BUS603: Managing People

While an appropriate leadership approach is helpful mid- and long-term, a mentoring approach could serve as a transitional solution to bridge the gap between Millennials and Baby Boomers because Millennials are very open to being mentored. As Ferri-Reed put it, in order to help Millennials succeed in the workplace one should "give them the big picture, help them find the ‘me' in the team, and mentor them on career-building behaviors". Today, nearly all big companies have established mentoring programs that aim at developing a mentee through a personal relationship with a more experienced mentor. In business, a mentor's task is usually to motivate one or more individuals to advance their careers by helping them to learn and work to their potential, and to find new perspectives and meaning in their jobs.. In many organizations a mentor is less likely to be an immediate supervisor, but may be found at a higher level or outside of the organization. Within a mentoring relationship, mentors provide their protégés with "sponsorship, exposure, and visibility, coaching, counseling, protection, friendship, and challenging assignments". Bass & Bass add that mentors also act as role models and as a source of acceptance and confirmation. They may also increase the visibility of their protégé by informing other leaders about the young professional's great potential. Research on the topic shows that, in that way, mentoring provides both a psychosocial (acceptance, encouragement, coaching, counseling) and a career-facilitation function (sponsorship, protection, challenging assignments, exposure, and visibility). Although coaching is very often mentioned as a part of mentoring (which it is), there is a difference between coaching and mentoring. Clutterbeck suggests that "coaching in most applications addresses performance in some aspect of an individual's work or life; while mentoring is more often associated with much broader, holistic development and with career progress". Latest research also emphasizes that mentoring should be seen as reciprocal and collaborative, with benefits for mentors including job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance. Thus, mentoring is suggested as a tie that could help the generations to overcome their conflicts. By utilizing each generation's skills, mentoring brings the generations together. Kilber highlights that, perhaps unconsciously, these two generations may even seek each other out naturally, because many Baby Boomers have Generation Y children. Most Boomers report that Gen Y members look to them for advice and prefer them to Gen X colleagues as advisors. Since building meaningful relationships is a basic human need, mentoring relationships could greatly increase the collaboration between generations for the benefit of organizations. As Neufeld shows, bonding is developed through a relationship where people are valued and unconditionally loved. Further, where there is bonding, a human being has no need to act rebelliously. Thus, the first step towards unity between generations is the unconditional acceptance and appreciation of Gen Y members by Boomers. This can be a significant challenge because the expectations of the Millennials are difficult to meet. Since mentoring may typically have a negative connotation for Millennials, some authors even suggest labelling it differently - as career advising or organizational support.

If one wants to go further, reverse mentoring may be a social exchange tool for keeping Boomers engaged and Millennials committed. Reverse mentoring is defined as mentoring of older employees by younger employees. Murphy states that the benefits of reverse mentoring include "building the leadership pipeline, fostering better intergenerational relationships, enhancing diversity initiatives, and driving innovation". The main focus of reverse mentoring is to help older generations acquire technological knowledge and to know how it can be used, for instance, to collaborate with customers or generate new contracts. Without reverse mentoring, this may be knowledge they would not acquire. Inevitably within this process, and this is where both organization and Boomers benefit, there will be occasions when seniors give feedback or advice to young associates, resulting in a mutual relationship. Furthermore, Millennials may come to identify with their mentees and even adopt some of their values and attitudes. Finally, reverse mentoring programs also result in higher retention of Millennials. This kind of mentoring has a double function: it increases Millennials' involvement within their organizations while at the same time engaging Baby Boomers.