Mentoring in the time of COVID: Why mentorships have been more important than ever in 2020

By AdNews | 11 December 2020
Poppy Hill and Alex Rhead.

With more people working from home, the osmosis of learning that occurs from working in the office around others has suffered. For this reason, mentorships have become even more important.

The IAB mentorship program aims to provide a framework for the industry to provide collaborative support to the young and rising digital talent and better equip them for the challenging career path they have embarked upon.

AdNews spoke to Openslate managing director APAC Poppy Hill and ADMATIC activations specialist Alex Rhead about how they maintained their mentorship throughout the pandemic.

 

MENTOR: Openslate managing director APAC Poppy Hill

Why did you put up your hand to be a mentor?
The IAB mentorship program is an opportunity for our industry and leaders to share their knowledge and expertise with up and coming talent, helping them to build confidence by promoting a positive mindset and empowering them to achieve their career aspirations within adtech. One of its aims is to acknowledge and support up and coming female talent and help them develop capabilities in cross-disciplinary skills within adtech. Taking part in the program has been a way for me to serve our community, and support larger social attitude changes that are critical for increasing gender balances.

What advice have you given Alex?
As our industry develops solutions to solve the ills of the cookie, Alex’s mentoring was underpinned by her long-term career aspirations to be resilient to future tech disruptions. Some factors that guided my advice included: encouraging her to think outside of her current capabilities; diversify her knowledge across platforms she expressed interest in; and identifying learning and development opportunities to build on her skills. I also provided guidance on developing effective virtual communication skills to increase her confidence in working across team functions that aimed to achieve her team’s goals.

Did COVID cause you to reconsider some of your advice/approach to mentoring?
The rapid shift to virtual working, with little preparation, has disrupted the way we effectively work with our teams and our social contacts within those teams. My advice to Alex was purposeful and aimed at adapting her collaboration skills to be resilient to virtual working. This included developing her interpersonal skills to build cohesiveness within her virtual team. But most importantly to me was being a trusted and caring confidante to Alex, and being available to her if she needed to check-in on her path during these turbulent and uncertain times.

MENTEE: ADMATIC activations specialist Alex Rhead

Why did you sign up as a mentee?
Mentorships, whether personal or professional, are incredibly valuable to me – particularly as I’ve only been in the industry a little over two years. It was great timing that the program started just after I’d started a new position and whilst I was finding my feet and excited at the prospect of new challenges in my new role. Luckily, I was encouraged to sign up to the IAB mentorship program by the management team at ADMATIC. ADMATIC has a strong focus on professional and personal development and the opportunity to apply to be part of the IAB program gave me confidence and excitement that I had found the right agency for me.

How has being paired with Poppy helped you? What have you learned so far?
As part of the application process, you were asked to select a few mentors who you would be interested in working with. I remember being drawn to Poppy’s profile by her breadth of experience, especially her work launching video on demand for Network 10. To my surprise we were paired together!

Poppy has been a valuable mentor to have in my corner. She was always interested in what was happening in my role, provided advice and guidance during an unsettling year and was thoughtful in her recommendations if ever we were working through challenges I had faced over the course of the year. I felt safe and confident to share my feelings about working virtually and she helped me put together practical ways to maintain effective communication when working remotely.

Poppy also worked with me to model my future career aspirations and we were able to identify key areas of interest to work towards. One of my favourite sessions with Poppy was around strengths and development needs and articulating my key values. This was something I hadn’t explored in a professional capacity and connecting personal values with professional goals was an interesting discussion. However, I was able to then articulate areas of development I wanted to focus on and other areas where I thought I could utilise strengths to build relationships in the workplace.

How did COVID impact the mentoring process? 
Unfortunately, due to COVID, Poppy and I were unable to meet for our monthly catch up face to face, however that didn’t stop us from connecting over Zoom. The sessions came as a respite from the stressors and uncertainty of the times we were living in, and it was comforting to share ways in which we both may have been struggling. Touching base monthly during the months of lockdown also reminded me that everyone was in the same boat, there were good days and bad days and being able to chat through the ways the pandemic had affected work, communication and ways of working was so beneficial. While I always had the support of the ADMATIC team, speaking to a confidante outside of my workplace was vital. There were months where meetings were pushed back, but I always felt confident and able to reach out to Poppy in between sessions if needed.

Given the impact of COVID on the industry, Poppy and I discussed ways to ensure transferability of skills, opportunities to upskill and expand my knowledge and I was grateful to be able to have those discussions with a leader with so much experience.

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