3 Diversity mentoring

Mentoring can also enhance diversity and inclusion within an organisation, supporting individuals who are facing barriers themselves and raising awareness of different perspectives.

As Clutterbuck et al. (2012, p. 1) explain:

Watch this short video to hear from some of the participants of the Government Communication Service’s ‘Connecting Diverse Voices’ scheme.

Download this video clip.Video player: mc_2_wk4_connecting_diverse_voices.mp4

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Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

CHERYL:

Connecting diverse voices is a mutual mentoring scheme that brings together colleagues from across the government communications service to share their experiences on equality and diversity issues and their own professional career expertise.

LAURIE:

It provides a platform that you can tailor to your own needs and desires, addressing any area of diversity and inclusion that you're interested in.

CHERYL:

Colleagues with diverse viewpoints and experience in diversity and inclusion are matched with senior civil servants who are keen to raise their awareness on diversity inclusion issues.

SPEAKER 3:

We've asked some of our participants to share their experiences to give you a taste of what CDV is like.

ASIF:

I'm obviously BAME, and so I have an understanding of the issues surrounding that and what it's like for BAME people in the Civil Service, but I wanted to learn about someone who was from a different background. Some of the issues they're facing.

CHRIS:

The conversations around it help encourage my team and other teams to feel confident about this. I think this is an area that people have felt less confident about, so giving people the opportunity to talk about it in a different way actually enables them to be more confident and more likely to find the right solutions.

JUSTINE:

It was a great learning experience, a great opportunity to branch out of my department network, and I think it's a great way to meet people that you wouldn't normally cross paths with and you wouldn't necessarily make the effort to talk to and get to know.

ROXANNE:

It gave me the opportunity through all the work that I've been doing in diversity and inclusion to share that, but also learn a great deal about what's happening for somebody in a different organisation as well.

End transcript

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If you want to understand more about enhancing diversity in your workplace, look for the OpenLearn Badged Open Course ‘Diversity and inclusion in the workplace’.

Now you have a better idea of the impact mentoring can have, in the next section you’ll start to look at the process involved.