Reverse mentoring for an inclusive future

Earlier this year, nine executive leadership team members (ELT) were each paired with a more junior colleague for a six-month reverse mentoring opportunity. Each ELT member spoke to colleagues to learn more about their personal experiences, which included maternity leave, LGBT+ inclusion, neurodiversity, and ethnic diversity.  

The initiative is part of both our commitment to building inclusive leaders and supporting the development of diverse talent. As a real estate industry leader, Landsec is committed to prioritising diversity and inclusion at all levels.

As part of our reverse mentoring programme, People Intern Noshin Jahan sat down with Mike Hood, CEO of Landsec U+I, and Lil Couch, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, to learn about their time together and Lil’s experience with maternity leave. 

What encouraged you to sign up to the reverse mentoring initiative?  

Lil: I’d returned from maternity leave twice during my eight years working at Landsec, and though I’d seen improvements in how new mothers are supported in returning to work, I felt more could still be done.  

We’re a FTSE 100 company and have a responsibility to a large number of women returning from maternity leave. We cannot simply stand still and rest on our laurels, we have to be better and I wanted to be a part of that. I also made a promise to myself recently to intentionally come out of my comfort zone; reverse mentoring seemed like a great chance to do that.  

Mike: I wanted to understand different perspectives as we often don’t discuss the complexities people face outside of work, and just assume colleagues will always be at their best. I think we’ve been very good at implementing policies and programmes for helping parents, but we’ve not always looked at what people’s individual situations are. I wanted to listen to the perspectives of someone that had been through different experiences to mine, and discuss how we can offer an improved support framework. 

What have you learned about maternity leave experiences?

Mike: As a parent, I know everyone’s journey is different. Lil’s experience certainly highlighted the need for better workplace support for people on the journey to having children. We all have questions we need answers to, but we often try to answer them on our own. Lil also shared her experience of trying to navigate and understand all the benefits available and how challenging that can be.

Lil: Yes, often it was simply things like, how much holiday I had, what's happening with bonuses, what are childcare vouchers, what’s available in terms of tax-free childcare, and all of the things that come part and parcel with having a baby. I just wanted a bit of guidance, but I didn’t always want to approach HR because sometimes it’s necessary to be aware of the options, but without making it overly formal.  

Mike: We also talked about the fact that the organisation in the past has perhaps been scared of speaking to people when they're on maternity leave because they wanted to be respectful, but that silence is something that some people love, and some people hate.  

Lil: I hated it. I wanted to know what was happening when big things were changing, but I wanted it to be through WhatsApp because I didn’t want to have to login to my Landsec laptop while I was on maternity leave. When I returned, I didn’t know what had been going on because people were trying to be respectful and not bother me on maternity leave.  

Mike: It’s basic, but it highlights the importance of treating people as individuals. We need to ask people before they go away about how often they’d like to be communicated with, and by what means. We can give people an experience that suits the way they want to talk to the company, but we must ask.    

How are you putting that learning into action?

Mike: It’s simple but we’ve made sure to ask team members who’ve recently gone on maternity leave how they want to be communicated with, what they’d like to hear about, and how often, so we can respect their preferences and improve their experience.  

Lil: Exactly, clear communication is key. If I’d been asked upfront how I wanted to be contacted, it would have made things easier.  

Mike: Another thing we’ve started putting into practice is buddying for people on maternity leave. Someone in my team is currently on maternity leave, and Lil was really kind to offer to be her buddy, and to give advice on navigating HR, benefits and things like that. Sometimes it’s straightforward, inexpensive things that really make life less complicated for people.  

Lil: The buddying idea was so easy to do. I just had a coffee with the person in Mike’s team before she went on leave, and I've given her my number, so she has someone to talk to if she has any questions. It’s so helpful having someone you can talk to who’s been through it themselves. You just want that informal interaction that’s away from formal HR processes. Things like, ‘… hey, you've done this recently, what did we do for that? How does that work? How does the holiday system work?’.

Mike: Yes, when you're not in the office and you're at home, there might be things that are either bugging you or worrying you, and you want somebody that's out of the formal structure that can be your friend as part of this process.  

Did you gain anything unexpected from the experience?  

Mike: Yes, something Lil shared with me in our first meeting has stuck with me. She told me about where she grew up in Kent and the impact of Bluewater Shopping Centre – how it fundamentally changed her, her family, and her community. This epitomises what we talk about when we say ‘regeneration’. The way you describe your experience, and the loyalty it created for Bluewater and Landsec is fascinating. Because what we're trying to do is create experiences like that for communities across the UK.  

The fact that you've lived that experience gives you a rare insight that many of us don't have, and I found that super interesting.  

Lil: That’s what I also love about this. Yes, we talked about maternity and returning to work, but it also opened up conversations on many other topics. We would have no real reason in our professional world to speak if it hadn’t been for reverse mentoring. We also talked about my career and life, and I found out more about Mike and his experiences and his children too. I’ve had some big important stakeholder presentations and meetings in the past few months where it can feel overwhelming to present to senior leaders. Knowing Mike and that he’s a normal person made the experience less scary. We may be at different levels, but we’re also human, and that was the most important thing I took out of this.

What would you like others to take from reading this article?  

Mike: I think just the importance of making the time to have conversations like we had. It’s easy to not find time when your diary is so busy, and I’m probably the worst at it. Making sure we have informal, unstructured conversations that can lead to simple changes to make our lives easier is a no-brainer, but it’s the easiest thing to knock off the to-do list. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it really useful.

Lil: Exactly, we must encourage everyone to participate in these opportunities. I joined to step out of my comfort zone, and it really has been a fantastic year. The initiative boosted my confidence and was actually pretty key to my work-related progression. And reverse mentoring forced us, in the nicest way possible, to make time for it all!

Mike: I would second that. Also, what we talked a lot about is the value of informal communication, and it worked for us because we got on well. You need to recognise that that wouldn't happen in every conversation, but it's not a reason to avoid it altogether. The more conversations we have, the more we engage with people that we wouldn’t normally engage with day-to-day, the better we become as a team. We were very lucky because we got on well right away.  

To others, my advice would be to keep trying, because the conversations are really valuable, whether you hit it off or not.  

Our diversity and inclusion strategy

We're developing more-inclusive places and supporting people from all walks of life to reach their full potential: find out more about life at Landsec.