At present, several business organizations are trying to maintain a diverse workplace as they consider it as an essential part of encouraging business objectives, such as employee engagement and improving the retention rate.
Greater diversity in workplace can give a commercial entity social, organizational as well as financial benefit. If a company can create a workplace which includes greater representation of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic backgrounds, it will increase the morale of the employees, thus motivating them to work harder. Moreover, a diverse workplace can result in the development of fresh ideas and perspectives, which can lead to greater innovation and ultimately greater returns. This is where diversity mentorship program comes in.
Diversity mentorship programs can help commercial enterprises to create an inclusive workforce. These programs will support diverse populations, including individuals from underrepresented communities in their struggle for career growth and progress. It also helps in breaking down barriers and building relationships by connecting all the employees with each other. Let us now learn about some best practices for diversity mentorship programs.
Best practices for diversity mentorship programs
Some best practices for diversity mentorship programs are:
Define your objectives carefully
As a business leader, it is your duty to ensure that there are clear objectives so that it becomes easier to measure results. Suppose you have a goal like ‘supporting underrepresented employees in the organization’. However, simply having this goal will not give you any direct results. Instead, your goal should be ‘encouraging more underrepresented individuals’ and connect it with a specific goal like monitoring the number of promotions within active mentoring relationships and outside it.
A proper understanding of your chosen group
You must have a proper understanding about the group you are trying to support so that you can meet their requirements and solve their problem. It is recommended that you have regular roundtables with active members of that group and try to find out if there is any scope for improvements.
Prioritize quality over quantity
Quality is always more important than quantity. Imagine you have a large group of mentees compared to a small group of qualified mentors. Although you may want to include every mentees in the program, you should limit the number to the number of mentors available in order to ensure that in-program mentees do not feel left out if they do not have a match. In such a situation, you can keep the enthusiasm among the mentees high by creating a waiting list for those who could not participate in the program and sending them a few updates along the way. This will assure them that they are not forgotten.
Moreover, mentors can sometimes allow additional mentees. It is recommended that the limit should not exceed more than two mentees even if the mentor says that they can take the responsibility of more. This will prevent mentors from getting overwhelmed, thus ensuring that they give a good amount of time in teaching their mentees.
There are numerous benefits of diversity mentorship programs. They connect employees with each other and spread ideas across the company. Although implementing diversity mentoring program can seem challenging, you can try out the above mentioned methods and see the results.
