Sponsorship Behaviours: Keeping in Touch

Welcome to the 13th edition of our LinkedIn Newsletter, "Inclusion and Diversity Learning Circle"! Created by Diversity Inclusion, the I&D Learning Circle provides you and your organisation with best-practice tools, resources, and information, which can be directly applied to your workplace’s I&D program, affecting real and transformational change.?

Sponsorship Behaviours

In this edition of our I&D Learning Circle Newsletter, we build on our recent Learning Lab Sponsorships Benefits series which we kicked off last year in Edition 7 of this newsletter and concluded last month by outlining the various benefits that sponsees, sponsors and organisations can gain from a formal sponsorship program. Commencing in this edition, we are exploring key sponsorship behaviours.

Sponsorship refers to the relationship between two individuals in the workplace; typically, a more experienced leader who actively advocates on behalf of a less experienced colleague, supporting them to flourish in their career. If you are new to sponsorship and how it can support your organisation to become more diverse and inclusive, then you can learn more in Edition 3 of our I&D Learning Circle newsletter and the embedded Learning Lab video where we introduced the concept of sponsorship and explored how it can support and foster greater diversity and inclusion in our workplaces.? We also explored how sponsorship differs to mentoring, in our October 2022 Live Event.

Our Learning Lab video this month focuses on the key sponsorship behaviour of ‘keeping in touch’ with your sponsee. The video provides some tips that can support you to keep in touch and ensure you and your sponsee get the most out of the sponsorship relationship.

Top Tips for Sponsors for 'Keeping in Touch'

In our busy working days, it is easy to forget something as simple as messaging or calling your sponsee. One tip is making diary reminders to contact your sponsee to check in with them or share new information. We also recommend making a personal commitment to find one new contact or opportunity for your sponsee each week. You may not achieve this goal, but simply making the commitment is likely to encourage you to take regular action as a sponsor. This could be as simple as connecting your sponsee online with someone in your network that you believe could support them, in some way.

Our final tip is to make the most of incidental opportunities that arise with your sponsee. You may bump into them at work or see them in an online forum. Take these opportunities to connect with your sponsee by speaking to them briefly or messaging them while you are both present either in-person or online.

You can learn more about our Sponsorship Program on our website as well as hearing from participants of the program in the following LinkedIn post https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7002810190475526144

Call It Out Train-the-Trainer Program in Western Australia

In the past month, the Diversity Inclusion travelled to Western Australia twice to deliver our Call It Out Train-the-Trainer Program with BAE Systems Australia . Georgia Brown and Josie Miller worked with a team of employees from BAE Systems Australia to become Call It Out facilitators, authorised to deliver our workshop. The group represented different parts of the organisation. The first part of the week was devoted to learning about the Call It Out workshop content, training resources, developing their facilitation skills and practising delivering segments from the workshop. The second part of the week gave the new facilitators the opportunity to deliver workshops to employees, consolidating their learning and receiving coaching from Georgia and Josie.

Here are some photos from the week…

Our Learning Lab content – blog articles, videos and other resources – is available on our website (diversityinclusion.com.au), with new content released via our I&D Learning Circle Newsletter. While blog articles and other resources are freely available, Learning Lab videos are available exclusively for our I&D Learning Circle Newsletter subscribers. The following password will allow you to access our video content.

?Password: LearningCircle

As we continue to develop future Learning Lab content, we would love to hear from you, our D&I community, as to what D&I topics and issues interest you most. You can share your thoughts, questions, and ideas in the comments section here.

Please join our diversity and inclusion community by subscribing to this newsletter, which includes our latest Learning Lab content and videos, and the details of upcoming virtual events. Please also share this newsletter with others in your network that you know are interested in learning more in the diversity and inclusion space.?

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