Mentoring and Sponsoring Relationships Can Boost Women’s Workplace Retention and Success, ISG Says

By Business Wire On Mar 28, 2023

ISG expert says diverse teams deliver higher revenues

A mentoring expert with Information Services Group, a leading global technology research and advisory firm, said mentoring and sponsoring relationships can drive women’s success at work and increase enterprise revenue.

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“Ultimately, women’s success in the workplace is good business. Diverse teams outperform homogenous teams every time, bringing together a variety of people, purposes and processes to deliver better products and services and increased revenue.”

Speaking during a webinar, “Creating Equitable Workplaces for Women,” hosted by Built In, an online community and news site for tech startups, ISG Director Julie Kantor, citing research from the Center for Talent Innovation, said women are three times more likely than men to have mentors willing to share experience, knowledge and skills, but are only half as likely as men to have a sponsor who advocates for their success with workplace leaders and decision-makers.

“Women need to build relationships with mentors – someone who speaks with you – and with sponsors, who speak about you behind closed doors and champion you to others,” Kantor said. “Ultimately, women’s success in the workplace is good business. Diverse teams outperform homogenous teams every time, bringing together a variety of people, purposes and processes to deliver better products and services and increased revenue.”

Having a peer, mentor or sponsor who can help understand workplace political nuances can also help colleagues learn from each other and build an organization’s multi-generational, comparative abilities – drawing on the varied strengths of diverse groups of people, she said.

Citing the Tallest Poppy Study 2023 by Women of Influence+, which found 90 percent of women feel they are penalized for being successful at work, Kantor said feeling undervalued and undermined is causing many women leaders to “break up” with the corporate world and become entrepreneurs or stop working altogether.

“Significant opportunity exists for women to support each other in their success,” she said. “With the loss of the proverbial water cooler connection at work, we’re not coming together as women or as colleagues enough. We need to rebuild our sisterhood and our sense of trust, respect and belonging.”

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