Diversity mentoring – the most important mentoring of all?

“There is discrimination and bias at every stage of an individual’s career, and even before it begins.”

This is an extract from the recent government funded, McGregor-Smith Review. The same report concluded that BME (black and minority ethnic) career progression 'could add ￡24bn a year to UK economy'. A simply staggering number.

The report goes on to say; “Every person, regardless of their ethnicity or background, should be able to fulfill their potential at work. That is the business case as well as the moral case. Diverse organisations that attract and develop individuals from the widest pool of talent consistently perform better.”

In her book ‘What Works’, Iris Bohnet echoes this new report, saying ‘Diversity and equality is both a moral and a business imperative. But research increasingly shows that unconscious bias almost certainly holds us back (from creating a truly diverse workforce), and de-biasing people’s minds has proven to be both difficult and expensive’. The opinion that ‘people recruit in their own image’ is well discussed in the HR/recruitment world, a cliché I repeat all too often, and clearly visible on the wider business and political stage.

But what about encouraging diversity within an organisation? As the drive for greater diversity in senior management teams grows, there is an increased need to develop the abilities of executives and business leaders to be coach and mentor those existing members of the team who are coming through the talent pipeline. This is a clear path to achieving greater diversity (based on merit) plus all the other incredible benefits that go hand in hand with it.

So rather than head down the well-trodden blog post path concerned with solutions for recruiting for diversity, I decided to instead research and post about something a little different – namely the beneficial reasons businesses should be coaching their own team members to become mentors for diversity.

Mentoring site, Chronus notes that ‘A diverse workforce is required to stimulate innovation, cultivate creativity, and steer business strategies, and it almost certainly helps businesses to appeal to a wider audience and recruit the very best talent.’ Through diversity initiatives, employees learn cultural awareness to create an inclusive corporate culture and learn of their own importance to their company.

There are also instances whereby an organisation recognises a specific diversity issue that can be effectively overcome using mentoring. Take Deutsche Bank for example. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, a diverse workforce had become even more of a priority for financial service companies, but internal company research at Deutsche Bank revealed that female managing directors who had left the firm did so because they were offered better positions elsewhere.

In response, Deutsche Bank created a sponsorship program aimed at assigning women to critical posts. The company paired female executives with executive committee members who served as mentors. This not only raised the women’s visibility, but also ensured that they would have a powerful advocate when promotions were being considered. As a result of this professional mentoring program, one third of the participants were in larger roles, and another third had been deemed ready to move up by senior management. (Case study courtesy of Chronus)

How I see it - the benefits of diversity mentoring:

Understanding and utilising internal talent

Organisations often overlook or under utilise diverse internal talent. A sound formal mentoring training program can help grow talent within the organisation and create strong business relations between diverse individuals that foster extraordinary performances and the achievement of organisational goals.

Encouraging collaboration

In what has been a long-overdue transformation, diversity is no longer a move made by companies simply to show political correctness, but rather a necessity to remain financially viable. By coaching staff to become great mentors for others in the same organisation, workforces benefit from an initiative that broadens understanding and encourages collaboration between different races, genders, cultures, religions and demographics.

Increasing performance levels from staff

If executives and business leaders are coached effectively to mentor, then an environment of trust, belonging, understanding, support, and encouragement will arise. It gives employees an opportunity to voice their concerns, overcome hurdles, and find solutions. Mentoring empowers a diverse range of employees to share their opinions, ideas, knowledge, and experiences on a level playing field and as a result, it inspires employees to perform to their highest ability.

Developing and retaining the best talent

Mentoring not only helps organisations develop and retain diverse talent, but it also helps build a robust community of diverse talent for the future. Providing long-term support for employees has long been a way to ensure high retention rates and a happier workforce.

Sets businesses apart from the competition

The effects of diversity mentoring help businesses differentiate themselves from their competitors and gain new customers while providing long-term support for their employees. Rather than recruit in your own image, recruit with your customer in mind.

Of course, it’s worth adding that mentoring schemes are only as good as the mentors within them, and it’s important to try and set aside some training for yourself as a business leader or your chosen executives with a formal coach, ensuring mentors offer support in a constructive and correct way. Team leaders should be taught how best to encourage individuals to speak out and work together.

From my point of view, once the knowledge is in place with mentors, diversity mentoring is one of the most important types of mentoring there is, and something I hope there is much more call for in future. Not only because it’s good for businesses, but because it tackles and creates solutions for the much bigger issues of acceptance and cultural awareness - and that can only be a very good thing.

Do you encourage diversity mentoring? Perhaps you’re a mentor yourself or have been assigned a mentor in the past? If so I’d love to hear whether or not you believe mentoring has had a positive effect on the culture or performance within the business.

Remember, if you’d like to chat more about developing your key people through coaching programmes, I’m happy to discuss it with you.

Mark.