Organisational change processes – whether prompted by mergers or evolving market conditions – pose significant challenges for any organisation.
Change often risks becoming a mere project rather than a lasting and sustainable transformation that reshapes the way we work, interact with one another, and engage with clients. We recognise that change is inherently difficult, requires time, and necessitates effective guidance.
Mentoring is one initiative that can both accelerate and solidify this transformation, providing a structured approach to ensure that the changes remain integral until they become the new norm in the workplace.
Changing your company culture
In a cultural transformation process the most common challenges are:
- Understanding the why
- Employee engagement and retention
- Resistance to change
- Inadequate and inconsistent communication
- Leadership alignment and visible role models
Mergers - integrating company cultures
The most common challenges in mergers are similar to those in cultural change processes:
- Understanding the unique qualities of each culture
- Employee engagement and retention
- Resistance to change
- Inadequate and inconsistent communication
- Leadership alignment and visible role models
What mentoring can do
In both situations, mentoring can guide, ease, support, and accelerate the change process.
Understanding the why – and the unique qualities of each culture in the merger
By creating a framework that includes matching across the organisation and across the merging organisations, mentors and mentees help each other create meaning and finding way of adapting to the new situation. Together they explore their experiences, the new ways of working, and build their confidence in the new context.
Employee engagement and retention
In change processes, the uncertainty about the future often means that the organisation risks losing their best talents. By inviting talents to a professional mentoring programme, showing appreciation for their efforts to support the change, providing them with time, tools and a safe environment to talk about the change, has a proven effect on engagement retention.
Resistance to change
With a formal mentoring programme, you are investing in creating visible role models and develop change ambassadors. The participants will adapt faster to the change, spread their engagement and understanding to their parts of the organisation, and contribute to a positive approach to the change.
Inadequate and inconsistent communication
You can never communicate enough – You can’t not communicate. These are two sayings we have all heard. Employees will interpret every word and action of the leaders and colleagues around them to try and make sense of change – and the change in mergers. With a mentoring programme, you can communicate to a chosen group of people in a specific setting and provide mentors and mentees with mentoring homework and supports this communication and the transformation/integration process. This will make the mentors and mentees role models and ambassadors for the change in their parts of the organisation.
Leadership alignment and visible role models
A formal mentoring programme is a great setting for leaders to share their message about the change, the new values, and be transparent about what they expect for the mentors and mentees in the change process. Additionally, this provides the leaders with a platform to become visible and show their commitment and support to employees.
In summary, mentoring can enable and drive cultural transformation and cultural integration by
- Accelerating adaptation to the change – by sharing, learning and making sense together of the change and what it means to me and my daily work.
- Strengthening trust and building open communication – by fostering close relationships between people from different parts of the organisation who share concerns, knowledge and expectations.
- Bridging generational, hierarchical, and functional gaps – by matching across diversity dimensions and facilitating mutual understanding and respect.
- Increasing employee engagement – by recognizing their talents, investing in their development, and giving them time for mentoring.
- Building a strong group of change ambassadors from across the organisation/organisations.
