Study on non-legislative initiatives for companies to promote gender ...

Gender equality initiatives 117
Existing support groups include those for new mothers, for parenting as well as for
employees caring for the elderly.
Mentoring is in this context regarded as a special form of networking that mostly
includes only two persons, the mentor and the mentee, that come from different
hierarchical levels within the company.
Deutsche Post DHL AG has established an International Mentoring Programme to
actively promote equal opportunities among its male and female employees and to
support the career development of high-performing employees. Within the framework of
the Programme, young female employees are “taken by the hand” by experienced
managers and given individual coaching. Applicants have to be with the company for at
least two years to be accepted to the programme and need certain personal characteristics
such as business acumen, resilience, creative drive, openness to criticism and
strong commitment. With a share of 2/3 female and 1/3 male participants, Deutsche
Post DHL AG opens the way for women to assume managerial positions.
The Cross-Mentoring programme “In eigener Sache” at Deutsche Bank AG aims at
identifying employees suited for a high power career and, via the scheme of a mentormentee
relationship, enable those employees to develop further qualifications in order
to be prepared for a leading position. Although the objective is to help achieve a higher
number of women in top positions, basically this programme is open to all employees.
In the Reciprocal Mentoring programme, Sodexo S.A.’s senior leaders and highpotential
women participate in a mentoring initiative that provides reciprocal growth and
development opportunities. The women gain professional insight and guidance while
senior leaders build their understanding of the challenges women are facing at the
workplace.
The Reciprocal Mentoring programme is addressed to managers. Sodexo S.A.’s
senior leaders and high-potential women thereby participate in a mentoring initiative
that provides reciprocal growth and development opportunities. While the women gain
professional insight and guidance, senior leaders (approx. 90 % of these executives are
men) build their understanding of the challenges women are facing at the workplace.
This programme is one of the key components of Sodexo’s initiatives in the area of
gender equality. There is a CEO for Europe with an executive committee with
12 members. Each of these members became mentor to a woman in middle
management from another place in Europe. This is a one-year programme that is
managed by the Human Resources Department with the help of external consultants.
Mentors and mentees do not closely work together and in general they are in different
countries; they communicate frequently by telephone and e-mail and have meetings
once a month.
Ms. Norberg-Francille, a director at Sodexo On Site Service Solutions in France,
describes the Reciprocal Mentoring process as “a real valuable exchange on
professional business matters within the group. It gives a broader vision of the
organisation and teaches me experiences I would not know about otherwise. Also, my
mentor challenges me on my own business cases and makes me dig deeper and
consider different aspects of the topic. That helps me to think about how I can proceed
better and faster.” Her expectations have been met so far and she is looking forward to
the second stage of the Reciprocal Mentoring Programme, when mentor and mentee
got to know each other better and they will talk more about career profiles and possible
career paths within the company.