5.5 Provide sponsorship for women to make them more visible for promotion
Content
Description of Best Practices
Create high-quality mentorship and sponsorship programs for women at different career levels
Provide clear structure and dedicate sufficient resources including:
- Clear targets and quality standards with a transparent division between mentoring and sponsoring
- Information provided to potential sponsors on company objectives and strategies to increase gender equality, and to develop women for leadership positions
- Incentives provided for providing sponsorship, e.g., being active as a sponsor can be used as part of the individual performance management of the sponsor
Challenges of Implementation
Senior managers or supervisors may be reluctant to assume a sponsorship role for female employees and may find it difficult to identify suitable candidates due to overall lack of visibility of women
Difference between mentoring and sponsorship not clearly addressed
Corporate culture and local gender norms may be unsupportive of men and women establishing a sponsor relationship
Senior managers may use time and effort to promote protégés, but are not placed well enough in the organization or hindered by company politics to effectively support the success of the person sponsored by them
What Success Looks Like
Transparent company-wide sponsoring guidelines are established
Visibility of sponsored candidates increased
Increased number of women are perceived as good performers and/or get promoted to next level
Sponsors use professional capital to support careers of their protégés
Corporate sponsorship programs assign top leaders and have target goals to which sponsors are held accountable
Senior managers perceive involvement as a sponsor as supporting company targets and personally enriching
Resources and Tools
Report/Study: Supporting Careers: Mentoring or Sponsorship? (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Australian Government)
Report/Study (incl. Additional Resources and Readings): Mentorship, Sponsorship, and Networks: The Power and Value of Professional Connections (Center for Women and Business, Bentley University)
Report/Study: Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women (Harvard Business Review)
Article: A Lack of Sponsorship Is Keeping Women from Advancing into Leadership (Harvard Business Review)
Podcast: Women are Over-Mentored (But under-Sponsored) (Harvard Business Review)
Video: What Exactly Is Sponsorship in Business? (Institute for Gender and the Economy)