“One good thing about the pandemic is our ability to identify skill sets in folks that we didn't know they had, we truly didn't know they existed,” said Sandra Borders, chief diversity officer for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Before Covid forced most office workers to transition to remote work, these employees might sit at their desk day after day, doing what they needed to do. “But during the pandemic,” Borders observed, “they were able to really shine, such as in, ‘Not only can I push this paper, but hey, I have these technology skills, these graphic design skills, and this network!”

Borders’ observation epitomized the spirit of the conversation she had with four other speakers as part From Day One’s July virtual conference, “Diversity’s Many Roles: How Mentors, Sponsors and Allies Each Play a Part in Inclusion.” The speakers explored the value of mentorship and sponsorship in helping colleagues develop new skills, as well as the benefits for employers in boosting retention by giving people a sense of belonging–a key asset in employer branding. They focused as well on the key differences between mentorship, which traditionally is an advisory role, and sponsorship, which involves a leader investing their social capital to boost their protégé’s standing in the organization. Among their insights:

Portrait of a Mentee, and a Mentor

One of the first steps in creating these relationships is pairing suitable partners. Organizations now have something similar to a matchmaking process: worksheets through which mentors and mentees can be matched following a series of criteria, including mutual interests, cultural backgrounds, and line of work. On top of that, individual disposition should be taken into account.

“I think it's important that there is a good mixture between high-potential employees and high performers: anybody could be it at some point in time,” said Jeffery Walker, SVP and chief administrative and diversity officer at SoCalGas. “And maybe the mentoring opportunity is just the opportunity that they need to make that transition and help them to step up into a higher-performing role.”

Borders echoed Walker’s sentiment about the need to nudge people who might have a lot of potential, but who are less prone to raising their hands. “One of my visions, and something that we started to do, is to formalize the mentoring process more with a focus on getting more managers mentoring lower-level managers, if you will, in order to help build their skills and to help them in their developmental processes,” she said.

Karen Rodriguez La Paz, the global head of diversity and inclusion at Purple Innovation, which makes mattresses and other furnishings, said her company broadens the concept of mentorship by allowing mentees to get mentorship across departments, including manufacturing, retail operations, customer care, and administration. “So you are able to try out your skills on a particular project and see if you can develop them further within the organization,” she said, “and help utilize that to be able to transition from one side of the organization to the other."

Formalizing the Process vs. Overstepping

In an ideal mentorship program, there is a fine balance between formal and informal modes of operation. Mentors are not in a managing role, so they need to set boundaries about how directly and forcefully they steer their mentees. “Guard rails are important,” said Tonya Hempstead, VP of diversity, equity and inclusion at American Express Global Business Travel. “Some leaders are great at their jobs and have great intentions, but good intentions can have bad outcomes.”

The burden of striking that balance falls on the mentor, said Vincent Guglielmetti, a VP and operations general manager at Intel. “The mentor needs just as much help in figuring out how you approach these discussions,” he said, stressing the importance of mentors understanding the dynamics before they start offering guidance. “We actually set it up to say that it isn't your job to go tell these people, ‘This is what you need to do; this is how you're going to grow; this is what's going to happen,’” he continued.

A mentor, rather, has to spend time asking questions, because sometimes the mentee isn't sure what they want. And a mentor, ideally, also wants to make sure their mentee is motivated about where they're going. A mentor might think that their protégé would be great at something, but the mentee may simply lack interest in it. “They might say, ‘That's not really what I want to do.’ We've judged them before we even got started in the conversation,” Guglielmetti said.

Providing context and perspective is another role of the mentor. “Sometimes the mentee does not know what they need to know,” said Walker, who typically devotes 3/4 of his mentoring time to career-focused issues and the remaining time addressing more personal components. “It's the entire person that you need to care about here. In most cases it’s going to be more focused on the career path, but there are a lot of ancillary components that contribute to their performance that you can help them with in the course of that relationship that you have with them.”

The Image of Success 

At Intel, a successful mentoring relationship means, at minimum, not seeing people fall out of the company. “That's a very low bar,” acknowledged Guglielmetti. “You know, looking at the metrics: How are people moving in the organization? Are we seeing lower attrition rates? Have we been able to build, within those leaders, some of the skills that they said were lacking?”

We know that people can be incredibly diverse in their skill sets, and often they haven't been offered the opportunity to showcase some of those skills. “You know, we've had some folks who are graphic designers, and happen to be really phenomenal influencers. We had no idea!,” said Purple Innovation’s Rodriguez La Paz. “And we thought, ‘Well, wow, you started over in the production side of the organization, but it would be great to align your skill sets with marketing.’ So this is where the desire and the need to address that really spurred from. We're starting to see some of those transitions. And that is integral for us, because we want them to not just have an opportunity to show their talents internally, but also out in the communities where we reside.”

Mentorship vs. Sponsorship

Until management experts started defining these roles more precisely, they tended to blur together. “Sponsorship is one of those relationships that just occur,” said Hempstead. “I had various leaders that invested in me. It did happen naturally.” At Purple Innovation, said Rodriguez La Paz, “We define sponsorship very similarly: help folks grow. A sponsor connects individuals to leaders, opportunities, and networks for them to be elevated. My ability to grow has come from leaders who had a desire to see me grow. They saw my potential and where I could go. My leaders have come from tech, supply and diversity.”

Ultimately, though, sponsorship and mentorship are invariably tied together. “It may not be the mentor who will be the sponsor, but someone the mentor knows,” said Borders. Continuity is one of the most important determinants of success, she said. “A relationship can start promising, but at some point you can find a disconnect.” The way to avoid that, she said: “Check ins!”

Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Milan and Brooklyn.