Developing LGBT+ Business Mentoring with Pearson and PinkNews Futures

Over the last year, Career Accelerator has been working closely with global education powerhouse, Pearson and the UK’s largest LGBT+ careers conference, PinkNews Futures, in developing a first its kind LGBT+ business youth mentoring programme in England.?

I’m thrilled our pilot together over the last year was a success and we’re going to be scaling our work together over the next year to more LGBT+ young people and businesses.?In my latest LinkedIn article, I’ve shared the motivation behind developing LGBT+ business youth mentoring with Pearson and PinkNews Futures, what the pilot looked like, our impact, and our ambitions for the future.?

Why does LGBT+ business youth mentoring matter??

A few months ago, I was at the stage where my social enterprise Career Accelerator was working with 30 state schools across England, 20 top businesses and was generating strong revenue to continue doing what we were doing for the foreseeable future and grow successfully. However, I was increasingly getting frustrated by news coverage around?homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying taking place at schools, hate crimes against LGBT+ people rising in the UK, increasing attacks on the trans community, and the relative silence and lack of action from some big corporations around these issues, who have huge power and influence in society and could play a role in tackling them.?

According to the Stonewall, 45% of young people are bullied for being LGBT+ at school and half of bullied LGBT+ pupils feel that bullying has had a negative effect on their plans for future education. Those experiences reduce the quality of education for the bullied students when they can’t concentrate as well on their classes. They will have lower incomes if they must end school early, and the poor quality of their education is likely to result in smaller gains from having more years of schooling. Without the bullying, stigma and discrimination that is common in schools, they would fare better, and the economy would benefit from their expanded skills.?In addition, LGBT+ young people’s assumptions about how safe or inclusive a workplace significantly narrowed the employment and career paths they felt were open to them. Some felt they were limited to low-wage and insecure sectors characterised by a lack of employer investment or lack of opportunities for development and progression. At work, some LGBT+ young people felt forced to leave employment because of negative workplace experiences, including anti-LGBT bullying and harassment.

Motivated to try and do something to address some of these issues and keen to find some partners to work with, I reached out to 2 of my warm brilliant diversity and inclusion leaders - Kevin, a senior HR manager at global education powerhouse Pearson, and Ana the brains behind the UK’s largest LGBT+ careers conference, PinkNews Futures. The 3 of us came together to co-create the first of its kind LGBT+ business youth mentoring programme in England. We said the focus of this programme is that we want to work with young people who are LGBT+ who can benefit from real world career support led by relatable LGBT+ business mentors and allies to not just help them prepare for successful careers, but also help them break down barriers they will likely be facing as LGBT+ young people and in the workplace, to help them reach their full potential. Together the 3 of our organisations were committed to growing the pool of LGBT+ talent to grow into the future LGBT+ business leaders of tomorrow.?

We consulted with LGBT+ mentees and asked them about how important was it for them to have an LGBT+ mentor.

100% of the mentees said it was important for LGBT+ young people to have LGBT+ mentors.

• “The impact was great because you could be more personable with someone who is going through, or has gone through, a similar experience as you, and who helps you understand what barriers you may face” - Braden
• “They have already been through what I am experiencing now in terms of looking for / being in work, and how to adapt myself to the ever changing jobs market as well as selling myself as best as possible” - Brandon
• “It is easier for me to relate to and find some initial common ground which could then be built into a productive mentor/mentee relationship” - Ben?

What the pilot looked like

Pearson, PinkNews Futures and Career Accelerator decided to run a small scale pilot over the last year to prove the concept of LGBT+ business youth mentoring first and make sure the LGBT+ mentees and mentors would benefit from the programme, and if so we would then scale this work to more LGBT+ young people and LGBT+ business mentors and allies from more forward thinking companies.

During the pilot we ran interviews with each of the young people who applied for the programme and selected 10 young LGBT+ people to join the Pearson LGBT+ mentoring programme over the 3 months. We chose young people that were motivated, achievement oriented and could benefit the most from employer support. We ensured that intersectionality was at the heart of the programme and that we had good levels of female, trans and BAME representation in the programme to tackle imbalances in the LGBT+ community and professional careers. We worked closely with PinkNews Futures to promote the programme, recruit the mentees and organise the programme.?Each student was allocated an LGBT+ Mentor or a strong LGBT+ Ally. We organised 2 virtual training sessions for the young people to train them to make the most of the mentoring over the 3 months. We also organised 3 in-person socials for the mentees to connect with the other LGBT+ mentees and mentors and build their LGBT+ professional network.?

The impact

After the pilot programme with Pearson was over, we caught up with the mentees to find out how the programme went for them. I have shared the key findings below.?

Mentees had an average of 3 sessions with their mentees during the programme.

100% of the mentees found the mentoring useful in making ambitious and realistic career goals and steps to achieve these.

• “I found the sessions motivational and I had a very understanding mentor” - Beyonte
• “The sessions were very helpful for making ambitious career goals and steps to achieve these - in fact this is what the focus of our sessions were about” - Ella
• “I found the mentoring very useful - Rich’s guidance has been a balance of short term priorities that will in turn help the long term goals” - Ellie

100% of the mentees said being part of the programme has helped them build their LGBT+ professional network with LGBT+ mentors and mentees.

• “It was very beneficial to me as I got to speak to someone who understood me and my needs. My mentor was very supportive and kind, as well as informative” - Beyonte?
• “It was nice having the group chat and virtual network” - Ella
• “It has been good to meet other LGBT+ young people on the socials” - Ellie

100% of the mentees found the programme useful for building their confidence as LGBT+ young professionals.

• “It helped me to better understand where I see myself in the future” - Beyonte?
• “My mentor Rich has been supportive and honest in our conversations. He helps me to recognise my strengths and also holds me to account for my areas of improvement” - Ellie

100% of mentees would recommend being a mentee on this programme to a friend.

80% of the mentors are still in touch with their mentees after finishing the programme.

Fortunately, it’s not just the LGBT+ young people who benefited from taking part in LGBT+ business youth mentoring programmes, but the mentors did as well.?

100% of Pearson employees would recommend being a mentor on this programme to a colleague.

• “It was good to be able to share some personal experiences with my mentee and impart advice that she took on board and led to her securing a job” - Carmen
• “It’'s really made me stop and think about how we support young people starting in our organisation and what we should be doing for them. It made me realise how much easier it is for young people to be out at work from the get go. But it also made me think about what support young people need when joining a company” - Rich
• “It has been a wonderful experience, both personally and professional speaking, I learnt about other aspects of the LGBT+ experience from my mentee and it was a good challenge to be useful for Benjie by adapting the sessions in response to his needs” - Ricardo

One of the key telltale signs for us to show the success of the programme was that the vast majority of mentees are still in touch with their mentors after the 3 month programme and some have even secured employment on the back of the mentoring. Secondly, all the mentees with Pearson mentors have applied and been accepted to join the Career Accelerator LGBT+ Youth Advisory Board to provide youth insight and recommendations to help us grow. Lastly it was a brilliant ending to the pilot programme witnessing Pearson business leader and LGBT+ ally Sharon wining the LGBT+ Allyship Award at the star-studded British LGBT+ Awards for all her work driving LGBT inclusion internally and externally.?

Plans for the future

LGBT+ young people face a number of barriers when starting professional careers, including LGBT+ related bullying at school, a lack of LGBT+ business role models and difficulty accessing LGBT+ tailored career support. Whilst big businesses have power and influence in society, a limited number carry out focused work supporting LGBT+ young people to have successful careers and lives. Lots of LGBT+ networks and businesses feel passionate about supporting LGBT+ inclusion, however much of this effort is focused internally, supporting their existing employees and allies, rather than their wider community. PinkNews Futures and Pearson are taking a pioneering approach to support LGBT+ youth when the young people are at an age where LGBT+ inclusive career support can have the most impact on their career trajectory. There are many youth mentoring programmes out there, however it’s rare for these to consciously support LGBT+ young people as a target demographic. This not only harms the LGBT+ young people who miss out on LGBT+ inclusive career support to help their futures, but it also hurts the businesses and wider economy who are robbed of future LGBT+ business talent and their diverse ways of thinking and lived experiences.

Pearson, PinkNews Futures and Career Accelerator are addressing these issues by co-creating a flagship LGBT+ business youth mentoring programme and LGBT+ young professionals community. Our work together over the last year has shown the impact of LGBT+ inclusive mentoring empowering LGBT+ youth to learn about inclusive jobs and companies, build ambitious career goals, grow their LGBT+ network and improve their mental health and confidence as LGBT+ young people. Our report findings show that the business mentors have also benefited from getting involved in meaningful volunteering to boost their employee experience, developing themselves further and feeling part of a community at Pearson.

I’m really happy that the pilot LGBT+ business youth mentoring programme together has been a success over the last year. We have already starting to plan our next set of LGBT+ business youth mentoring programmes with PinkNews Futures and Pearson over the next year with the plan to engage with and support LGBT+ young people from across England.