Partnering with younger coworkers is a great way to gain experience, make connections, and learn new abilities. Mentoring relationships are known to have many positive effects, such as making mentees happy at work and opening doors to more professional and financial possibilities.
Mentoring connections in the workplace often include a more seasoned professional lending a hand to a less seasoned colleague. On the other hand, “reverse mentoring” partnerships, where a younger mentor assists a more seasoned protégé, may also be a great method for employees of different generations to interact and learn from one another.
According to Cirkel’s creator Charlotte Japp, “the data shows that as we progress in time, more and more people will report to someone who’s younger than them.” Cirkel is a membership platform that connects mentors and protégés from different generations. In addition to helping us become more at ease reporting to someone younger, working with a mentor who is younger than us may teach us that everyone has something valuable to teach us.
How to locate and collaborate with a younger mentor is the subject of this article.
1. Determine your learning objectives.
Reflect on your knowledge and experience in the workplace. Could someone with a tech-savvy upbringing be of assistance in some areas? You may enroll in a class, for instance, to hone your social media planning skills. But if you’re looking for a specialized, individualized approach to learning, it could be helpful to locate someone who is already proficient with the tools you’re interested in, such as TikTok or PowerPoint, so you can learn all the ins and outs of those programs.
“That generation was making videos from scratch, editing them, and posting them all within three and a half minutes multiple times a day while we were busy raising our children,” remarks Chandra Turner, aka the Talent Fairy, a career counselor. The best method to acquire good coaching is to find a younger person who is already successful in the field you wish to study.
Locate a suitable match by tapping into your network.
Get suggestions from people you already know as you figure out what you want to learn and what you want to accomplish. Diversity and mentorship expert Dinye Hernanda suggests using LinkedIn and other social media to find like-minded individuals with whom to strike up conversations. She advises being forthright about your identity and the reason for your outreach. She recommends sending messages like “I’m interested in learning [something in their area of expertise],” “I’d like to get perspective from someone from a younger generation,” or “You have an expertise that I’m interested in” as a way to start a discussion.
Opportunities to engage with younger mentors may be available via established mentoring programs at certain workplaces. Plus, there are communities that match people, such as Cirkel. Japp claims that watching her parents “pushed out” of long-term employment due to ageism in their 40s and 50s inspired her to start her own firm. Contrarily, Japp was fully engrossed in the mundane tasks of the publishing industry as she was just starting out in her profession. From social media strategy to negotiating tactics, her parents sought her advice as they made the shift to consulting. She saw a chance for individuals of different generations to learn from one another and jumped at the chance.
3. Make your demands clear and concise.
Once you’ve found someone who may be a suitable fit, make sure your requests are clear. According to Hernanda, it’s not uncommon for older employees to be curious in new technology and how they may be put to use. Furthermore, she often comes across requests for younger generational comments on leadership approaches. Be specific about what you want to gain from working with a mentor and what you can reasonably expect from them in terms of time and effort invested (for example, requesting that they meet with you once a month for a few months or allowing you to witness their sessions).
Japp adds that it’s smart to have relationship objectives. She suggests setting a timeline for your relationship goals and discussing how you will evaluate their performance.
4. Give the connection space to develop
Hernanda advises striking a balance between planning beforehand to ensure success and leaving room for impromptu dialogue. The mentor’s knowledge and the mentee’s requirements might be better understood as you get to know one other, she adds. That could spark some fresh ideas for how to assist one another or spark some interesting conversations. She reflects on a mentorship connection that she had in 2020, when she was asked for her thoughts on the Black Lives Matter rallies. “Diversity and inclusion wasn’t even on the table when we started,” she explains. “That became an essential component of the mentoring, and we did spend two sessions discussing it.”
Remain modest and inquisitive. 5.
According to Hernanda, mentorship relationships that span generations are most fruitful when both mentor and mentee maintain an attitude of humility and curiosity. Never presume that your opponent has no lessons to teach you. Establish a comfortable environment for conversation by asking questions. The goal is to gain knowledge, and honest dialogue is often the most effective method to achieve just that. She tells you that this is your opportunity to ask questions that you would be awkward asking a total stranger. Naturally, it’s wise to establish conversation guidelines beforehand to ensure everyone is at ease with possible subjects.
6. Seek for ways to contribute
As you seek advice and guidance from a younger mentor, you could also discover ways to impart some knowledge to them, advises Japp. Volunteer to provide a hand or share your knowledge the next time you have the chance. The phrase “reverse mentoring” has two connotations, she continues. In addition to denoting an older person who guides a younger one, it may also describe a mentoring relationship in which the two people involved provide assistance to one another.
In a mentoring relationship, “[Mentoring] should always be a reciprocated thing, where it feels egalitarian and inclusive and everyone’s experience and value counts,” notes Japp.
