Peer Mentoring
By Kelly Rabin
The Stepping Stone, January 2022
When you hear the word “mentoring,” what image comes to mind? For many, it’s a senior executive leveraging their years of experience to advise a more junior colleague. While these relationships can be two-way, that isn’t typically the norm. Over the past few years, I’ve gotten involved in a different form of mentoring, typically referred to as “peer mentoring.”
What is peer mentoring? It can take lots of different forms, as I will discuss later in this article. While peer mentoring more typically involves two individuals at a similar level, either in the same company or different companies, it can be extrapolated to any mentorship arrangement that involves two-way feedback (i.e., both parties are both mentor and mentee).
My early experiences with peer mentoring were as simple as talking about work and personal challenges with others at my company. Every time you grab coffee (in person or virtually) with someone, it’s an opportunity to go deeper than “doing anything fun this weekend?”
It can feel a little awkward taking the conversation to the next level, so it’s helpful to ask permission first. “I’ve been giving some thought to personal development topics and I was hoping to get your take on some things.” These informal relationships can help us grow and build connections without the stakes feeling so high. I’ve included a list of some potential topics for peer mentor discussions at the end of this article.
I’ve also had a couple of opportunities for more formal peer mentor relationships. One was with a fellow SOA meeting panelist. She reached out and suggested we establish a peer mentor relationship. We scheduled monthly calls in which we would connect and talk about how our jobs were going and our career aspirations, brainstorm potential solutions to challenges we were facing, celebrate successes, and sometimes just vent! We benefited from sharing our experiences at different companies as we learned to effectively navigate our organizations. Eventually, our regular meetings naturally wound down as we became busy with other priorities and felt like we had gotten what we could from each other.
Another peer mentoring opportunity was at a previous employer that established a “Talking Partners” program in the Finance organization. I was paired with an accountant at a similar level in the organization. We met every two weeks over Zoom for 30 minutes. It was a great opportunity to build community across the organization in a virtual world and learn about a different area of the company. Because we worked for the same company we had shared experience to build on, while being in different departments gave us different daily experiences to share.
A key to effective peer mentoring is identifying areas you have in common and areas where your experience diverges. This helps build connection while also maximizing your ability to grow and benefit from the relationship.
Peer mentoring can be done in groups rather than just one-on-one. I’m currently in a Lean In Circle for Women in Actuarial and Finance Leadership (WAFL). Lean In[1] is a non-profit that’s mission is, “We help women achieve their ambitions and work to create an equal world.” Lean In Circles are “small groups of women who come together regularly to support each other.” My circle meets monthly for an hour over Zoom. Our seven members take turns facilitating the monthly meeting. The Lean In website offers discussion guides on various topics such as impostor syndrome and effective negotiation.
While the Lean In organization offers a great framework to bring like-minded women together in this way, the concept of a peer mentor group can absolutely be extrapolated to other arenas. As part of its Community Engagement pilot, the SOA will be offering members the chance to establish groups around topics that they find interesting, on the new SOA Hub. Perhaps peer mentoring is one possible use for this new structure.
In conclusion, peer mentoring has been a great tool for me over the years. It has helped me build relationships, get advice, and sometimes just have a work friend as I moved through my career journey. Peer mentoring can take many different forms, be it casual coffee chats, regularly scheduled meetings, or even in a group. If you don’t currently have a peer mentor, I encourage you to schedule virtual coffee with someone you work with and begin building that relationship. Below are some suggested topics to guide your initial peer mentoring discussions.
Topics for peer mentor discussions:
- What is your career background?
- What are your current roles and responsibilities?
- Are you a manager? Do you want to be?
- What are your short- and long-term career goals?
- Under what conditions do you do your best work?
- What gets you excited to come to work in the morning? What makes you miserable?
- Is there an opportunity on the horizon for which you would like advice? A barrier you need help removing?
- How do you balance work/family/other interests?
- How can you effectively manage up? How can you navigate corporate politics?
- What kinds of development opportunities are you pursuing?
- Personal SWOT (Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats) analysis
- Personality test results (e.g., Myers-Briggs, DISC, StrengthsFinder)
Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the editors, or the respective authors’ employers.
Kelly Rabin, FSA, MAAA, is vice president and actuary at Hannover Re. She can be reached at kelly.rabin@hlramerica.com. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyrabin/