Women in the Workplace Benefit from Sponsors, as well as Mentors
As we close out National Mentorship Month, we urge companies to take the next step in fostering the career development of promising women within their organizations by adding sponsorship as well mentorship to their programs.
The Paradigm for Parity® coalition emphasizes the importance of mentorship in achieving gender parity and calls on companies to go a step further by giving women potential sponsors, as well as mentors.
Corporate mentorship programs bolster recruiting, encourage employee engagement, and foster employee loyalty and retention. And given that the average cost to recruit and train a new employee is 50–60 percent of an employee’s annual salary, it makes sense for companies to invest in and train future leaders within their workforce. Today, about 70% of Fortune 500 companies have a corporate mentorship program.
Additionally, women of color benefit from mentorship programs that support their career advancement. Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations found that mentoring programs boosted minority representation at the management level by 9 percent to 24 percent and dramatically improved promotion and retention rates for minorities and women (from 15 percent to 38 percent) as compared to non-mentored employees. The adoption of these programs is crucial as women of color statistically receive less support from their management than their white counterparts and currently represent only 3 percent of c-suite level positions.
In 2020, the Paradigm for Parity® coalition urges that companies recognize the distinction between a mentor and a sponsor. Mentors guide and give advice to their more junior colleagues, while sponsors advocate for their proteges. Sponsors take an active role in their proteges’ career advancement and ensure that their names are brought up in discussions about raises and promotions.
Because sponsorship is so closely correlated with career advancement, it is troubling that according to Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of “Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor,” women have on average three times as many mentors as men — but men have twice as many sponsors. Further, a study from Harvard Business Review found that women are “over-mentored and under-sponsored,” which is partially to blame for why women are underrepresented in the top levels of an organization.
Sponsorship is included in Paradigm for Parity® coalition’s 5-Point Action plan. The plan stresses that women of all backgrounds benefit from sponsors and access to networks of influence. And men, who are still the majority of leadership, are important advocates for women.
We invite all companies large and small to join the 114 Paradigm for Parity® coalition companies that are achieving gender parity.
