In a world of ‘quiet quitting’ and disrupted workplace environments the power of mentorship has never been more important. With its proven ability to increase job satisfaction and boost your career trajectory, mentorship is a practice that could have the largest effect on your day-to-day work life and career establishment. Yet only 37% of professionals have a mentor.
Mentorship is an invaluable addition to our careers, particularly when we are starting to form a new foundation - whether that be in a new company, new position, or the start of your career itself. The expertise, wisdom, and outside perspective offered by a mentor can save you time, and stress and even increase your potential to receive a salary increase.
Sun Microsystems performed an analysis of 1,000 employees over a 5-year period and found that both mentors and mentees were 20% more likely to get a raise than those who didn’t participate in a mentorship program and those who mentored others were six times more likely to have been promoted to a bigger job. Mentorship is also shown to increase confidence and empowerment of not just the mentees but the mentors, helping boost job satisfaction and fulfillment.
Beyond these stats and factors, I believe that mentorship is one of the strongest avenues to address ageism in corporate culture. For younger mentees, the wisdom and experience of their more established mentors can be fully realised and valued. Not only this but companies can recognise the value of their established staff members and their contributions not only to the workplace but to the new hires and future leaders of their company.
With less than 5% of people in the ad industry over 50, there has been a large push within the media industry to address ageism. Greg “Sparrow” Graham has spearheaded a new industry group the Advertising Ageist Action Group (AAAG) to tackle this issue and see those with established careers in the industry be valued for their experience and not underestimated based on stereotypes, particularly around digital know-how. The impact of mentorship goes beyond regular workplace interactions, helping build stronger relationships within the industry. I believe that mentorship can play a role in how we tackle issues of ageism and workplace satisfaction in authentic ways. Boosting connections and experience across industry disciplines and creating more diversity of thought and opinion.
Mentorship has been something I have been lucky to experience throughout my career, and it has shaped who I am and where I am today. As a young professional, I believe mentorship builds confidence in yourself and your career path beyond what can be achieved through study. It’s an opportunity for self-reflection and growth, helping you consider how you can become a better version of yourself. Here are some tips to help you integrate mentorship into your career:
It’s never too early for a mentor:
When I was first mentored I hadn’t yet finished my undergraduate. I had about six months left in my degree and had no idea how to make myself more employable. Sydney is a competitive landscape when starting a career and I had done all the ‘right’ things, gotten an internship, volunteered, and took part in a leadership program. I had even taken a workplace improvement course but even with all of this experience, I didn’t know where I wanted my career to go, or how to take that next step.
It was after a casual conversation with a friend of mine that the idea of marketing came up. My friend was the General Manager of a multinational company and encouraged me to consider marketing, even helping me apply for a traineeship at her workplace. Now, before you call nepotism, I didn’t get the traineeship - I didn’t have a lick of experience in a proper marketing role, let alone for a large manufacturing and sales company but what I did do was look into how marketing worked and got inspired. I went on to study a Masters of Marketing after I graduated and my mentor has continued to help guide my decisions and influence my thinking.
Don’t let the perception of needing a role or job within your field of interest stop you from finding a mentor or mentorship program. If you wait you never know what you could miss through your inexperienced thoughts. Seek out the wisdom of someone who has done it before, who knows and understands the world we live and work in to help make smarter decisions that you didn’t even realise you could enjoy.
Find a mentor on the job:
When we first begin our career it can be a whirlwind of confusion and uncertainty. If you studied at University you might also enter the workplace having certain expectations on how things work, only to realise that your lecturers were right when they said that most of your education comes from on-the-job experience rather than your studies.
Seeking out a mentor within your team or workplace can drastically shift your ability to learn and excel in your position. They can help you understand roles, perceive your passions, and identify your skills in a way you yourself are unable to. Consider the people you run into on a daily basis or even the ones you look up to in the workplace as potential new mentors. You never know what someone's answer might be if you don’t ask, so reach out and go for it. Small Hint: Offering to catch up over a coffee always helps to calm the nerves and make a positive first start.
Integrate a mentorship into your development plan:
One of the best ways to find a mentor within a workplace is to speak to your manager. When you are doing your workplace development plan or checking in on your performance review, discuss the opportunity for a mentorship. Not only does this mean you’re able to receive guidance from someone you work with daily but they will also be able to understand your weaknesses and development areas (and trust me we all have them) and pair you with a mentor that can strengthen that need. It also increases the opportunity to create a network beyond your day-to-day role, helping meet new departments and explore different disciplines to upskill and find your niche.
I recently spoke to my team leaders about further mentorship opportunities, they weren't able to give me an answer straight away but what it resulted in was a cross-business mentorship program where I now have the opportunity to meet and be mentored by someone from a large agency group who leads their strategy division. This would never have been something I could have achieved on my own, nor was it an opportunity I foresaw my business investing in. The people around you want you to succeed and you might be surprised at how much effort they put into creating positive opportunities for your growth.
Look outside of your work and university:
Outside perspective means you have the ability to grow as a worker and human. Not only this but everyone has an agenda, even if they don’t mean it and so going beyond your workplace means you can find varied opinions and thought starters for ways to progress or details to consider. The best way to do this is through a mentorship program, it takes away the intensity of reaching out to a single person directly (which you can definitely do over LinkedIn but be courteous and don’t always expect a response!). Not only this but programs are crafted to help match a mentee with the right mentor. They also are usually focused on a particular discipline or growth area. There are leadership mentorship programs, media mentorship programs and even niche community-focused programs to be found. Hope on Google and pursue these opportunities!
Be prepared for your mentorship sessions:
Don’t go in expecting your mentor to have all the answers and do all the work. Look into their background and experience, write down a list of questions about their journey, or ask for tips they wish they had when they first started. My tip is to get a notebook dedicated to your mentorship sessions (but phone notes work just fine) and discover some things about yourself and where you want to end up. Knowing yourself first and where you want to go will help shape the questions you ask and your mentor understand your goals. Business and marketing are a broad discipline and there are so many avenues to grow, understanding where you want to be will help your mentor understand how to get you there.
If you take on any of these tips please reach out and let me know how it goes. If you ever have questions you can always send them through the forum at the bottom of the page.
Until next time,
Emily
Yorumlar