX-listed companies now use some form of mentoring and many others have schemes in development. Wesfarmers introduced its internal mentoring scheme in 2000, as part of its executive development program.
Management development coordinator Fiona Miller says that the main drivers behind the introduction of mentoring were to fast track development and performance of potential managers by maximising knowledge sharing and business exposure and understanding.
Potential future management candidates are put through 360 degree assessments to identify where their strengths and weaknesses lie. These are measured against the 12 critical competencies Wesfarmers has highlighted as necessary for its senior management.
“If there is a weakness in commercial capacity, we might match that participant with a mentor who is a CFO or a general manager with strong commercial sense,” explains Miller. “Or the mentor might be someone in a role the mentoree aspires to – if they have ambitions to be a CFO then a CFO would likely be a good mentor for them.”
Wesfarmers mentors are usually general managers – that’s the level that the mentorees are aiming to reach in their own careers. “We are still at the size where we know our top general managers so we can match people fairly easily,” says Miller. “The idea is that the mentors can give advice, offer exposure at senior level and introduce mentorees to professional networks. General managers with good people management skills tend to make the best mentors.”
Once the pairs have been matched, both parties attend a workshop where they receive a set of guidelines that offer suggested roles to take in the relationship and recommend content to be covered.
Participants meet every six weeks for one to two hours and are encouraged to set goals for the course of the program, which tends to last for five to six months. According to Miller, it is most important to ensure that they are meeting regularly at the beginning.
“It’s best if they meet once a week for the first two weeks,” she says. “That way you can check early on that the relationship is going to work. I’d even advise HR to consider the option of sitting in on the first meetings – which are all about goal setting and rarely cover confidential issues – so you can see straight away if there is a personality clash or something.”
There is good support at senior level for the Wesfarmers scheme, Miller says. “Three of our managing directors and our financial director have acted as mentors,” she comments. “They get a lot out of it too, like improved people management skills as well as exposure to management talent – they get a look at the up and coming general managers from outside their own business units.”
As well as the benefit of knowledge sharing, Miller feels that confidentiality issues are avoided by keeping the relationships internal.
Following a review at the beginning of the relationship, she conducts reviews midway through the program and at the end of the relationship to get feedback on how the program worked without discussing actual content, which is always kept confidential.
“The main feedback I hear from both sides is that corporate mentoring is a strong tool for broadening business exposure and understanding and for transfer of culture and values through the business,” she adds.
As well as corporate mentoring, Wesfarmers future management candidates work on group action learning projects that look at issues of strategic significance to the group, work on individual work-based projects to develop specific skills, and attend structured learning workshops with both internal and external speakers.
“It’s important to have one person to oversee and monitor the program,” says Miller. “It’s a good idea to train the mentors and give them guidelines, particularly if it’s their first time acting as a mentor. Mentoring is not an expensive thing to do, but it is time consuming and of course our managers’ time is expensive – but the results are worth it.”
TABCORP also runs an internal mentoring scheme, designed to provide job enrichment, opportunities for personal growth, knowledge sharing and to focus on employee development and aid retention.
The program runs from February to December each year and in order to be considered for the scheme, each potential mentoree is required to approach three people from within the company whom they consider to be a potential mentor. All then need to fill out applications which assist in matching the pairs. Training is provided for both mentor and mentoree, after which they meet on average once a fortnight throughout the year.
External mentoring works on similar principles, but uses an agent to match participants with mentors who might be former government ministers, company directors or chief executives from outside the business.
Citibank introduced an external mentoring scheme to its business in 1997 with the initial aim of tackling the challenge of creating a diverse workforce, says director of human resources John Eddy.
“We needed to move the culture in those days, with particular reference to opening up career opportunities for women,” he explains. “Although we did have a number of women in senior roles we felt women were not sufficiently represented at senior level.”
Over the years, the program has been extended to embrace both men and women and the split is now about half-and-half for the 50 current participants. “Our key drivers now are retention of key people and to give people the opportunity to learn and develop through the shared experience and help of others external to Citibank,” says Eddy.
The participants are encouraged to discuss development needs with Citibank managers and then to focus on these areas with their mentors. Mentoring is intended to provide assistance with goal setting and coaching for effective behaviour, plus an opportunity to share experience and to gain contacts.
The relationship is intended to have a strategic focus on the employees’ development and can continue regardless of new positions the employee may later move in to. Mentorees are also advised to spend time talking about the mentor’s background and experience to ensure a good match.
But apart from initial introductions and a few suggested guidelines, the Citibank program is not highly structured. “They generally meet for two hours every six weeks away from the office,” says Eddy. “The timing is between them, we don’t impose rules. We do, however, meet formally with each mentor at least twice a year to update them on the company’s progress and if appropriate discuss how the employee is progressing. There is a strict rule that nothing can be divulged to the company unless the employee gives the mentor permission to share this information.”
Citibank also holds separate lunches for both mentors and mentorees at least twice a year to give them an update on the business and provide an open forum to raise any issues that may help to improve the program.
Eddy says it is important to blend mentoring into other development programs and not to allow it to become an elitist scheme for those few considered to be high potential. He also recommends spending time with mentors and employees to discuss progress and highlight any areas that need to change or improve.
According to Eddy, the results of the program have been “quite outstanding”. “Over the past six years we have only lost two or three people [who have gone through the program] to other organisations,” he says. “Those people went to bigger jobs and they went with our blessing. The investment in dollar terms is not large considering the significant cost involved in recruiting just one key role should someone leave.”
