Guiding HR leaders to foster productive, thriving, and inclusive workplace cultures. Gracey Cantalupo, CMO at MentorcliQ.
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Employee career trajectories, particularly for Gen-Z, are heavily influenced by the presence of supportive workplace structures.
Let's use "Maya," a Black female recent college graduate entering your organization's Tech Center, to illustrate this impact.
Version 1: Vibe Check Is Mid
If your organization doesn’t offer Maya the community and support she needs, her path could look like this:
The First 90 Days: A Solo Voyage
Maya joins the organization brimming with enthusiasm but finds herself navigating the complexities of corporate culture alone. Without a mentor or the support of employee resource groups (ERGs), like a Women’s ERG or a Black ERG, she struggles to understand the unwritten rules of her environment and find role models who reflect her experiences.
A Year Later: Searching For Connections
A year into her role, Maya feels the absence of structured programs, like a Technology Career Development Program, and lacks a mentor to guide her through potential career paths. Her desire to connect with colleagues who share similar backgrounds or career interests goes unmet, leading to a sense of isolation and a slower professional growth trajectory.
The Subsequent Years: Untapped Potential
As Maya continues with your organization, her growth and opportunities are limited by the lack of formal mentorship and the absence of community. She misses out on the chance to contribute to and benefit from a diverse network of colleagues of color, and her unique perspectives remain largely unrecognized.
The End: An Unfulfilled Journey
In this scenario, Maya's potential is not fully realized, and her sense of belonging within the company remains unfulfilled. The lack of ERGs and mentoring programs not only impacts her personal career development but also represents a missed opportunity for the organization to harness the unique combination of thought and experience she brings.
Version 2: Vibe Check Is On Point
What if Maya had the support, guidance, community and opportunities she craves because your organization offered ERGs and mentoring?
The First 90 Days: A Guided Voyage
Maya is eager to develop her career and ready to take on new challenges. When she starts her journey at your company, she joins two programs: the onboarding program, where she’s assigned a mentor named Alex, and the Women’s ERG, where she's paired with a mentor named Bridget.
Through engaging with Alex, she quickly integrates into the company culture and learns the ins and outs of her role. And from Bridget, her Women’s ERG mentor, she gains deeper insight into the experiences of women employees at the organization, learns insider knowledge on career paths and critical skills needed to advance and gains unexpected introductions to women leaders in different functions to quickly expand her professional network at the company.
When the onboarding program ends, so does her time with Alex, although she stays connected with him. She remains enrolled in the Women’s ERG and engages regularly with her senior-level mentor, Bridget, who helps guide her as she navigates the company culture and develops her career.
A Year Later: Beaming With Connections
After one year at the company, Maya joins the Technology Career Development Program. She’s excited to get a new mentor named Jo to help with this specialty. All the while, she’s still meeting at regular intervals with her Women’s ERG mentor, Bridget. She is also now sharing what she learns in her Technology Career Development Program with her colleagues within the ERG’s mentoring circle.
Next, she joins the company’s Black ERG and begins engaging in personal and professional development with colleagues and mentors in this group. Because she is feeling more confident in what she’s learned from multiple sustained mentoring relationships, she works up the confidence to join mentoring circles within that ERG as a contributor.
As a member of the Black ERG, she learns more about the experience of other Black employees at the organization. And as a continuing member of the Women’s ERG, she gains a cross-cultural and cross-functional perspective from women across the organization. This broadens her understanding of how to successfully navigate a career at your company.
The Subsequent Years: Unlocking Potential
Maya’s Technology Career Development Program ends in success when she meets the goals she outlined with her mentor. She remains involved in both the Women’s ERG and the Black ERG. The mentoring relationships in these programs continue as well. She is building strong connections within the organization, increasing her job satisfaction and the likelihood that she will want to stay longer with your company.
Over the course of several years, she joins different structured mentoring programs that serve different needs based on her career development and skill development. Her active participation puts her in view of executive leaders, landing her the opportunity to serve as a reverse mentor to David, the company’s chief technology officer. And she now serves as a mentor in the onboarding program that helped her when she first joined.
As Maya is evolving in her career, her personal life evolves as well. When she decides to start a family, she learns that the company has a Caregiver ERG. In this group, she gets insight and mentorship from experienced parents who help her balance a growing career and a growing family.
The End: A Fulfilled Employee Journey
Finally, Maya steps into an ERG leadership role as the co-chair of the Women’s ERG. She attributes her success at your company and her career to this first ERG and is thrilled to be able to give back and help more women at the company, bringing her employee journey full circle.
Employee Journeys Are Deeply Impacted By ERGs And Mentoring
Maya's journey underscores the crucial role of ERGs and mentoring in shaping employee experiences and fostering community, direction and growth, all of which are essential for engaging and supporting employees. Integrate ERGs and mentoring into your organization to support professional growth, build community and relationships, and promote diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB).
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