On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Why Your Career Needs Reverse Mentoring

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Why Your Career Needs Reverse Mentoring When older workers witness young IT employees making workplace gaffes like referring to the CEO as dude, they may shake their heads and sigh, knowing that the young employees have alotto learn. But when young IT employees watch older workers struggling to understand new technology, well, dude, they may shake their heads and think the same thing. Thats why more employers are starting to explore reverse mentoring. At Mastercard, for example, Chief Human Resource Officer Ron Garrowadmitsthat while hes not a technophobe, I recognized that I had a lot to learn about operating in this new world. So Garrow, 51, began participating in the employers reciprocal mentoring program. He was partnered with 24-year-old Rebecca Kaufman who taught him how to use Twitter and get more out of professional networking sites. He says that Kaufman not only taught him how to better navigate online connections, but also gave him greater insight into younger consumers and how they are changing the industry. Lois J. Zachary, director of theCenter for Mentoring Excellence, says reverse mentoring allows a young IT person togain exposureto a senior-level person, and the senior-level person gets to learn something from the young employee. Senior people benefit from learning what younger people are thinking about. This can help, for example, if theyre developing a new product. A senior-level person needs that input, she says. The young employee benefits from the face time with a senior employee, also allowing them to learn something such as better communication or organizational skills, she says. Research shows that employees often learn more from one another than they do from formal training, but successful reverse mentoring programs should be structured and overseen by a human resources department, Zachary says. She also encourages such programs to set expectations (see more here)