Victrex Pilots Reverse Mentoring Scheme to Further Inclusion
Victrex helps customers deliver new solutions to shape the world we live in, transforming industries and people’s lives. Its focus is on six core markets – aerospace, automotive, energy, electronics, industrial and medical. Victrex aims to help accelerate business success for all, in close collaboration with customers. It supports every stage of component development, from concept to commercialisation and helps develop new supply chains to bring solutions to market.
Victrex requested Business in the Community’s (BITC) help to support the company in establishing a Reverse Mentoring programme, which it hoped to roll out globally across the organisation.
How Business in the Community helped
BITC’s Advisory team arranged initial meetings with Victrex to discuss ideas and help the company develop a more in-depth understanding of effective Reverse Mentoring, as well as looking at ways of kickstarting the process. Equipped with this knowledge, Victrex held a Reverse Mentoring engagement session with candidates, for the pilot of this programme, facilitated by a BITC Inclusion Lead.
The outcome
Eight employees took part in the programme over a six-month period, where they learned about and from one another’s lived experiences in the workplace. Those who took part put together action plans and suggestions, based on their experience, on how Victrex could drive inclusion further across the organisation moving forward. Whilst the data was qualitative, it enabled Victrex to understand the hidden challenges faced by individuals and blind spots to address in future.
“BITC’s support allowed us to begin to explore our company’s inclusion competencies and enabled colleagues to learn about the lived experiences of their colleagues.”
– Victrex
Testimonial
“The support offered by BITC to develop a Reverse Mentoring programme was excellent. Their expertise in understanding the needs of our business, aligning their suggestions with our focus points and explaining the concepts to a variety of colleagues enabled us to launch our Pilot Reverse Mentoring programme successfully. BITC’s support allowed us to begin to explore our company’s inclusion competencies and enabled colleagues to learn about the lived experiences of their colleagues. Following on from the Pilot, we will be continuing with the programme and expanding to wider audiences.”
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