This article is written by Derek Lett, director, Office of the Integrity Commissioner, Ontario

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I began my public service career as an intern in the early 1990’s at the Ministry of Transportation in the Ontario Public Service, Canada.

As a young university graduate entering the public service for the first time, I was lucky to be surrounded by colleagues and managers who took an interest in me and my career, proactively offered advice and assistance and remained available to me if, and when, I needed them. This all appeared to be done naturally, which did not occur to me at the time that I was being mentored. I did not have the vocabulary, but I recognised how important the experience and the behaviours were to me and so, I chose to emulate them with others as I progressed in my own career.

Mentorship can be described as an ongoing relationship between two or more people in which information, experiences and knowledge are shared in a participant-friendly, non-judgemental environment for the professional and personal growth of the participants involved.

Formal mentorship programs can be an excellent complement to other forms of learning that are available to employees in an organisation. When done well, a mentorship program can boost employee morale, increase employee pride in an organisation and improve the external reputation of an organisation amongst its peers, as an employer of choice.

It is well known that having leadership buy-in, support and commitment to a program increases the likelihood of its success. Designing an innovative mentorship program is no different

There are three main types of mentorship programs that organisations can develop. Traditional mentorship is the most common. This is usually informal in nature and involves a more senior and experienced executive (mentor) partnering with, or more likely taking, a junior, less experienced employee (mentee) under his/her wings to share their insights, wisdom and knowledge for the benefit of the mentee.

Then there is reverse mentorship. This tends to be more formal in nature and involves an employee with a special technical skill or knowledge set (mentor), not necessarily based on seniority, partnering with a more senior individual to pass on training, insights and knowledge about the technical skill, again, to the benefit of the mentee.

Finally, there is reciprocal mentorship. This too can be a formal program, but it differs from the other two in that there is no obvious “mentor” and “mentee”. In reciprocal mentorships, both parties are expected to make equal contributions to the relationship and learn from each other. They are “partners”, not mentor and mentee. Unlike traditional and reverse mentorship, in which learning is mainly one-way (from mentor to mentee), in reciprocal mentorship learning is deliberately two-way.

The hallmarks of a good mentorship program

In 2008, the Ontario Public Service (OPS) took the first steps on the journey to make diversity and inclusion an organisational priority — from the way we look (staffing at all levels — from front lines to senior leadership) to the way we design and deliver programs and services to the public — to better reflect the diversity of the Ontario population we serve.

In relation to that priority, I was tasked with developing the first-ever diversity mentorship program for the organisation, as Special Adviser to the Associate Secretary of the Cabinet and Deputy Minister of Government Services. This was a daunting task as there was no template or blueprint for this work at the time. A jurisdictional scan showed that no other public service organisation had any such program in place and there were few, if any, private sector examples from which we could learn.

However, research had shown that formal mentoring can be of great value to employees who may have traditionally been disenfranchised within organisations and/or not “chosen” by informal mentors. As a result, leading a small team of professionals, I designed a reciprocal diversity mentorship program for the OPS, that once fully implemented, became a hallmark and was cited as one of the reasons the organisation received Canada’s Best Diversity Employer Award for the subsequent five consecutive years (2008-2012).

Note that the Ontario Public Service has received this national recognition every year between 2008 and 2019. However, it is in the first five years, 2008-2012, that the mentorship program was specifically mentioned as one of the reasons for the organisation receiving the award.

Today, the mentorship program continues to exist in the OPS, run by line ministries and departments who have adjusted and tailored it to meet their specific needs.

The design, execution and subsequent evaluation of the OPS Diversity Mentorship Program uncovered a number of lessons and best practices that can be applied to the design and launch of a successful mentorship program in any organisation, public or private.

Leadership commitment

It is well known that having leadership buy-in, support and commitment to a program increases the likelihood of its success. Designing an innovative mentorship program is no different.

In the OPS, we were fortunate to have the unwavering support of successive secretaries of the cabinet and public service leaders for diversity initiatives like the diversity mentorship program.

While the Ontario Public Service still has a long way to go to achieve the diversity and inclusion goals it has set for itself, the innovative diversity mentorship program has played an important role in contributing to the progress it has achieved to date

From the initial Secretary of the Cabinet in 2008 (now a Canadian senator) who initiated the development of a diversity strategy in which mentorship was a central feature, to his successors up to current year, the level of consistent leadership support allowed the diversity mentorship program to take root and become part of the organisation’s ongoing diversity training offerings. In addition, to underscore that leadership commitment, the Secretary of the Cabinet encouraged all deputy ministers to participate as mentorship partners so that a clear message about the commitment of the organisation’s most senior leaders to the program was communicated.

Clear program objectives

It must be clear in the mind of the designer as well as the organisation, what the program is intended to achieve. This will not only help to set out what the core program elements should be, it would also help to highlight the key success measures when it comes time to evaluate the program.

The OPS of the early 2000’s faced a number of challenges, including:

  • Looming retirements and the need to plan for organisational renewal (e.g. 19% of all employees and 40% of senior executives were eligible to retire in 5 years)
  • The leadership of the organisation did not reflect the makeup of the organisation’s population or the general population of Ontario in such groups as visible minorities, persons with disability, Aboriginal and First Nations Peoples, Francophones and members of the LBGTQ community.

Within that context, the objective of the mentorship program was to provide an environment of reciprocal learning about diversity, accessibility and inclusion between senior OPS executives and their mentoring partners by:

  • Promoting honest and frank conversations about diversity issues
  • Providing senior OPS executives with an opportunity to learn from, and understand the experiences, challenges and barriers faced by employees different from themselves
  • Creating understanding amongst employee partners about organisational culture and successful career management

We determined that if the program was successful, we would see such outcomes as:

  • The creation of corporate diversity champions (both mentoring partners) who share their knowledge about inclusive work and diversity throughout the organisation
  • The creation of an organisational environment that leads to a more inclusive and diverse feeder pool of candidates for senior leadership positions and;
  • Formal recognition of diversity mentorship participation in the performance contracts and learning plans of deputy ministers and their employee partners.

After the pilot program year in 2008, all 37 leadership partners (deputy, associate deputy ministers and the secretary of the cabinet) and all 69 employee partners were recognised as champions in their workplaces and their participation in the program was reflected and rated in their performance contracts.

Program structure:

It is important to ensure that the criteria for participation in the program align with the established program objectives. Using the OPS Diversity Mentorship Program as an example, the program structure should cover the following:

  • Who qualifies to be participants: In the OPS program, the leadership partners were known (based on the office/position they occupy). However, the employee partners were required to self-identify, were to be at a certain job classification level in the organisation, etc.
  • What are the minimum requirements: State what the expected commitment is regarding the number of mentorship meetings over what period of time (e.g. the OPS required six meetings of one-hour duration over a 12-month period).
  • How to get started and continue: Suggest that participants sign a mentorship contract to have a common understanding of what each party hopes to contribute to and get out of the relationship. Since the program operates in the work environment the parties should agree to rules around communication (how open can they be with each other?) and confidentiality (how should what is shared between them be treated?)

To ensure that the program is achieving the established objectives, consider check-in points at various times throughout to see if adjustments are necessary. This could include a check-in at the beginning of the program, at the mid-point to assess progress; and at the end or program wrap-up.

Program supports

It is advisable to provide mentoring partners with tools and supports to help them get started and to keep them engaged throughout the journey. These could include guides, articles, mentorship contract templates, ideas for discussion starters and fun activities that they can do together to get to know each other quickly and to get the most out of the experience. These are essential, particularly when participants are being asked to discuss difficult and personal subjects such as discrimination and bias in an organisational or employment context.

Evaluate

Build program evaluation into the original design of the program. The various check-in data points can reveal important feedback that can go into design tweaks for future iterations of the program. For example, in the OPS, the feedback we received from participants from the pilot and first year regarding what worked and what didn’t, were crucial to the design changes that were subsequently introduced to improve the program in future years.

While the Ontario Public Service still has a long way to go to achieve the diversity and inclusion goals it has set for itself, the innovative diversity mentorship program has played an important role in contributing to the progress it has achieved to date. — Derek Lett

(Picture credit: Unsplash)