With the UK now in recession, the Great Resignation continuing to rumble on and many sectors already facing severe talent shortages, it has never been more important to invest in and support the teams you already have around you.

We are in turbulent times, and it remains unclear how long these current crises will last. Preparing your existing workforce not only to ride out the storm, but to thrive and develop will be beneficial now while future proofing the careers of your talent and your business.

Mentoring is a critical tool for nurturing the next generation, particularly for women who are still underrepresented in senior roles. It is disappointing that, as of March 2022, just nine of the UK FTSE’s 100 companies were headed by female chief executives, although recruitment experts blame a general shortage of women in senior leadership roles.

For people who engage productively with mentoring programmes, the benefits can be career-defining. Mentees will grow in confidence, improve their leadership capabilities, and achieve promotion and progress towards their career goals. Mentors benefit too by gaining new perspectives and honing their own people and leadership skills.

A flexible approach

Traditionally, mentoring is a relationship between two people with the goal of professional and personal development. The ‘mentor’ tends to be more experienced and will share knowledge, experience and advice with the less experienced “mentee”. As the pandemic forced us to dramatically alter how we work, mentoring has evolved to become more fluid and flexible.

While mentoring remains an exchange of ideas, helping to remove barriers for the next generation of talent, a flexible workforce requires a more flexible approach. Forcing people to commit to a long-term process that may not be right for their situation won’t produce the best results. Nor will unnecessarily lengthy or burdensome application processes or forms that slow down the matchmaking process.

Sessions don’t necessarily need to be formal, sit-down meetings. Grabbing a coffee with someone to support them on a project or giving advice, helping someone find new connections and build their personal network, or just being an approachable face can all count towards mentoring. Mentors don’t have to be senior leaders, either. Peer-to-peer mentoring can be hugely valuable, too. After all, everyone brings experiences to the table that are inspiring and informative for others.

When designing a new mentoring programme in our agency, we broke many of the ‘traditional rules’. The outcome was ‘Magpie’, a self-serve app that connects staff to mentors, depending on their needs. Magpie is integrated into our day-to-day tool, Microsoft Teams, and it features a directory of mentors that can be searched by role, name or topic. Think of it like the well-known ‘Top Trumps’ game: users can explore the profiles and message the most relevant person.

Matching mentor with mentee

For young talent, looking for a mentor can be a daunting task. Does your organisation already have mentoring programmes, and are they promoted to your teams? Or, encourage people to look beyond your organisation or industry to find a mentor. Social channels and popular networking platforms, such as LinkedIn, can be a great place to start.

If you don’t have a programme in place, consider who at your organisation would benefit from a mentoring scheme. Is there someone in your own business who fades into the background at meetings? Could you help build their confidence? Also, consider mentoring someone from a different company to build your experience. Through connecting, you could build not only their network but your own.

A coffee is all it takes to start a mentoring relationship. If it goes well and feels like a great fit, it will develop naturally from there. We all thrive by having allies – people who support us and raise us up. When leaders act as mentors to the next generation, they get the personal satisfaction of seeing others succeed. At the same time, they gain a greater understanding of a range of workplace dilemmas and can even help to solve issues before they arise.

Meanwhile, creating a network across – and indeed beyond – the organisation fosters collaboration and can help boost engagement and morale, as well as provide an environment where workers can thrive and look to the future with confidence.

Isn’t that something we could all benefit from in these volatile and uncertain times?