Popularity in Parental Mentoring Scheme Soars
Looking for a long-term, cost-effective way of supporting your working parents? Consider setting up a Parental Mentoring Scheme. We have noticed a surge in demand over the last 12 months for support in setting up a long-term, supportive scheme, which includes all parents, with so many benefits:
Benefits to the mentee
- Increased confidence
- Ability to openly discuss concerns
- More motivation
- Better self-management and work/life balance
- More informed return to work choices
- Greater understanding of the company’s culture and politics
- More focused career direction
Benefits for the business
- Enhanced productivity
- Enhanced wellbeing
- Improved return and retention rates from family-related leave
- Improved networking & relationships across different teams and business areas
- Most cost-effective as it can be run internally (once the mentors have been trained)
Benefits to the mentor
- Improved communication skills
- Enhanced leadership skills
- Enhanced career prospects
- Personal satisfaction
Many HR Professionals are initially put-off by the concern that this is a time-consuming exercise. However, all that is really involved is internal advertising for potential mentors. Once a group has been identified, we can hold a mentor-training workshop, which will equip the mentors with the skills and confidence they need to best support new parents in the workplace. We can help the delegates build their personal profiles, which can then be loaded onto your intranet page. A launch email from a senior sponsor works wonders, followed by advertising the mentoring scheme to all your expectant and new parents.
Jenifer Denby, HR Business Partner for Towers Watson, shares her maternity mentoring journey:
Towers Watson is committed to helping our associates have a smooth transition to maternity or shared parental leave and then back to work again.
Last year we introduced Maternity Leave Guidance for Associates and Managers which was produced by a project team from across our lines of business.
Since launching the guidance in September 2014, over 150 associates and their managers have benefitted from the guidance, with feedback being overwhelmingly positive.
But we haven’t stopped there!
With the help of Parenting for Professionals we’ve implemented further support to working parents, following maternity or shared parental leave, by launching a mentoring network. The aims of our mentoring network are to help:
- share knowledge and experiences, enabling associates to be open about their goals
- Associates benefit from the experience of others in addressing the issues associated with returning to work
- minimise any negative impact, actual or perceived, that an extended absence could have on an associate’s career.
In addition, a team of Towers Watson volunteers has been trained as mentors by Parenting for Professionals who understand our needs and what we are hoping to achieve. The mentoring network is in its infancy but already we’ve got four mentees signed up and we are looking forward to it gathering more momentum in the coming months.
Please click here for more information on our parental mentoring programme.