In celebration of the UK’s Black History Month, Taboola’s employee resource groups (ERGs) TaboolaInCulture and Taboola Black are running multiple initiatives in the UK, such as a “Proud to be Black in Tech” fireside chat between UK and US industry leaders June Sarpong OBE, TV Presenter, Diversity Expert & Award-winning Author (UK), and Jasmine McElroy, DEI Strategy Expert (US), alongside a video series spotlighting multicultural leaders within Taboola. We invite you to register for the webinar here.
However, we wanted to take our initiative a step further by creating an internal mentorship programme called MyMentor, focused on providing support and career guidance for our staff members from multicultural backgrounds through 1-to-1 mentoring from senior colleagues at Taboola.
Devising this programme began with a brainstorming session with our ERG members on what they would like to gain from a mentor. From there, we created a framework with guidelines on the mentor/mentee relationship.
We also found this initiative to be a great opportunity to offer reverse mentoring, which is the principle of bringing together junior employees from diverse backgrounds with senior executives. The mentee acts as a mentor to the more senior person to help them be more aware and have a greater understanding of how privilege, bias and systemic barriers can affect career opportunities and day-to-day experiences.
Mentoring has numerous benefits to both the individual and the organisation, 71% of Fortune 500 companies have mentoring programs, resulting in:
- Increased retention – 94% of employees said they would stay at a company longer if they were offered opportunities to learn and grow.
- Increased productivity – 67% of businesses reported an increase in productivity due to mentoring.
- Positive impact on profits – 55% of businesses felt that mentoring had a positive impact on their profits.
- Increased diversity – Mentoring programs boosted minority representation at the management level from 9% to 24%.
- Increased retention – Top reasons for millennials wanting to quit their jobs are ‘Not enough opportunities to advance’ at 35% and ‘Lack of learning and development opportunities’ at 28%.
Organisations like Taboola that support employee-beneficial initiatives and provide a platform for minority staff members build a stronger culture that’s more connected, engaged, and filled with people who want to grow within the organisation and make a difference.