Case study: Fostering career growth and diversity of thought at M&C Saatchi
M&C Saatchi is an independent creative services group with operations spanning 23 countries globally. Focusing on driving collaboration, career development and learning across its group of companies, M&C appointed Voco to power its flagship six month long global mentoring programme: the Mentoring Collective.
Challenge
Creating a diverse network of committed mentors and mentees - M&C Saatchi wanted to promote diversity of thought by delivering a mentoring programme that would drive collaboration across borders, cultures and disciplines, while underpinning M&Cs commitment to fostering meaningful career development across the network.
Ensuring engagement and participation: previous iterations of M&C’ Saatchi's mentoring programme had been initially popular but engagement had tailed off rapidly. The creative audience across the Group had found off-the-shelf mentoring software uninspiring and disengaging, so the solution for the Mentoring Collective needed to win hearts and minds to ensure ongoing participation.
Solution
Voco’s intelligent 360 degree take on mentoring empowered M&C Saatchi to take a more holistic approach to matching across the Group. Voco’s unique algorithm, which goes beyond job titles, and functional specialisms, by understanding who people really are in the context of their careers, created matches that aligned with M&C Saatchi’s belief in the value of promoting diversity of thought.
Mentoring pairs were created across six continents to drive a culture of shared learning across companies and borders, and mentors and mentees were matched based on desired outcomes, career challenges and opportunities, and personality traits, as well as more standard quantitative career data.
Voco’s brand-led platform provided a more engaging user experience than mentoring software previously used by M&C Saatchi, which encouraged swift onboarding and drove excitement and anticipation amongst programme participants.
Voco’s consumer-esque focus on design and tone of voice appealed to the creative audience and stood the platform apart from other HR tech solutions.
Outcomes and impact
Using Voco to power mentoring at M&C Saatchi has resulted in:
- New connections across the Group, with mentor and mentee matches bringing people together across businesses, countries and continents.
- Increased diversity of thinking and knowledge transfer, with matches made across disciplines, giving participants insights into areas of the M&C Saatchi group, and wider creative sector, that they were not routinely exposed to.
- Both mentors and mentees saw strong gains in career thinking and confidence as a result of participation:
- 95% of conversations were rated excellent
- 97% of participants reported feeling clearer on their career direction
- 97% felt more confident and supported
- 90% felt they’d learned something that would improve their performance at work
- Sustained momentum and engagement with 80% of pairings having five or more conversations during the duration of the programme.
Participants have shared great feedback:
- “I like the way it encourages you to be open and asks lots of questions to engage in the process. Sometimes it takes me a moment to get past reservations on this also, but I can see how it drives the process along.”
- “Love how organised the platform is and how we're given talking points to ensure there's constant conversation.”
- “I feel like the experience has been wonderful so far as I was given such a good match. Exactly what I was after.”
Elle Gaffney, Head of Talent Development at M&C Saatchi said:
“Voco has taken the Mentoring Collective to a new level, brokering impactful, lasting partnerships that have brought our people closer across the globe. By focusing on who people are in the context of their careers, as well as what they do in their jobs, Voco has helped our team get more tailored support, fresh perspectives and valuable new connections across our organisation.”
Image via Sky News
