Reverse Mentoring – one more initiative to keep the millennials engaged or a business ‘must-have’?

In today’s workforce demographics, companies cannot ignore the large presence of the millennials (those workers born between 1980 and 2002). Within the next 20 years, more than 70 million baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1965) will retire. Organisations are introducing several initiatives to cater to these next generation workers – Reverse Mentoring is one such initiative that is fast becoming very popular. Reverse mentoring is an initiative where older executives are paired with and mentored by younger employees on several topics – the most popular ones being technology, social media and current trends. In today’s technologically advanced workspaces, reverse mentoring – or how I see it, ‘Flipped Leadership’ – is seen as a way to bring older employees up to speed in areas that are second nature to the millennials.

Mentoring is traditionally perceived and practiced as having a one-way benefit – younger employees learn from and gain valuable knowledge from older, more experienced colleagues. Today’s workplace has two very different generations working together and it is extremely important to ensure people belonging to both these generations understand each other to be able to work together. Organisations today realise the difference between millennials and their preceding generations and there is growing interest from leaders to learn from their less experienced colleagues. While in traditional forms of mentoring younger employees gain from their mentors’ experiences and knowledge, the concept of reverse mentoring is more reciprocal where both parties gain from each other’s knowledge and expertise.

Although the concept of reverse mentoring is not always easily accepted by senior executives because of their apprehension in learning from younger, less experienced colleagues, it was made popular by Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric back in the 1990s. At that time, the use of the Internet was becoming very prevalent and Jack Welch felt his management had much to learn, so he mandated that him, along with his top executives take on reverse mentors. Following Jack Welch’s example, several other senior executives have invited their younger colleagues to mentor them. The 2015 movie, The Intern, is a classic example of how the concept of reverse mentoring is catching up. The film depicts a septuagenarian taking up the role of an Intern at a Fashion start up where the majority of the population are millennial employees. He is assigned to work under the 30-something CEO. The film portrays how the septuagenarian’s experiences help the CEO and in turn the CEO teaches him about the current trends.

Organisations look at engaging in reverse mentoring programmes not as bridging the knowledge gap, but bridging the generation divide. This in turn ensures more collaboration between the two generations. While the idea behind reverse mentoring is to get senior executives on board with emerging trends, it is also a good way to get them to think differently and take into consideration its growing millennial employee population. Today every organisation is talking about innovation in every step of the way. A reverse mentoring partnership can be a good stepping stone towards innovation where the mentors help their senior mentees look at new and efficient ways of working.

Like any other partnership, there is a give and take in a reverse mentoring partnership as well. reverse mentoring can have huge impacts on organisations. While the senior executives learn about the latest trends from their young mentees, the millennials gain valuable insight and knowledge that their counterparts bring to the table following their decades of business experience. This results in both parties becoming more productive individually as well as strengthens the relationships between them to create more solid teamwork. The young mentor has an opportunity to learn more about the business and insider views on industry practices. At the organisation that I work, the CEO has been mentored by a millennial over the last 3 years. The CEO, in several of his recent blogs, has been talking about how this partnership has given him the chance to gain valuable insight into how the new generation thinks and works. This has allowed him to relook at his way of working and has also helped bring him closer to his employees. The mentor in turn has been learning from the CEO’s years of industry experience, which has been helping her take on more responsibilities, thus preparing her for leadership roles in the future. The partnership has also helped the mentor get inroads into the senior leadership at the company.

I recently read an article where auditing and consulting firm, Deloitte, shared their experience of reverse mentoring. The article talked about how in the early 2000s Deloitte was struggling to get its partners to embrace the power of the internet in business and look at new ways of doing business. Around the same time the company was also dealing with issues like war for talent and younger professionals demanding more time with company leaders. The team at Deloitte saw an opportunity here to pair up tech-savvy junior professionals with senior partners to resolve these issues. The pairs spent one-on-one time with each other where the partners learnt about newer technologies and the junior professionals learnt from their mentees’ experiences.

While doing some research on the topic, I came across a very different take on millennials. The authors of the article quoted the great German Philosopher, Immanuel Kant, in helping readers understand how to bridge the gap. Immanuel Kent said, “Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another”. According to the authors, if young people come across as immature, then older people need to help. Older executives should help millennials grow out of their immaturity. By engaging millennials in reverse mentoring relationships, senior executives essentially play a role in making the millennials more mature.

Another article I chanced upon spoke about another auditing and consulting firm, PwC’s different twist to the concept of reverse mentoring. While the teaching of new technologies, social media and current trends have been the main areas of focus for most reverse mentoring programmes, PwC made use of the concept to create a more inclusive leadership. The philosophy behind PwC’s initiative was if leaders were given the opportunity to see what life is like from other perspectives in the organisation, in particular of someone completely different from them, the those leaders would be more inclined to have emotional awareness. This exercise helped change PwC’s leaders’ behaviours and the way they led people, by becoming more inclusive in their behaviour and leadership style. The motivation behind launching this programme was to find a way to engage more women and ethnic minorities. As a result, younger / junior professionals from these two groups were targeted to serve as mentors. This is a very good example of an organisation taking into account the core issues they wanted to address and identifying people who embody those challenges within the organisation. The next step was to identify prospective mentors from the millennial population. PwC initially rolled out the programme at their offices in the UK, however, the success of the pilot led to it being replicated in other offices globally. By running this programme, PwC not only ensured more intergenerational collaboration, but also ensured diversity was being promoted within the organisation. It was no more left to the HR function to ensure diversity – in terms of gender balance and ethnic mix. The leaders, who participated in the programme, soon started talking about the importance of diversity and inclusion in case of recruitment, performance management and team building.  

While the concept brings about several benefits to the business, it is not always an easy programme to implement. One of the biggest challenges is the senior executives’ apprehension to learn from less experienced colleagues. To ensure a successful programme, it is important for leaders to have the right attitude about learning from somebody younger and less experienced because one can never stop growing and learning, no matter how prestigious their title is. In case of apprehension from senior executives, it is up to the CEO to set the tone at the top by becoming a mentee. The lyrics from Phil Collins’ ‘Son of Man’ resonate very well here – “In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn”.

As more and more millennials enter the workforce, it is time more companies take note of the business benefits of reverse mentoring. Not only does it provide knowledge and guidance to older workers about emerging trends, but it is also a way to ensure more active collaboration between generations.