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How to foster gender balance and inclusion

Vlerick Business School has developed a method for assessing and improving inclusion within organisations, writes Katleen De Stobbeleir

Reflecting society’s diversity within business has become a topical and pressing issue as leaders come to understand that embracing difference within the workforce, and listening to a range of perspectives, will benefit their organisations. One important element of diversity is gender balance; the UN has named gender equality as one of its 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved before 2030. There have been many successful efforts to tackle this issue, both in business and wider society, but huge strides are still needed to create a truly equal and inclusive environment.

This mission involves tackling gender imbalances in business and ensuring women can participate fully and have equal opportunities in leadership and decision making, but many businesses struggle to put in place methods and initiatives to achieve this.

 A common way in which companies address this is to look at the number of women in their teams, in management positions, and on their boards. They may invest in the recruitment and promotion of women and set quotas for women in management roles. Governments and trade bodies support this agenda, with the European Union proposing that there should be a 40% quota for women on company boards within all organisations. 

But a focus on the numbers is only half the story. Simply boosting the number of female employees within organisations, so that there is an even split, does not automatically allow businesses to benefit from diversity. And putting too much emphasis on quotas can have the opposite effect to that desired. 

Speaking to employers as part of my consulting projects at Vlerick Business School, I have learned that many companies have diversity initiatives in place, but are still not seeing the practical benefits. So why are organisations still struggling to make diversity ‘work’ for them?

Diversity and inclusion

Focusing on diversity only reaps rewards when organisations also actively foster an open and inclusive environment for their staff. Organisations must create a culture of both diversity and inclusion (D&I), not simply one or the other.

Many organisations are implementing what they believe to be transparent, sophisticated and well thought-out diversity initiatives, and expect there to be a direct correlation between their level of investment in these initiatives and enhanced levels of creativity and productivity within their organisation. This, however, is not the case, and when it comes to maximising D&I, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.

To help individual firms measure workforce D&I and to understand what they are doing well, and what needs improvement, I worked with an established research team to create Vlerick’s inclusion scan, which assesses organisations and offers them advice on how to improve. 

How the scan works 

The first element of the scan is a questionnaire for HR and D&I professionals, to assess how they are working to improve gender balance within their processes and procedures. This focuses on seven strategic areas: vision and strategic policy, leadership, HR and personnel policy, internal communication, quality assurance and monitoring, agreements with external stakeholders, and diversity networking. The second part considers employees’ perspectives. This is less about company initiatives and more about how employees feel. Staff are asked how included they feel within their team; whether or not they can express themselves freely and openly; whether they feel themselves to be ‘different’ from their colleagues, and whether they feel that they contribute to a greater purpose in the organisation. 

After collating the answers, my team and I are able to ascertain the organisation’s level of maturity in terms of inclusion. In this way, the scan makes each organisation aware of its current position with regards to inclusivity, and its areas for improvement.

Feedback provided to organisations aims to reflect on their current initiatives and analyse how effectively they are working. It highlights areas in which they are struggling, or policies that are not helping to create an inclusive environment. 

As well as enabling organisations to become more inclusive, the scan sparks a wider discussion around diversity and demonstrates the importance of adopting an inclusive culture not just in business, but also in society as a whole. 

Enhancing inclusion

There are many steps, large and small, that organisations can take to create a more inclusive culture, but to identify these, a tailored approach and customised strategy are required.

For example, all-women networks allow female employees to connect and share opinions on current initiatives and the inclusivity of the working environment. Reverse mentoring, meanwhile, involves women regularly sharing their perspectives on inclusivity with senior management.

Sponsoring is an underused, yet effective, way to help women feel included in the organisation’s practices. This involves senior management coaching younger, more diverse members of staff, and taking a level of responsibility for their career progression. They are charged with creating opportunities for these staff members to develop and progress within the company. 

Inclusivity is about giving everyone in the organisation a voice, and the ability to express their opinions. Meetings are a small-scale example of this, where shy and reserved workers may struggle to speak up, and feel overlooked as a result. Changing your meeting culture to ensure everyone is able to have their say is an important way to ensure all workers feel represented. 

In addition, people often act differently to the way they think, which can be a result of their wish to hold up a particular public image, or  something that is just an unconscious process. By uncovering these forms of bias, a more inclusive culture can be created.

None of the above examples will improve inclusivity in each and every organisation, which is why the scan offers tailored solutions. One solution may work for one workplace but not for another. Therefore, a customised mixture of policies and initiatives is the best way to improve inclusivity. 

The benefits of inclusion for organisations

When diversity is accompanied by inclusivity, it can only benefit businesses. Organisations with a visible environment for D&I better reflect society and are likely to be viewed in a more favourable light, commercially speaking. However, there are a number of internal benefits too.

When leveraged correctly, the various perspectives and skills contributed by a diverse workforce can lead to enhanced creativity and productivity – positively impacting on the organisation’s financial performance as a result. The different ideas articulated by a more diverse range of voices will also allow firms to be as innovative as possible and challenge an industry’s status quo. 

Firms that do not have this diversity of thought can stagnate and miss out on innovation and growth opportunities. Ultimately, they may become stuck in their ways, growing increasingly irrelevant and unrepresentative of customers and wider society. 

Not only does an inclusive culture nurture the most creative, productive and innovative staff possible, it also helps organisations to attract and retain top talent and supports collaboration within teams, enhancing wellbeing by creating an environment in which everyone is heard.

Multilayered approach

Taking a multilayered approach to inclusion is the key to success. To foster an inclusive environment, organisations must have leaders who are committed to the cause, a strong HR policy around inclusivity, and employees who feel included and are able to help their colleagues feel the same way. If these three areas are addressed, an organisation will be well on the way to achieving maximum inclusivity and will begin to reap the benefits of an inclusive culture.

Katleen De Stobbeleir is a Professor of Leadership and Coaching at Vlerick Business School. She is also Head of the Vlerick Women Inclusion Scan Research Project, alongside senior Vlerick researchers, Angie Van Steerthem and Evelien de Ferrerre, and non-profit consultancy, KliQ vzw. 

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Why female startup founders find it harder to secure investment

Venture capitalists don’t ask male and female founders the same questions when making investment decisions, and hold a number of preconceptions, says the founder of a network aimed at empowering women

We hear a lot about getting more women on boards, more female CEOs, more girls to study STEM subjects. But there is another significant gender gap much less talked about.

It is the one affecting female entrepreneurs. Several reports have shone a light on this. For example, a 2019 study by the British Business Bank found that for every £1 GBP of venture capital (VC) investment in the UK, female founders got just 1p (£0.01 GBP). Mixed gender founder-teams got 10p (£0.1 GBP), and the rest? It went to all-male founders. That’s equates to £5bn of investment going to all-male founders.

The situation in the US is no different. One study, by Pitchbook, showed that companies with female founders only raised 2.3% of VC funding in the US.

As a two-time startup founder myself, I was invited to 11 Downing Street for the unveiling of the British Business Bank research, commissioned by the UK Treasury. It was also attended by VCs, so to my delight I got to ask that key question: ‘why don’t investors put their trust in women?’

Implicit bias and preconceptions

Their answers were honest, but brutal. Some confessed that when they see a young woman, they assume that her incentive to start a business is to leave the rat race to juggle a bit of work with the real job of being a mum. This is essentially labelling any women within a 20-year child bearing window as a ‘mother with a hobby.’

This is compounded by the inconvenient fact that the average age of founding a business is 42, according to researchers from MIT, the Kellogg School and the US Census Bureau. Among the fastest-growing tech startups, the average age is 45. This age is for men and women, so clearly it has nothing to do with wanting to make time for school runs. It takes life experience and industry expertise to run a successful business – 42/45 seems about right to me.

Another VC partner admitted he always sends a junior 20-something trainee to interview the female founders but is inclined to send someone more senior to male founders.

I’ve been in that pitching chair myself when I started to seek funding for my first startup in 2016. It was around the time that the #MeToo movement was gathering momentum and I thought, ‘it’s time to get big or go home’. Yet, when I started early conversations with investors, or people who knew about investing, I got a distinct feeling of doubtfulness. Their questions seemed to be negatively slanted: ‘don’t you think the bubble might burst?’ instead of the more positive ‘where do you see your business in X years.’ Other women have said similar things.

Lines of enquiry at investor interviews

My suspicions of this negative interview bias have turned out to be substantiated. A 2017 study by researchers at Columbia University and Harvard Business School looked at 189 videos of presentations to investors (of which 12% were given by female entrepreneurs). They found that 67% of questions to the male entrepreneurs were ‘promotion-oriented’, such as, ‘do you think your target market is a growing one?’ For female founders, 66% of questions were ‘prevention-oriented’, asking them questions along the lines of how long it would take them to break even or how they’d defend a business challenge.

Investors are supposed to be good at spotting trends. So you would think that they’d have taken notice of the many reports that show that female-founded businesses end up being more successful. Linked to the British Business Bank research, the UK Treasury also commissioned the Rose Review, looking at ways to promote female entrepreneurship. One of its conclusions was that female-founded businesses could be worth £250bn GBP to the UK economy if women started and scaled new businesses at the same rate as UK men.

Eliminating doubts

I can see why. I’ve had three children over five years, while running two businesses and I never took maternity leave. My businesses grew the most when I was pregnant. People joke that when women are pregnant they go into ‘the nesting phase’ because they are programmed to get their house in order but actually it’s a hyper-efficient state which applies to all areas of life, including their business. Think about it, you’re not likely to be attending parties or socialising in bars. You’re not distracted by anything else. Pregnant women get things done!

We can’t fully blame the funding gap on ‘old boys network’ bias though. Women themselves need to put themselves forward more. In the same way that women don’t ask for pay rises as much as men, on average, they also tend to harbour more doubts that they have the skills to grow a business. They can suffer from imposter syndrome and worry themselves out of things. If nine people say ‘yes’ and one says ‘no’, a sizeable proportion of women will listen to the one ‘no’.

Start early

So how can we address the problem? It should start at grassroots level, with teachers and parents. Gender biases stem from the messaging we give to children as they grow up. We need to instil in them the belief that they can make something of themselves regardless of gender.

Take the cringeworthy example of the covers of recent editions of teenage publications, Girls’ Life and Boys’ Life. The former flashed headlines that include ‘fall [autumn] fashion you’ll love’, ‘wake up pretty’ and ‘your dream hair’. The latter featured one bold headline, ‘explore your future: astronaut, architect, firefighter, chef?’

It will take time to fix this skewed messaging. But in the meantime, the VC industry could do a lot to help address the problem by educating their teams. They could put on workshops and seminars to hear from female founders, or invite successful female entrepreneurs to give talks that allow them to share their expertise and inspire others.

That’s what we are doing with the Sistr network, a platform to enable women to impart wisdom and offer advice, free from bias and judgment. My vision when I started the network was to harness untapped female talent by connecting strong, successful and knowledgeable women. Perhaps investors and VCs could learn something from this approach. They might even pick up some star-performing portfolio companies too.

Emma Sayle is the CEO and Founder of networking platform, Sistr.  

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Difficult people in the workplace: them or us?

When we tell ourselves someone is difficult, it can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Jenny Bird and Sarah Gornall suggest taking a different approach

You enter a long corridor at work: as you do, someone ‘difficult’ enters at the other end. You walk towards each other knowing you are about to pass close together. What’s going on for you? You wonder how to get past with minimal interaction, how not to engage. Your muscles tense, you have a fixed, unreal smile on your lips; not in your eyes.

Who does the other person see coming towards them? Someone ready for conflict or avoidance: someone closed; someone unwelcoming. They respond in an instinctive fight or flight state. And then you see someone difficult. Confirmation bias at its best… or worst.

Social species

Very few people set out to be difficult or not to get along with others. We’re a social species and historically have needed other people for survival. We may all sometimes be defensive, ready to fight our corner, looking for advantage. But if we are, it is rarely at root personal to an individual because those antagonistic behavioural patterns are more about ourselves and our own vulnerabilities than about the other person. They are more about me than you.

Our thoughts and beliefs, the stories we tell ourselves, underlie and influence our behaviour. We can explore and alter these stories and so in turn alter our behaviour, if we choose to. This is good news, because we are less able to alter other people’s behaviour, even though we would dearly like to do so at times. I am the person over whom I have most control.   

Offended aunt

Take Tunde. She finds her line manager grumpy and rude. She tells that story (grumpy and rude) to herself and sometimes to others. She notices all his behaviours which fit that model. She feels cross and judgemental. Then a comment from a colleague makes her pause and consider. She notices that she is behaving like an offended aunt who hasn’t received a proper ‘thank you’ for a present. She suddenly sees herself like a ruffled clucking hen and realises that this is not the person (or animal) that she would really like to be. So, she chooses to give him (and her internal image of him) less mental energy. She takes a very easy approach: talk about the work, it’s not personal. Suddenly she finds it easier to work with him, easier to get on with the work, easier to enjoy what she achieves.  

We have a model for exploring what is happening in interactions like this. It’s the ‘Who/How Cone’ described in our 2019 book, How to Work with People… and Enjoy It! The starting point, and apex of the cone, is us and who we are. Then the cone widens to include how we think about ourselves and next, how we show up in the world.

Tunde did her aunt thing, at first unconsciously. Then she noticed how she was showing up. The boss would have seen the aunt effect and reacted. This interaction, how I present to you and how you respond to my perceived behaviour, is the next part of the developing cone. The final part is the outcome of our joint experience of each other. If the boss resented the aunt act the outcome of their work together was likely to be poor, stilted, unnatural and non-creative. Would any of us want that?

The stages of the Who/How Cone are:

  1. Me, myself
  2. How I think about myself
  3. How I show up in the world
  4. How other people perceive me
  5. How I use feedback from others to alter my perception of how I show up and our joint experience of each other

We can pause in our daily interactions and scan:

  • What’s my thinking and feeling here?
  • How may I be presenting as a result of that?
  • What will others be seeing?
  • What impressions will they take away?
  • What different choices can I make to change my interpretations, their interpretations and shared outcomes?

Here’s a four-step plan for when you’re telling yourself someone is difficult:

  1. Stop that story
  2. What else is true?
  3. What are my choices?
  4. What will I do?

Preventing self-fulfilling prophesies

When we tell ourselves someone is difficult that uses a lot of our mental energy and becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. So, when Tunde tells herself the boss is rude because he doesn’t greet her in the mornings, doesn’t ask about her and doesn’t praise her work, she’ll find lots of proof of that. Instead, if she tells herself that he doesn’t say much because he is concentrating and is satisfied with her work so has nothing to say about it, her interpretation of his behaviour can change and she can relax. She may then appear more open to comment and she’ll certainly give his silence less mental energy.

If she chooses to explore her own needs, she’ll also notice that she benefits from some constructive comment on her work (often known as praise) and she may consider where else she can get that. Perhaps a colleague will agree to reciprocal work checking.

Asking for changes

If, after taking an alternative view like this and allowing ourselves to choose different thinking patterns, we still rationally find some behaviours difficult to work with, we can choose assertively to ask for changes. People rarely change who they fundamentally are, yet we can all change our behaviours. To ask for changes in other people’s behaviour, you can try following this approach:

  1. When you…  insert specific behaviour
  2. I feel… own it: it’s your interpretation
  3. So, in future please would you…  insert specific behavioural change

For example:

‘When you leave the office without saying anything, I feel unsure what to prioritise and what to say to anyone who calls. So, in future, please would you let me know when you are leaving and what to share with others?’

The starting point is our self-knowledge and self-respect. Ideally, we can find ways to understand ourselves and be comfortable in our own skin: to be clear about how we may appear to others, and to make choices about our interpretation of the behaviour of colleagues and about how we present ourselves to them.

We are each in control of our own thinking and the stories we tell ourselves: we can all choose our behaviours. And that is powerful news!

Jenny Bird and Sarah Gornall are the authors of How to Work with People… and Enjoy It! (Routledge 2019).

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Cultivating diversity to open opportunities

Diversity is ‘a strength which opens opportunities’ and that’s why exposure to different backgrounds and ways of thinking is a firm focus for Céline Fauchot, Dean at France’s South Champagne Business School (SCBS), part of the Y SCHOOLS ecosystem

‘In your personal life, or in your professional life, you must be prepared to accept and to cultivate diversity. It is a strength which opens opportunities,’ says Céline Fauchot, Dean at South Champagne Business School (SCBS) in Troyes, France.

Students at SCBS are therefore encouraged to work with those from different backgrounds, Céline Fauchot explains, as well as with those studying at different institutions within the Y SCHOOLS ecosystem to which the School belongs. ‘We do not want to create clones – we cultivate the difference!’ she adds.

Céline Fauchot also talks about the continuing challenge of convincing people that online learning need not be of lesser quality than face-to-face interactions, in this interview with Business Impact Content Editor, Tim Dhoul.

The value of being able to learn and develop for the future through the Y SCHOOLS’ campus in Cameroon is another topic covered by the SCBS Dean. ‘Innovation is a key issue for Africa and we are very excited to be part of the change.’ Read on to learn more.

 

Please can you tell me a little about the programmes available at your School, as well as typical student intake sizes and proportions of international students? 

SCBS offers four programmes among which is: a Programme Grande Ecole (PGE) master’s degree with four different tracks; an MSc in Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship; a BBA with the opportunity to work and/or study in four countries; and the Global Business Management bachelor’s.

What do you think makes your portfolio of programmes stand out from others that are available in the country headquarters of your School and the surrounding region?

Our portfolio of programmes can really be considered different because our Business School model is different.

SCBS belongs to the Y SCHOOLS ecosystem, inside of which different schools (including schools in design and tourism, for example) work together and open possibilities to create unique multidisciplinary programmes. The MSc in Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship and Strategic Design Management programmes on offer are good examples. Thanks to Y SCHOOLS, we can develop and strengthen transversality and diversity in our programmes.

Something else which stands out is the possibility students have to integrate an apprenticeship into their master’s degree.

Does your portfolio of programmes encompass international study or international work experience? If these elements are optional rather than requirements of the programme(s), how many of your students take advantage of these options, on average?

International [experience] is an integral part of SCBS. More than 40 different nationalities compose our student number. Almost all students are keen to encompass the international dimension during their study. For instance, a BBA student can spend up to 30 months on internships in four different countries.

Please outline diversity’s importance to your Business School’s strategy and why you feel it is a vital topic for business as a whole today.

Our ambition has always been to consider diversity as a strong component for our development. Whether it’s diversity of skills, culture or ways of thinking; diversity is real life!

In your personal life, or in your professional life, you must be prepared to accept and to cultivate diversity. It is a strength which opens opportunities. That’s why we make French students work regularly with international students. In addition, the students of our management programs work in close cooperation with those enrolled on design  and engineering programmes. Cultivating diversity to cultivate curiosity and open-minded personalities is the Y SCHOOLS concept. We do not want to create clones – we cultivate the difference!

How is the School working to boost the employment prospects of its graduates? (E.g. through the use of internship schemes, exchanges, or other industry initiatives)

A strong focus at SCBS is to ensure that companies are ‘inside’ our Business School and not ‘beside’ it. [There is] no way to imagine our Business School without a strong relationship with the world of Business.

Company and block-release training [a form of vocational education in France, linking study to the world of work] exhibitions are often organised with several specific focuses and ways to catch the attention of both companies and graduates.

Specific attention is also given to soft skills. A unique PPP (Professional and Personal Project) is implemented for each student, for example, to ensure that they get all the tools [they need] to be ready when they enter their professional lives. And six months after graduation, 94% of our graduates have secured a job. 

How are programme curricula developed and refined at your School to ensure that they remain in touch with the changing needs of both students and employers?

The world is changing, technologies are changing, needs are changing… so our daily concern is to ensure that we prepare our students for the reality and for the future needs of enterprises.

With this purpose in mind, we have implemented a process to evaluate the efficiency of our pedagogical approach. We also have a Laboratory of Pedagogical Innovation that proposes new teaching tools regularly, so as to fit the changing characteristics of our students.

Through advisory boards that include companies, our pedagogical teams – supported by professionals – ensure that our curricula are in line with what is anticipated to be the needs for tomorrow.

Which single new programme course or initiative are you most excited about and why?

A new, open-minded programme will be launched in January that is designed to support students who still have doubts about their future direction, by integrating management, design and tourism courses. The programme, Stud’Up, recognised by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation Ministry (MESRI), is very exciting as it represents a real answer to the situation of many youngsters who have not found their way or who are disappointed by their current choice.

If we come back to our DNA, entrepreneurship programmes are the most exciting. Being close to the Technopole de l’Aube and having a foot in the local incubator, as well as links to the Design School in the Y SCHOOLS ecosystem enables SCBS to offer different opportunities to our students.

What are your hopes for the School in the next five years – what do you want to see happen?

SCBS has always been recognised in France for its focus on entrepreneurship and innovation. We expect to strengthen these expertises and create new programmes that will be in line with global changes in behaviours, technologies and, above all, ensure that we are meeting the needs of business world.

Through the Y SCHOOLS campus in Yaoundé, Cameroon, we also expect that our engagement on the African continent will enable us to develop new skills in entrepreneurship and innovation. Innovation is a key issue for Africa and we are very excited to be part of the change in some of the region’s countries.

What are some of the biggest challenges facing providers of business education in the country headquarters of your School and the surrounding region, in your opinion?

One ongoing and challenging change in the French education system is the development of online learning. French students and families remain quite reluctant to this evolution and one of our challenges will be to accompany them on the journey towards accepting this evolution of technology by ensuring that the quality of learning will not only be the same as in face-to-face courses but, for some content, it will be upgraded. New technologies will really open new doors.

Céline Fauchot is Dean of SCBS (South Champagne Business School) – part of the Y SCHOOLS ecosystem – in Troyes, France. A French Business School graduate, she has more than 25 years of industry experience and has created and managed marketing teams at international level in the automotive, mechanical and medical industries.

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The importance of mentorship in business

Telecoms entrepreneur, Peter Gbedemah, looks at why mentorship is back in vogue and reflects on the problems organisations face in implementing successful programmes that ensure equality of access

Originating in Homer’s Odyssey, in which the tutor, Mentor, is referred to as a ‘wise and trusted advisor’, mentorship is an ancient concept and one which has recently returned to vogue in the British workplace.

Just recently, the New York Times referred to it as the ‘fabric’ of contemporary culture, and today nearly three-quarters of Fortune 500 companies have some form of employee mentoring programme. But there are also more practical reasons employers should be thinking seriously about mentorship, both in terms of staff retention and development.

Why mentorship

In a 2018 survey from UK recruitment firm, Monster.co.uk, more than one in four UK workers said they wanted a mentor, suggesting that this could become a key requirement for millennial employees, and for employers that are fighting to retain young and talented staff. Almost half (49%) of millennials surveyed for the Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2019 said that, if they had a choice, they would quit their current jobs in the next two years.

Mentorship is particularly important for mid-career female staff, as a 2018 FT article reported, quoting  Sue Black, an honorary professor at University College London’s computer science department: ‘It’s then that the extra boost which a good mentor can give you might well keep you on track and stop you looking around for easier options.’

This is especially true in the tech sector – a space I am intimately familiar with having spent nearly a decade in the c-suite of one of Africa’s largest telecoms companies. One of the reasons (but by no means the only one) for the sector’s high rate of attrition is its lack of mentorship support from senior figures.

Implementation issues

Barriers to mentorship range from lack of formal training of mentors to unrealistic expectations on the part of mentees. In 2013, a report by the UK government’s Department for Business Innovation & Skills (now part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) stated that the two biggest obstacles preventing SME employees from adopting mentors is the difficulty of finding suitable mentors and the issues some mentees encounter with relying on a ‘stranger’ for advice.

Many of these difficulties arise (especially within small companies as the government report noted) because mentorship programmes are not properly implemented. There are various models for mentorship, outlined by organisations like the Gatsby Foundation on economic and social development. Each organisation must find the model which works best for them.

Having had the privilege of serving on the board of Junior Africa Achievement Worldwide (JA Africa) for 10 years – a charity dedicated to developing the next generation of African entrepreneurs – I have had the opportunity to travel and meet a number of students, sponsoring a Ghanaian team through JA Africa’s company of the year competition application. I have also learnt that the most successful mentoring programmes tend to follow quite a logical structure.

First, organisations must find the right mentors. This is the foundation of any programme: ineffectual mentors will not be used by their mentees and the programme will never get off the ground. As a result, HR experts suggest mentors need to be found who are willing to give up their time, share skills, are engaged and empathetic.

Second, mentees must be found. The Gatsby Foundation defines the ideal mentees as those who are interested in their learning and development, and willing to seek help and share development needs with their mentor.

At this point, an organisation may want to look into establishing the correct mentorship model between the two parties. More ‘technical’ mentorship models (where a mentor imparts knowledge to their mentee) are better suited to working environments where learning set skills are important for an employee’s career development, such as an engineering plant. A more mutualistic style of mentorship where both mentor and mentee look to learn from one another is perhaps more characteristic of a creative working environment, or one where colleagues are broadly equal to one another, such as a business partnership.

Representing the under-represented

One of the big challenges for advocates of mentorship in the future is ensuring its benefits are felt by all sections of society. Data from a 2019 PayScale survey suggests white males are more likely to have a white mentor within their organisation than, for instance, BAME women (90% versus 60%). Although it could quite sensibly be argued that there are other, more nuanced factors at play which would explain this discrepancy, this is nonetheless a concerning gap which demonstrates that there’s still some way to go to ensure that all types of organisations have strong mentorship programmes in place.

Once this happens, the benefits for minority groups especially is considerable. For instance, the same survey found that BAME women who have a mentor are paid 5% more than those who don’t. But it’s more than just an issue of immediate financial gain. Business In The Community, one of the Prince’s Charities, states: ‘The plain fact is ethnic minorities who advance the furthest in their career all share one characteristic – a strong network of mentors… who nurture their professional development’. The experience of KPMG illustrates this well. In 2014-15, the company found that connecting BAME colleagues with senior mentorship figures helped drive engagement, a sense of value and, ultimately, career progression.

***

Mentoring is becoming a crucial tool in an employer’s learning and development toolkit. Supporting retention and fostering comprehensive social and commercial abilities, it has the potential to create a more dynamic working culture. Once the knowledge gaps around implementation and equality of rollout are resolved, we’ll be able to unleash mentorship’s potential, enriching the working lives of both mentors and mentees.

Peter Gbedemah is a computer scientist and telecoms entrepreneur with a wealth of experience he now uses to support burgeoning tech companies. Peter founded African telecoms business, Gateway Communications, which was subsequently bought by Vodacom (a subsidiary of Vodafone) for $700m USD.