Mentoring and Reverse Mentoring: Two Sides of a Valuable Coin

With multiple generations working side by side, both literally and figuratively, addressing skill, experience, knowledge and communication gaps in the workplace has become crucial for employers who want to retain and elevate talent as well as create a more inclusive culture.

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Skills-Based Mentoring: An Efficient Way to Build Skills

The 2025 Employee Health & Benefits Trends report by Marsh McLennan Agency (MMA) found supporting a multigenerational workforce is a high priority for employers, as Gen Z workers (those born between 1997 and 2012) outnumber Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) but more Boomers are delaying retirement or returning to work.

According to the report, mentorship and reverse mentorship programs may be one solution to help organizations address generation-based gaps and needs as well as overcome differences by propagating communication tactics and problem-solving approaches through teachings and learnings.

Mentorship and reverse mentorship programs have proved to help foster trust and communication between employees of different ages as workers’ experience and skill sets are shared to bolster communication, trust and professional development.

“Programs like [mentorship and reverse mentorship] are some of the best ways to be able to bridge gaps and create more unity in a multigenerational workforce,” said David Lewis, a national managing director for HR and organizational effectiveness at Gallagher, an insurance and risk management firm. “By incorporating these programs, [employers] are more proactively developing the talent [they] need for the future.”

The Benefits of Mentorship and Reverse Mentorships

According to a coaching and mentoring survey by mentoring platform Together, 78% of HR professionals said mentoring programs have improved individual development at their organizations, while 72% said such programs had improved overall organizational performance. MMA’s report also determined 90% of workers participating in a mentorship program were happy at work.

“When you provide someone a mentor and you’re investing in them at an organization, they’re likely to stay, which then, in turn, helps with retention, turnover and the overall morale of your employees,” said Kenia Covey, a principal consultant at Mercer.

The same may be said about reverse mentorships, said Cynthia J. Young, the founder and CEO of CJ Young Consulting LLC, a knowledge management consulting firm.

“Both types of mentorship programs offer the ability to share insights, knowledge, skills and abilities with someone who wants to learn more or get sage advice,” she said.

Whereas traditional mentorship is when a more senior employee coaches younger workers, reverse mentorship flips the model, allowing younger employees to share their skills with older workers, allowing cross-collaboration and knowledge sharing between the two groups.

For instance, reverse mentorships can offer a way for younger, digital-native employees to share tech skills with their older colleagues. Covey shared Mercer’s 2024-2025 Skills Snapshot Report found that, in the next five years, employers anticipate 44% of skills for workers (both those earlier and later in their professional journey) will be disrupted by technology, and by 2027, 6 out of 10 workers will require additional digital training.

Implementing a Mentorship and Reverse Mentorship Program

To engage with employees at every age, the experts in this article advised total rewards professionals to consider several action items:

Define clear goals and objectives. According to Gallagher’s Lewis, organizations should identify what they want to accomplish with a mentorship and reverse mentorship program. Is it:
- Creating a training ground for more junior workers to become better prepared to be future contributors and future leaders in the workplace?
- Closing the gap in areas where senior workers have less familiarity?
- Improving the culture of a multigenerational workforce?
- All the above?
Make successful matches. Employers should define goals and objectives for each mentorship participant and use the right tools, such as a personality profiling tool, to create a good match. Those tools can prevent facilitators from mixing an “older oil and a younger water,” Lewis said, putting a spin on the oil-and-water compatibility adage. “What you’re trying to get are people who are going to align and appreciate one another,” he said.
Ongoing facilitation. Steps such as regular check-ins with mentors and mentees and making adjustments if pairings go off track or are not a good fit are necessary. “Very few things within HR initiatives are one-size-fits-all,” Lewis said. “They all require some level of customization — often significant customization — and the customization is different based on variables that you don’t get to control (e.g., personalities and level of engagement).”
Create a supportive culture. Providing mentorship and reverse mentorship programs can encourage collaboration across different generations, helping close any chasms that may exist between junior and senior workers. “I believe the main challenge with reverse mentorship is getting people to be comfortable enough to take a chance on listening to somebody who might be new to the industry or just flat-out younger,” Young said. To address those challenges, Young said employers can offer meet-and-greets to facilitate introductions and give employees options to serve as either a mentee or a mentor. Communicating the program as a skills-based or professional development program may also increase buy-in, she said.

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