5 Reasons You Need a Reverse Mentoring Program

In a traditional mentorship arrangement in the workplace, a seasoned employee shares knowledge and insights with a less-experienced, and usually younger, colleague. Reverse mentorship turns that concept on its head: The less-seasoned professional acts as the mentor, sharing their skills and perspectives with a senior team member, helping to spark fresh ideas, boost technology skills and enhance collaboration.

Reverse mentoring is becoming a go-to tool for employee learning and engagement in many companies—and for good reason. Here are five ways this form of mentoring can create benefits for professionals on both sides of the arrangement.

5 Key Benefits of Reverse Mentoring Programs 1. It expands perspectives and fosters understanding 2. It facilitates the transfer of both technical and soft skills 3. It helps build confidence and accelerate professional growth 4. It encourages continuous learning 5. It builds bridges between different generations in the workforce

1. It expands perspectives and fosters understanding

Reverse mentoring can provide participants with a clearer view of work practices and processes across the organization.

Highly seasoned staff, who may have started their careers with the company years or even decades ago, may appreciate the opportunity to gain a better understanding of the tools, workflows and challenges other employees are conditioned to today.

Meanwhile, by mentoring a more experienced colleague, up-and-coming professionals can gain insights into the mindset and work ethic that can help them grow professionally and advance their careers in the organization.

Reverse mentoring can also lay the groundwork for effective succession planning by helping the organization identify aspiring leaders.

2. It facilitates the transfer of both technical and soft skills

Digital technology dominates many professions today, and it’s no secret that this is one area where younger generations in the workforce can have an edge. They’ve grown up around computers, the internet and social media, and integrating new technology tools into their everyday work often comes naturally.

Partnering with more digitally savvy workers can benefit employees who need to improve their tech skills. Through reverse mentoring (or even peer-to-peer mentoring), they can adapt to new tools, like generative AI, more quickly and confidently, and learn to make the most of platforms for collaboration like Slack or Microsoft Teams.

This type of knowledge transfer between employees can also benefit the broader organization by helping to improve communication and promote innovation.

3. It helps build confidence and accelerate professional growth

Navigating the workplace can be tricky, especially for new hires who may be right out of college or professionals who are still early in their careers. Reverse mentoring provides a platform for these workers to find their footing faster and accelerate their professional development, too.

By sharing ideas and collaborating with more senior members of the organization, less-seasoned workers can learn more about the company culture. They can also sharpen soft skills, which will serve them well as they settle into the workplace and grow in their roles.

4. It encourages continuous learning

It’s easy for professionals further along in their careers to let their skills and knowledge get a little stale. But every day offers the chance to learn something new.

While it’s no substitute for a comprehensive upskilling and reskilling program, the experience of being paired with a junior colleague may inspire a more tenured team member to reflect on how their role has evolved and consider ways to expand their skills and knowledge.

Discover other powerful ways to support employee development and advancement at your company.

5. It builds bridges between different generations in the workforce

Generational myths have no place in a positive, collaborative and productive workplace. That said, a person’s age may indeed influence their work style and preferences. For example, a professional in their sixties might enjoy speaking on the telephone more than someone in their twenties.

Mentoring and reverse mentoring arrangements help promote mutual respect between generations in the workplace and an appreciation that tasks and problems can be approached in multiple ways.

See our workplace research to learn more about what professionals from different generations want from their jobs and expect from employers.

How to launch a reverse mentoring program

If you’d like to implement a reverse mentoring program at your company, here are a few tips to help set you on the path to success:

Communicate the purpose of the program—Explain to your staff members why and how reverse mentoring can help advance the goals of the business and its employees. It’s the first thing prospective candidates for the program will want to know.

Make it measurable—Setting metrics from the outset will allow you to track your program’s successes and shortcomings, so you can continue evolving your efforts over time. Also, keep up with participants over the next year, two years or five years to see how the program has helped them in their careers.

Involve the right people—When you’re on the ground floor with reverse mentoring in your workplace, be sure to choose participants who are passionate about the program and likely to champion it to their colleagues. This will help your program to grow and thrive.

Learn how to find the right mentor to support professional development with these seven practical tips.

Learning can always be a two-way street. By cutting across traditional hierarchies and empowering your less-experienced employees to guide their more experienced colleagues, you can build a learning culture at your company where everyone feels invested in and valued.

Feel inspired to start mentoring yourself? Check out these five essential tips to kick off your mentoring journey.

For additional resources on mentoring, and to learn about International Mentoring Day, visit Mentoring.org.

Search jobs Get hiring help