The McGraw-Hill Companies is a leading global information services provider meeting worldwide needs in the financial services, education and business information markets through leading brands such as Standard & Poor’s, McGraw-Hill Education, BusinessWeek and J.D. Power and Associates. The company has more than 290 offices in 38 countries with nearly 20,000 employees.
In April 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies’ Women’s Initiative for Networking and Success (WINS) conducted an employee survey to determine whether there was interest in an internal, formal mentoring program. When the results came in, there was tremendous support for mentoring (over 75% of employees said, “Yes, they would like a mentor!”) and WINS knew it was on to something big.
As a next step, a dedicated team of WINS volunteers conducted extensive, best practice research on successful mentoring programs and respected leaders in mentoring consulting. Based on that research, in May 2004, The McGraw-Hill Companies engaged Menttium to assist in the planning and execution of a formal mentoring program.
To ensure the mentoring program was aligned with key business objectives, Menttium worked closely with senior leadership at The McGraw-Hill Companies to conduct a Strategic Design Session. During this session, key goals for the program were identified including:
Building a Mentoring Culture
To support these goals, the target mentee population was defined as middle to upper-middle managers. This group was identified because of specific challenges in regards to retention and development.