Mentoring can be a highly effective strategy to support women including those who are keen to develop their career and take on senior positions within an organisation.
Our latest whitepaper, The Value of Mentoring, demonstrates the potential value of developing a mentoring programme and the strategies employers can use to connect their staff with mentors who can empower them to develop and guide their career.
Download the full whitepaper
The value of mentoring chapters include:
The value of mentoring
Developing a mentoring programme
Connecting professionals with mentors
Structuring a mentoring programme
Attracting candidates with a mentoring programme
Becoming a mentor
Measuring the success of a mentoring programme
Avoiding mistakes in mentoring programmes
Key recommendations
Mentoring important for career development
Mentoring schemes are regarded by women in professional disciplines as one of the most important strategies for achieving career development.
94% of those surveyed said that mentoring programmes were important, compared to just 67% who valued fast track career progression schemes and 75% who valued formal networking opportunities.
Benefits of professional mentoring
According to the survey, the greatest value mentoring schemes can offer is helping women achieve career progression (77%).
63% also said that these programmes were beneficial in helping them to improve their professional confidence and 62% said that they offered a valuable opportunity to learn from someone else’s success. Mentoring schemes are regarded by women in professional disciplines as one of the most important strategies for achieving career development
Attract top professionals
When looking to attract and retain top calibre professionals, employers should not underestimate the importance candidates place on career development and mentoring in particular.
Although most women believing mentoring programmes are significantly important, almost half of employers (45%) currently do not offer any such schemes. In addition, the study found that 18% of employers currently offer no career development programmes for staff whatsoever.
Despite this, 75% of those surveyed said that they believed such programmes were important to attracting candidates.
“Given the high priority professionals place on mentoring this can help to give you an edge over competitors when looking to secure top talent,” highlights Samantha-Jane Gravett, Associate Director at Robert Walters.
Developing a mentoring programme
In order to ensure that a mentoring programme is effective, employers should develop a clear plan as to how such a scheme will be structured and what it aims to achieve.
78% of women surveyed said that a mentoring scheme which connected them with a mentor outside their organisation was important to them, while 63% said that peer-to-peer mentoring, was valuable.
Notably, while gender specific mentoring programmes were seen as a priority by 64% of women these were not regarded as significant as many other forms of mentoring.
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