Abstract:
Background: Current research suggests that the modern workforce is comprised of a substantial proportion of ageing employees, in addition to an influx of young, first-time workers. This diverse and multigenerational workforce provides organisations an interesting challenge, in retaining engaged and productive employees, and ensuring relevant training and development. One specific management practice is reverse mentoring. Reverse mentoring is a unique form of mentoring, whereby the traditional roles of mentor and mentee are reversed. It involves a junior employee (in age/status) mentoring a senior employee. The junior employee is able to share their recent generational learnings and perspective with a senior organisational member, who gains insight into recent trends and technologies. Whilst there appear to be many benefits from this relationship, including increased communication and understanding; leadership development; and upskilling in relevant trends, there may also be some barriers to the success of the relationship. Barriers may include a resistance to the shift in power hierarchy and challenges with changing the traditional learning pedagogy of older teacher and younger learner. Aim: Reverse mentoring is a reasonably modern concept, and as such, empirical research on this practice is relatively new. This research aims to explore any benefits and barriers experienced in a reverse mentoring relationship. Method: Participants in this study will be recruited from a Melbourne hospital, who currently run a formal reverse mentoring relationship program. Approximately 16 individuals (8 mentors and 8 mentees), will be invited to participate. The proposed study uses a qualitative method of data collection, through semi-structured interviews. Interviews will be recorded, and responses will be transcribed, with thematic analysis used to identify common themes. Thematic analysis allows the common themes and experiences of mentors and mentees, to tell an overall story of the data. Conclusion: The proposed study’s findings contribute to a currently small base of research on reverse mentoring. It is hoped that the research will help (i) inform future quantitative research on reverse mentoring and (ii) inform organisational strategies that will help employees engage in reverse mentoring relationships in ways that effectively support their training and development.