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Employee or staff networks, play a key role in encouraging and supporting all employees to feel like they can ‘come as they are’. Networks can successfully contribute to creating inclusive environments and building a sense of community. They also help to facilitate employee engagement and meaningful dialogue about diversity and inclusion at work. 

As long as network group are planned carefully and are aligned with the long-term organisational goals, then it can be fairly straightforward for your organisation to plan their network activities according to the organisation diversity and inclusion people strategies. 

The following network activities for members and peers are beneficial for maintaining your organisation’s business focus in order to deliver your desired benefits.

BAME individuals make up only 10% of the workforce and hold only 6% of top management positions, meaning that Black and other minority individuals in senior managerial positions are often missing in large organisations.

Therefore, being inclusive also means that executive support comes from the top and should filter down through organisation.

Activities such as mentoring and sponsorship .

The McGregor-smith report includes a ‘roadmap to success’ (Appendix X) to moving positively towards a diverse workforce in the short term. It encourages senior leaders to participate in mentoring schemes and sponsorship, share experience and improve opportunities, and is hugely beneficial for BAME employees.

The Race at Work 2015 and 2018 surveys found that ethnic minority employees value mentorship and 31% of black employees want a sponsor to progress on their career.

The Leicester’s Future leaders project can offer your BAME graduates/employees an opportunity to be matched with a mentor through an in-work mentoring programme. Find out more about theproject mentoring programme.

Here are six useful steps to setting up and evaluating an in-house mentoring programme.

Step 1: Define your purpose & goals

Think about the main reasons for wanting to start a mentoring program from an organisational point of view

Identify the key reasons and motivations for people to sign up to the mentoring programme.

Think about what you are trying to achieve from the mentoring programme, and how can you measure success

Step 2: Design the Mentoring Program

There are many areas to consider when designing the specifics of your mentoring programme. This also depends on the type of organisation and the objectives of the program. 

• If it’s inclusive, how can people sign up?
• What is the sign-up process?
• How long will the mentoring relationship last?
• How will you match participants?
• What is the commitment expected from participants?
• How will you monitor progress?

Step 3: Recruit Mentors & Mentees

To ensure you have a good participation rate for the programme, it is vital that you find effective ways to attract people to your mentoring programme.

The following should be considered when attracting mentors to your programme.

1. Communicate the benefits for both mentors and mentees by highlighting what’s in it for them.
2. Remove as many barriers to entry as possible, by emphasising the flexible nature of your programme, and being transparent about the expected commitment.
3. Offer training and support resources.
4. Find the stakeholders and organisational leaders in your organisation with the most influence as they will as ambassadors for the programme and encourage sign ups.

Step 4: Matching Mentors & Mentees 

If your attraction strategy results in lots of eager participants then it’s important to figure out how they can be matched.

The information participants disclose upon sign up – such as background, skills, experience, interests etc can be used to match mentees with mentors who can best help them reach their goals.

Most of the time, this is done manually by the programme managers, as they have the best knowledge of the objectives and participants. 

Step 5: Maintain Momentum

Once the mentors and mentees are matched and connected, your mentoring programme can begin. 

Mentoring can easily lose momentum` without structure, guidance, and inspiration so make sure the mentee outlines clear goals to their mentor for what they want to achieve. 

This will give the relationship direction and objective, as well as hold both parties accountable for reaching the goals.

Create a community around the mentoring programme for example, sending a regular newsletter to all participants of the mentoring programme, featuring content about getting the most out of the relationship.

Step 6: Measure Success 

The final and also most integral stage of starting a mentoring programme is measuring its success against its objectives.

It’s important to measure success across all areas of the mentoring programme even if you haven’t hit all of your targets as a business.

For example, positive outcomes for the mentees in terms of their personal development is a good area to measure.

It’s also crucial to ask for feedback from all participants at this stage.

• Were the mentors satisfied with the outcome of their relationship?
• Would they mentor again?
• What were the biggest challenges? 

Unlike traditional mentoring which is focused on the development of junior mentees, allows both the mentor and mentee to learn from each other through their career differences and experiences.

Reverse mentoring is an effective way to build genuine awareness of the barriers faced by BAME employees. 

Organisations and leaders can demonstrate their commitment to race diversity and inclusion by taking time to get to know employees they may otherwise not have engaged with.

By building an understanding of their mentee’s point of view, reverse mentoring can challenge established hierarchal systems and foster a culture where all experiences, skills and ideas are leveraged. Successful implementation of reverse mentoring improves BAME engagement, overall experience and retention. 

Benefits for senior mentees 

Reverse mentoring provides a tangible opportunity for senior members of staff to lead by example when it comes to inclusion, directing culture change.

Benefits for junior mentors 

 Mentors gain visibility as role models to other BAME employees. 

 Mentors widen their network by building mutually beneficial relationships with senior leaders.

 Reverse mentoring encourages sharing of opportunities and providing mentors with a unique insight into leadership roles.

 Reverse mentoring provides a platform to shape the leadership addresses diversity and inclusion issues. 

BAME individuals also struggle to achieve the same progression opportunities as their White counterparts. 

As a group, they also tend to have , often because of a lack of clear information on training opportunities or progression routes within their workplaces.

This can be more detrimental to their progress if reliant upon opaque or informal processes, or BAME role models or mentors who occupy higher levels within their workplaces. 

Transparency is key in ensuring that everyone within your organisation has equal opportunity to succeed. This includes senior executives being transparent about their own job history in order to allow those who want to progress and succeed to follow the same footsteps.  

Your organisation should also be clear about how the promotion and reward processes work so that everyone knows what they need to do to excel and progress in their role.

In summary, the following recommendations should be implemented in practice to support the progression of BAME employees:

Encourage Diversity from work experience level

Your organisation should provide work experience opportunities to a more diverse selection of individuals, looking beyond their ethnicity and standard social demographic. 

Be Transparent about career pathways

All new entrants to the organisation should receive a formal induction. In addition, standard information should be available to all employees about how the career pathways within organisation, including pay, progression and reward guidelines.

Explain how success has been achieved

Senior managers should publish their job history internally so that junior members of staff have an example of what a successful career path looks like.