The digital environment is the natural habitat of millennials; however, it is a mostly unknown world for many senior executives. In this context emerges a new approach to mentoring, in which roles can be exchanged.

Taking into account that digitalization already is part of everyday life and has penetrated the corporative world, some companies think that a good way to become familiar with these trends is through the direct exchange with others, and that can be enhanced if those others are work colleagues.

Henkel launched its Reverse Mentoring Program and during the past few months over 160 young digital talents from all over the world have adopted the role of mentors, meeting with over 220 senior managers of the company. These young digital talents shared their knowledge on the influence of the digital world through individual sessions.  Mentors demonstrated their behaviour as users, showed their favorite apps and discussed general digitalization trends with the executives.

The Reverse Mentoring Program was successfully developed in 17 different countries and was a joint initiative of the Human Resources and the Corporative Communications Departments. For Henkel, this project means another step towards digital culture and the answer obtained from the participants was very positive: nine out of ten would recommend the mentoring program to their colleagues.

An excellent initiative to imitate and adapt.

Source: Equipos&Talento