25 February 2025
06:00 PM
Knight Frank Head Office, 55 Baker St, London W1U 8AN
We are delighted to invite members to join our reverse speed mentoring event.
The event will build on the successes and lessons learnt at our first event by providing a more structured discussion for the participants offering them an agenda and prompts to help them get the most out of the conversation.
Excellent opportunity to talk about your perspective on DE&I and have Senior Mentees in the room that really do care about it, not just a tick box exercise.
Junior mentor, September 2023
Junior mentors and senior mentees will asked to provide background information when applying for a place and this will be used to inform the matching process and to structure the conversations. Junior mentors and senior mentees will be provided with resources to help them navigate the reverse mentoring process and with approaching and discussing uncomfortable topics, empathy, self-awareness, ensuring psychological safety and what to do if the sessions are not going well. There will also be a short briefing session for both junior mentors and senior mentees immediately prior to the sessions to underline the confidential, safe space environment.
It was excellent, the mentors were open and honest... They were all totally different...very different views and perspectives and mentors from different backgrounds and parts of the industry.
Senior mentee, September 2023
Reverse mentoring, accompanied by a robust D&I Strategy, is a key tool towards developing a more inclusive environment. Real Estate Balance is offering members a unique opportunity to be part of our reverse speed mentoring event.
Reverse mentoring differs from traditional mentoring in that, rather than the mentor providing support and guidance for an individual’s career aspirations, reverse mentoring strives to promote intergenerational collaboration and understanding and to provide underrepresented groups with the opportunity for face-to-face time with senior leaders, sharing their lived experience and feedback to assist the seniors in becoming more inclusive leaders.
In a role reversal, reverse mentoring has evolved to comprise senior (usually older) leaders being mentored by a more junior (usually younger and often from an underrepresented group) professional at an earlier stage in their career who, from a diversity and inclusion perspective, is different from them in some way, and therefore experiences their career differently.
Benefits for senior mentees:
Benefits for junior mentors:
Whilst an organisational reverse mentoring programme should be a long-term initiative with relationships between the mentor and mentee built over time, the intended outcome of the Real Estate Balance reverse speed mentoring event is to provide mentees with a variety of perspectives in a short amount of time and for them to be part of a knowledge sharing experience without the time commitment of formal mentoring. In this way, we hope that all participants will get a flavour of the value of reverse mentoring as an important tool in creating a more inclusive environment and will return with the intention of instigating a reverse mentoring programme in their own organisation.
Who should participate?
Senior mentees should have a deep curiosity about others, be keen to understand the experiences of their junior mentors and be in a position to enact change within their organisation. The senior mentee is typically someone who is thinking about strategy and resourcing and moving to a more inclusive environment and/or wishes to build and retain a more diverse team and strengthen their inclusive leadership competencies. The senior mentee will want to interrogate their company D&I policy or strategy to ensure it is effective in achieving its aims.
Junior mentors should be willing to share their experiences freely with their senior mentees. They should feel confident in being open, honest and frank in their feedback to the senior mentee on their D&I policies or strategies and want to put forward their unique perspective. Junior mentors should be keen to be a visible role model, have a desire to build mutually beneficial relationships with senior leaders and be curious to gain insight into, and a greater understanding of, leadership roles.
