Press Feature
A Push for Equality through Mentoring
By Laura Francis
Published in Training Journal
August 22, 2019
Organizations can take a step toward tackling inequality by elevating female employees with mentoring. This article by River’s Chief Knowledge Officer, Laura Francis, in Training Journal shares three ways to do so.
*************************
Article Sneak Peek:
When formal corporate mentoring programs gained popularity in the ’80s, the focus was on getting more women into leadership roles and creating better equality in the workplace. So how are we doing nearly 40 years later?
Catalyst released a report in January 2019 called the Missing Pieces Report, in which they showed that women made up 22.5% of Fortune 500 boards in 2018. To be fair, this was a modest increase from the reported 15.7% of female board members for Fortune 500 companies in 2004, but a 6.8% increase over the course of 14 years is more disheartening than cause for celebration.
And as has been widely reported, in early 2019 LeanIn.org conducted their first workplace survey since the #MeToo movement, and the results are not good.
40% of male managers in the U.K. and 60% of male managers in the U.S. are afraid to be alone with a woman in typical workplace activity, such as mentoring, working alone, or socialising together. That is a 33% and 32% increase from the previous year respectively.
These are horrendous statistics. The old adage of ‘one step forward, two steps back’ feels very appropriate here.
Rather than shy away from mentoring, we should be pushing to bring more equality into our mentoring programs and mentoring relationships so that everyone can have the chance to learn and develop new skills.
Continue reading “A Push for Equality through Mentoring” here.
