Organisations continue to face myriad challenges with regard to the hybrid workplace. While some findings suggest positive results, like increased productivity from employees working from home, some in leadership are discovering there is actual value to the water cooler conversations. Amidst the discussions of weekend plans, seasoned employees were sharing tidbits of wisdom with their more junior colleagues. Now, those sorts of casual learning exchanges are no longer able to occur as employees get coffee or water. The organic development of mentorship; the sorts of conversations that lead to collaborations and ultimately to learning for all involved have all but disappeared—or at the very least greatly suffered—as employees are remiss to re enter office buildings.
“The Great Transformation” has now given way to “The Great Resistance,” meaning that companies are struggling to bring employees together in-office at the same time. As organisational leadership sorts how to handle direct resistance to company policy, they also need to consider how to help mentorship survive (and thrive) in the hybrid workplace.
Why should organisations care about facilitating mentorship? Because it is absolutely vital to employee retention, recruitment and employee development. Yet one of the greatest barriers to successful mentorship is the development of the mentor-mentee relationship, particularly now in light of unique virtual challenges.
Rapport is the magic word
A shared understanding of one another’s values and perspectives, mutual trust and respect and strong communication is how Harvard Business Review (HBR) defines rapport. Human connection is essential in retaining employees. “A study conducted by Gartner and Capital Analytics at Sun Microsystems found much higher retention rates for mentees (72%) and mentors (69%) than other employees who did not participate in the mentoring program (49%),” according to the HBR article.
Here are some rapport-building tips from HBR:
Allow a holistic mentoring approach: with the collision of professional and private lives from the pandemic, mentors-mentees should be “encouraged” to discuss things outside of work and academics. Additionally, it is wise to call-out new virtual norms and explain, according to the article, that “you never have to apologize for interruptions from children and pets” in order to ease the stress of digital interactions. Mentoring can increase resilience and allow for employees to find greater work and life satisfaction, allowing them to “connect their deeper human motivations and values to their careers, and aligning these two will pay dividends to employers and employees alike.”
Discard group virtual events in favour of one-on-one:
The abundance of virtual happy hours during the pandemic led many employees to develop anxiety and fatigue around them. The time for “connection” morphed into a time of stress. Authentic connection is far more meaningful, therapeutic, and beneficial in general than the large gatherings prompting surface-level connections.
According to the HBR article, one successful activity is for participants in a mentor-mentee scenario to speak for three uninterrupted minutes, telling their life story.
“These 180 seconds are profound; many cannot remember when they truly listened or were listened to for that long. People who were strangers moments ago learned about some of each other’s critical life moments, as people have shared stories about the pain of professional or personal rejection, and other challenges in their lives. You cannot talk meaningfully about careers without talking about the source of our motivations, about family, and about life’s highs and lows,” according to the article.
Allow for various forms of communication:
Encourage mentor/mentee pairs to sort-out their preferred methods of communication. Not everyone likes Zoom and not everyone likes texting, for example. It is one of the first major steps to establishing a game plan.
Embrace advantages of remote mentoring:
Some aspects of mentoring can actually be improved by the remote aspects of communication.
“Remote mentoring can promote equity and build relationships free from the biases we face in person, when we know another’s height, physical ability, or pregnancy status, to name a few examples,” according to HBR. “Without the limiting factor of geographic proximity, you can expand your pool to make great matches that prioritize shared interests and values over logistics.”
Relationships have always been at the heart of everything we do. Building and sustaining them in a virtual world is something that everyone, not only mentors/mentees and organisations, will need to consider. As the bold new horizon of a further expanding digital world reveals itself, it is up to us to face the challenges presented by technology with humility and humanity: growing, adapting, learning and teaching.