The Importance of Mentorship in HR Career Development

Mentorship is not just about seeking advice; it’s about building a meaningful relationship that fosters continuous growth and development. In the evolving world of HR, a mentor can take on several different roles. They can serve as a valuable sounding board for your ideas, a confidante during challenging times, and a teacher of sorts who's able to foster learning, inspire confidence, and provide constructive feedback.

Junior to mid-level HR professionals stand to gain the most from mentors or mentorship programmes. It's the perfect way to pair those earlier in their HR careers with more seasoned HR professionals, who will have a larger well of experience and knowledge to draw from.

To really illustrate the impact of effective mentorship, I'd like to share the story of Emily.

The Story of Emily and her Search for a Mentor

Emily is someone I met at university — she was bubbly, bright-eyed, and had a killer sense of humour.

She graduated in 2019 and landed her first job as an L&D Specialist at a fast-growing tech start-up in Manchester, England. Her company was young, dynamic, and ambitious (as you would expect a tech start-up to be), but this start-up didn’t have a fully formed L&D function, so Emily quickly found herself overwhelmed not just by the workload but by the lack of tailored support.

Emily's boss was an experienced (if not very generalist) HR Director who provided a base level of support, but they were often too preoccupied with their own workload to fully dedicate time to Emily's development. She was also the first L&D-specific hire intended to cover foundational tasks such as onboarding, creating basic training programs, materials, and identifying key learning needs. She didn't have anyone else in the company doing exactly what she did.

The stress of the day-to-day job, coupled with a lack of constructive feedback, clear guidance, and emotional or peer support, sadly left Emily feeling isolated and dejected.

''I started to second-guess myself constantly and kept asking myself if what I was doing was actually adding any value. It got to a point where I was working on several different projects and didn't feel enthusiastic about any of them. But there was still pressure to deliver, and without a good level of support, that all started to take a toll on my mental health.''

Feeling stuck and increasingly anxious, Emily realised she needed to take control of her situation. She signed up and attended L&D events around Manchester, hoping to connect with others who might share her experience and offer useful advice. She eventually met Gracy. Gracy was an L&D Manager who had experience working for both start-ups and larger corporates and had several years of L&D experience under her belt.

They immediately clicked. Gracy understood first-hand the challenges Emily was facing and listened intently to her struggles, and offered practical advice based on her own experience. She was also able to provide the emotional support and empathy that Emily was severely lacking.

''Gracy was wonderful. She honestly helped me so much, and the thing is, she didn't have to! She didn't need to take time out of her personal life to have regular catch ups with me, but she understood what I was going through and wanted to help. I think she saw a lot of herself in me. She taught me a lot about designing effective training programmes, how to properly do a capability assessment, how to manage my time, how to prioritise, how to say no, etc.''

As Emily applied Gracy's advice, she noticed her performance start to improve. She was able to overcome the sense of isolation and uncertainty that stifled her career development, and began to feel more empowered in her role and more comfortable taking initiative.

Inspired by the profound impact that Gracy's mentorship had on her, Emily decided to implement a formal mentorship programme within her own start-up. She realised these challenges weren't unique to her and that others could certainly benefit from mentorship. And luckily, Emily's programme quickly took off. New joiners and juniors were paired with more experienced employees, creating an open culture of learning and support that hadn't been there when Emily first joined.

''Looking back, I guess you could say that Gracy did in a sense 'save' my career since I was seriously doubting whether or not I made the right call by taking that job. Her mentorship gave me the confidence and support I needed to grab the reigns and take control back.''

I then asked Emily over our call what advice she would give to other HR professionals who may be in similar situations to where she started. This is what she had to say:

''My nugget of wisdom would be to really think about where you're struggling and what type of person might be able to help you with that. Your mentor doesn't need to be your line manager, but I would suggest looking within your company first for a mentor or asking if there are any formal mentorship programmes, or at least a peer support group, but if not, then I would suggest doing what I did. Go meet people in-person or online. There are so many great people out there who are willing to help, and have probably gone through the same things as you. You just need to sniff them out and eventually you'll find your match. It's no different to dating, really!''

Today, Emily continues her career in L&D and now leads a small team of two at a different tech start-up in Manchester, and is looking to implement a similar mentorship programme. She describes her management style as pastoral, with a strong focus on trust, constructive feedback, and clear goal-setting.

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