A new mentoring program seeks to add diversity in professional and managerial ranks

By Kathryn Stroppel

The value of mentoring and coaching isn’t lost on the business world – or at SSM Health Care, which has always supported formal and informal mentoring programs. However, a new twist and a more formal structure now is being given to this longtime concept.

Because of the need to recruit and retain qualified employees, the work force’s changing demographics, and SSMHC’s commitment to increasing the number of underrepresented groups in management, the system developed the Diversity Mentoring Program. This program is designed to prepare people of color and of different ethnicity, as well as people with disabilities, for upward mobility.

“SSM has always encouraged mentoring relationships, although they have been mostly informal in the past,” says mentor Lynn Widmer, corporate vice president - human resources development. “This program is a more formalized piece of mentoring, which is an expected behavior and part of the SSM culture.”

In fact, SSMHC’s 1999 biennial career interest inventory showed that 75 percent of employees have a career coach or mentor, and 77 percent of leaders indicate they coach someone else.

The Diversity Mentoring Program began as a pilot in October 2000 and initially paired nine mentors in professional and managerial positions with mentorees of color. The pairs worked together for one year, although relationships can extend far beyond the program’s time frame. Because feedback and evaluations showed positive results, the program was spread systemwide in 2001, and the numbers of mentors and mentorees have more than doubled.

“The purpose is really to help develop people,” says Yvonne Tisdel, corporate vice president-human resources and system diversity. “Any time you invest time in people, they will invest more in themselves and where they work. These employees learn how to maneuver in the system, develop relationship-building skills, and become better employees and better leaders.”

“Sometimes, people are not able to advance because they don’t understand how the system works and therefore what opportunities exist,” Widmer says. “Gaining this knowledge is a real benefit of the program.”

Another benefit is that mentors also take something away from the relationship. “One of the things we shared at the beginning was that we hoped we could learn from one another and that the experience would be a two-way street,” says mentoree Rebecca Moppins, RN, clinical director of behavioral medicine at SSM St. Mary’s Health Center, whose mentor was SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital President Doug Ries.

“Many mentors,” Tisdel says, “have not worked directly with people of color or are limited in day-to-day interaction. They learn a cultural awareness and some of the struggles people of color go through in trying to work their way up in professional and managerial ranks. The mentoring process gets a real dialogue going. You learn diversity firsthand – by doing it – rather than reading about it in a book.”

Ries says he learned “that you should never take colleagues for granted. The talent we have within our organization is immeasurable and infinite, and this is a good way to tap into that. I consider this program like the buddy system. It’s an opportunity to really connect. We oftentimes take for granted whom we work with and don’t really know them or appreciate the richness of their experience and culture.”

As a mentor, Ries drew on storytelling to help him be most effective. “I tried to identify the ways I could be the greatest resource to Rebecca,” he says. “We spent quality time away from the hospital just to get to know one another and for me to get to know the experiences she’s had, what she believed her strengths are, and where she has had feedback on areas in which she wanted to improve.

“I asked what her hopes and aspirations were – where she would like to see herself in the next year, three years and five years. From that storytelling, I was able to give her feedback and ask things she might not have thought about. What I didn’t do was step in and say I’ll do this or that or make a contact here or a phone call there. We went through a year of transition, with her transitioning to a managerial role.”

“I had misgivings about taking on a new role, but Doug assisted me in thinking it through,” Moppins says. “It was helpful, and I’m glad I took the job. Without telling me what I ought to do, he allowed me to talk about my skills, where I wanted to be and what my concerns were in getting there. He gave me a lot of support and was a good sounding board for me in the direction I needed to take.”

“The heart of the mentoring process,” Ries says, “is getting an individual to think through, to evaluate, to feel good about himself or herself, and then to step back and allow that person to digest the information and follow through.”

Moppins says the experience exceeded her expectations and that she was happy being paired with Ries. “His quiet manner of leadership is in a lot of ways completely opposite of my style, yet we were able to come together and find common ground in how we see things and what we need personally in order to be a manager,” she says.

“I was privileged to have been chosen to be in the first group and think the program is a valuable plan to get other staff members to progress through the system, whereas before they might not have considered doing so.”

Sidebar
Diversity Programs Cited:  SSM Health Care’s (SSMHC) diversity programs were cited in the American Society for Health Care.

Human Resources Administration report titled “Building a Framework for Work Force Solutions.”
The report was developed to reflect a broad array of strategies providers are using to address work force shortages.

The section on SSMHC detailed the multifaceted approach taken throughout the system to increase recruitment and retention of minorities in nurse manager and other managerial positions.

Among the initiatives described were an eight-minute video inviting viewers to “experience the difference diversity makes,” diversity forums that explore issues employees may not feel comfortable addressing in their work settings, and a structured mentoring program that pairs senior-level managers with people of color who are starting out in their managerial careers.