Updated on December 21, 2023
Background
SAP is a global business applications provider with a rich history of innovation and a learning-focused culture. In June, I attended a 2-day summit with more than 70 learning and development leaders from different areas within SAP. On the shuttle from dinner back to the hotel one evening, small talk with my seatmate revealed a common connection: she was an alum of my graduate program! When I mentioned that I would be completing an internship in the fall term, she encouraged me to get back in touch with her after the conference to see what opportunities she could send my way.
Being someone that appreciates a moment of serendipity when it arises, I knew that I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. Sure enough, she had a great project for me: research and evaluate two peer learning methodologies (sponsorship and reverse mentoring) to determine if (and how) they could be incorporated into SAP’s existing peer learning portfolio. SAP currently offers coaching, mentoring, and workshop facilitation services.
Each program has a well-defined structure and supporting architecture. The Coaching program partners employees with externally-certified coaches who enhance their self-awareness and soft skills by asking them thought-provoking questions and fostering self-reflection. The Mentoring practice focuses on pairing employees with more experienced colleagues who provide experience-based advice in a specific area. The Workshop Facilitation service provides an experienced, objective facilitator to guide teams through workshops so they can focus on output rather than procedure.
In her book (Forget a Mentor) Find a Sponsor: The New Way to Fast-Track Your Career, Sylvia Ann Hewlett (2013) posits sponsors as springboards that launch employees into action towards achieving their career goals. According to Hewlett’s research, sponsors tend to have a positive impact on their protégés’ compensation, project ownership, and career advancement.
Reverse mentoring pairs senior employees with young, entry-level talent with the goal of having the junior employees advise the senior ones on new skills and knowledge that they need in order to do their work in today’s world of rapidly-evolving technology, media, and trends (DeAngelis, 2013). Companies that have implemented reverse mentoring programs have seen benefits not only for the mentees, but also for the mentors–including lower turnover rates among younger employees (Kwoh, 2011).
With the potential benefits of these initiatives in mind, my task is twofold: recommend plans for (1) a sponsorship program that pairs tenured employees with more senior sponsors to broaden their networks and uncover new opportunities for skill development and career advancement, and (2) a reverse mentoring program that pairs tenured executives with early talent for guidance on new media, current events, and technology. If the final product is approved by SAP’s LCoE2, these programs could be launched to the broader organization.
Scope
The project deliverables include:
- Analysis of sponsorship and reverse mentoring concepts and each methodology’s status within SAP’s current learning environment
- Design recommendations for both methodologies, including matching processes and support required for each party’s enablement
- Evaluation recommendations for each program
Methodology
Project activities will include, but are not limited to: literature review; benchmarking; employee interviews and surveys; check-ins with LCoE2 stakeholders; and blog posts corresponding with the deliverables and overall project progress.
Project success will be determined by: the presence of valuable output that satisfies the deliverable requirements; participant feedback; and the LCoE2 stakeholders’ overall satisfaction with the project output.
