"Younger employees help senior executives unlock social media mystery," reads the Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009 Chicago Tribune. The story talks about the new trend in corporate America ... Gen Y is mentoring top executives in social media in a successful program called Rotnem - reverse mentoring.
The success of the program is not just in sharing knowledge, but in bridging the generational divide and corporate hierarchy in the workplace. In working with younger staff, business leaders are learning to appreciate and better understand their younger co-workers. Vice-versa, the young are reap the mentoring benefits of working with industry experts as well as seeing their leaders in more approachable and respectful light.
Rotnem need not be only for big business. It can certainly be applied at smaller levels. Even here at Marketicity, with each member of the staff from a different decade, we consult heavily with one another about how different generations will see an idea. More often than not, by pooling our thoughts and varied levels of expertise and experience, our ideas start to branch out into new arenas.
If your company is transitioning into the social media arena, incorporating a Rotnem program could be beneficial in equalizing the playing field ... and bridging the cultural divide.
1 comment:
Not sure I entirely agree with the premise that this is always the young teaching the old, though. For the most part, it's been my experience that the line staff in most companies are way more technologically advanced than the c-level executives...even in the Northwest, I knew one or two CEOs even a couple years ago that had their assistants check their email and print it out for them to read. Some of us older folks are saavy, too--but we all get that way through necessity!
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