Mentoring has long been a popular topic both on this site and at
the offline networking seminars Professionelle holds all around New
Zealand for career, professional and business women. One of the
reasons is that it is a key career-enhancing strategy that women
can control and seek out for themselves.
Career enhancment for women
There is a wealth of research on the topic, both academic and
more 'business focused'. This is because mentoring is particularly
important for women in their careers.
In case you're wondering why, there are three key reasons:
- Women start work with a disadvantage as they are faced with
more career development issues than men. Women across all English
speaking countries report similar barriers for career development.
These include lack of access to high profile, stretching
opportunities, working in male dominated environments and hitting
career dead-ends when, because of life circumstances, women opt for
part-time roles. Our own research
mirrors these consistent findings.
- A woman's career is a labyrinth - not a ladder. Women face
different career challenges than men do, often from very early on
in their careers. Challenges such as motherhood, marriage, working
in predominantly male dominated environments... A skilled and
knowledgeable mentor can play a vital role in helping women
negotiate the labyrinth of their career and leadership roles.
- Lack of political awareness and understanding of the value of
social capital. Across the board, women tend to undervalue the
importance of building relationships in the workplace as a way to
progress. They tend to place all their eggs in the basket of
'working hard to deliver great results' which they see as the path
to recognition and promotion. Moreover, research suggests that
young men find it easier to network when they join organisations
and therefore are more likely to meet potential mentors.
Professionelle Research
When we conducted an online survey on the importance of
mentoring, we found that a staggering 100% of respondents believed
that mentors play, or can play, an important role in woman's
careers. The kind of work arrangements our members were in made no
difference to their view of the importance of mentors.
Organisations are responding
That mentoring is important for the career advancement of women
is hardly disputed. What we've been seeing is that many
organisations and companies are responding by designing in-house
mentoring programmes. While their efforts are to be applauded, the
reality is that research, as well as anecdotal experiences, suggest
that informal mentoring is significantly more effective than formal
mentoring relationships. I wanted to outline the evidence here for
you to be aware of, and to consider if you are in a position of
implementing such a programme in your organisation.
Formal versus informal mentoring relationships
The key difference between formal and informal mentoring
relationships is that informal mentoring relationships develop
spontaneously, whereas formal mentoring relationships develop with
organisational assistance or intervention, usually through the
process of assigning mentors to mentees or matching them up.
Many organisations assume that informal and formal are much the
same and the benefits are identical. But research over the last
10-15 years show that this isn't the case.
In a USA study of 257 male and 352 female mentees, it was found
that informal mentoring relationships:
- Provided more career development opportunities in the form of
sponsoring, challenging assignments, protection from adverse forces
within the organisation and more exposure.
- Were the ones mentees are most satisfied with.
- Resulted in greater compensation for mentees - in other words,
they ended up earning more.
Most importantly, there was no difference in compensation and
promotion rates between formally mentored employees and
non-mentored employees.
Only those mentees who had informal mentoring relationships
ended up earning more and being promoted more often.
Shared Values
When you think about it, it does make sense: when mentors and
mentees identify each other informally they do so based on mutual
interests, values, likes and dislikes etc. They are also more
likely to feel 'authentic ' about the relationship and more
motivated to invest in it. The key here, research and
Professionelle's experience suggests, is that when an alignment of
personal values is present, the mentoring relationship (be it
formal or informal) is most likely to succeed.
Personally, I experienced the difference between formal and
informal mentors at the beginning of my career. I worked for an
organisation which had a formal mentoring programme and I was duly
assigned a mentor. The relationship didn't work very well; our
values, interests, professional and personal aspirations did not
match at all. The mentor was assigned simply because he was a
senior manager in the office.
Luckily for me, I struck up a wonderful and very good mentoring
relationship (still going to this day) with another manager in the
office. The unfortunate thing was that when I tried to formalise
the relationship, my assigned mentor felt betrayed which wasn't a
good outcome all around. I must confess that at the time I felt
that even though my peers in other organisations thought that
having a 'mentoring programme' was a great thing, I came to realise
that sometimes formal mentoring relationship can end up worse for
the mentees than no mentoring relationship at all.
The research mirrors this personal experience, with a study of
effects of formal versus informal mentoring relationships on men
and women's career concluding that formal mentoring relationships
may be least effective for women mentees. Compared with women
mentees who had informal mentors, women with formal mentors
reported significantly less coaching, role modelling, friendships,
and exposure to social networks.
Workplace Programmes
If you are in HR or thinking of establishing a mentoring
programme in your organisation, we strongly suggest that you take
note of this finding and create a programme which enables the
development of informal relationships. Where possible, formal
mentoring programmes should mimic the development of informal
relationships. For example, the organisation can identify pools of
potential mentors and mentees, train the two groups with the
relevant skills for effective mentoring relationship but allow them
to develop their own mentoring relationships, perhaps in loosely
facilitated meetings.
I hope this piece has provided you with some food for thought.
Please share your thoughts and experiences on mentoring through the
comments box below.
© Professionelle Ltd 2010