UCL School of Management

15 November 2022

The future of organisational mentorship: should it work both ways?

UCL School of Management Assistant Professor and UCL MBA Programme Director, Jim Berry, has recently featured in an article with BBC Worklife. Entitled, ‘Reverse mentorship: how young workers are teaching bosses’, the article explores the increasing prevalence of younger workers sharing their knowledge with senior executives, helping to unpick the stereotypes that have often divided generations and ultimately helping companies to overcome the new challenges of hybrid working and bringing diversity and inclusion to the forefront.

Alongside the standard top-down approach to mentorship, reverse mentoring encourages a bottom-up exchange of information from junior staff to senior executives within an organisation. It happens, according to Jim, ‘when we shift those roles and the senior person has something they can learn from the junior person’. As well as incorporating reverse mentoring into educational strategies, organisations are also increasingly organising reverse mentoring events, which involves the intentional bringing together of junior employees and leaders for one-off discussions.

Acknowledging the benefits of such practices, Jim notes that, ‘one key thing for employers is intergenerational awareness, as we may view things differently because of the societies we grew up in. Starting these conversations allows us to break down some of these barriers’.

Although reverse mentorship is not a new practice, it appears that its increase in prevalence could not have come at a better time. With Gen Z now entering the workforce, the generational divides have never been greater, with four generations now working together - a phenomenon that has not been seen before this decade.

Read the full article

Last updated Friday, 25 November 2022