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The purpose of this paper is to examine a long-term mentoring relationship between a White female from the Traditional Generation and an African American male from the Xennial Generation, as engaged in a mentoring relationship within higher education institutions in the USA. The study investigated if, how and to what degree the differences and similarities between them influenced their mentoring relationship.

The authors used an autoethnographic approach involving extensive questioning, dialoguing, note keeping and analysis over eight months.

The analysis suggested that race had the greatest influence on the relationship. The primary reasons for mentoring success were similarities in family backgrounds and commonly held values.

This study may not be generalizable to mentoring relationships that do not involve cultural differences in race, age or gender.

The paper offers a model for the types of strategies individuals can use in cross-racial mentoring endeavors to help build and sustain these relationships. It also includes suggestions for individuals engaged in mentoring relationships, which include gender, race or age differences, and organizations seeking to enhance diversity within their institutions.

There is not an extensive body of research on individual cross-racial, gender and generational mentoring that provides an analysis of the experience of those involved. Additionally, the model presented for examining cross-racial mentoring relationships is unique.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the issues around a multiple generational workforce and more specifically, the challenges and benefits for education providers and employers.

Reviewing research papers, analysing academic texts, interrogating market intelligence and contextualising case studies, the paper examines the “experience” or “qualifications” debate alongside the similarities, differences and overlaps of the cross‐generational workforce, with a view to offering education/training solutions.

Demographic forecasts suggest that the UK workplace will imminently be dominated by older, experienced employees. As the composition of the workplace shifts, examining the inter‐relationship between groups of workers of different ages/profiles who have different skills, attitudes, expectations and learning styles is vital. The synergy caused by this inter‐mingling cannot help but impact on employers, sectors and higher education institutions.

Data around the “older” graduate is not readily available – there is still an implicit belief that “graduate” means approximately 21/22 years old. Whilst many general demographic forecasts are produced, the future is still relatively unknown.

The paper builds upon the authors’ own original research into the employment market from an HE perspective. Little has been so far published around how the generations might usefully work together, especially the idea of adapting the skills and maximising on the overlaps of different generational profiles. The exploration of the hybrid graduate is also a new area for academic research.

Ageing demographics are impacting employers around the world and, for many organisations, there are strong business reasons to develop strategies for managing the age profiles of their workplaces. Societal ageing is not necessarily bad news for business: older workers can be a valuable resource for employers in terms of skills, in-house knowledge and flexibility. Further, as populations age, businesses are delivering goods and services to an ageing market, and older workers can be a valuable resource. While ageing demographics can provide opportunities for the business community, there are significant challenges facing employers. For example, balancing the career interests and expectations of older and younger workers will necessitate new approaches to workforce planning, performance management and team building. As skilled workers become more scarce, employers need to also find ways to make better use of the talents and capabilities of older unemployed people. This chapter is written by representatives of employer networks in Europe and Asia. We discuss innovative approaches to age diversity of organisations on both continents. These include approaches to phased retirement, lifelong learning, flexible retirement and mentoring. In the final section, we suggest a research agenda which will generate practical knowledge for businesses which want to better manage workplace ageing. A business-focused research agenda includes improving the understanding of generations in the East and West, the intersection of age and other forms of diversity, lifelong learning, joblessness and providing the business case for businesses of different forms.

The purpose of this study is to examine talent management process in a region that has been influenced by Eastern culture.

This research is a multiple case study of six MNCs in Asia. Cross-cases analysis was used to reveal differences and similarities. The data were collected through phone interviews with HR managers and written communications as well as organizations’ websites.

The studied companies were dealing with several challenges regarding talent management process, including challenges of attracting and retaining talent, tension between subsidiaries and headquarters, tension between high potentials and non-high potentials and tension between generations. These companies’ strategies for addressing these challenges were also identified and discussed.

This paper revealed talent management orientation, the approach toward and definition of talent and context-specific issues regarding talent management of the selected companies in a region in which this topic has not been sufficiently studied in the past.

The purpose of this paper is to study and understand the older generation’s attitude toward use of technology for workplace communications.

In-depth interviews were conducted with the older generation employees of an Indian Oil and Gas Public Sector Undertakings. Data gathered from the interviews were then analyzed to draw broad themes.

Although the older generation is aware of the importance of technology and has adequate knowledge of its use, they are reluctant to use it. The reluctance is not on account of techno-phobia; it is more in the nature of approach-avoidance.

Organizations and human resource managers should focus on addressing the mental block of the older generation regarding the use of technology.

Reverse mentoring and formation of cross-generational teams can be used to alter older generation’s selective mindset in relation to technology.

This paper discusses the role of technology in intergenerational communication in the Indian context.

This paper aims to explore why creating a mentoring culture can help to transform businesses and solve key recruitment, training and development and retention issues. It looks at what a mentoring culture is and the benefits and provides advice for companies on how to build this kind of culture.

This paper considers the approach taken by leadership coaching company The OCM to develop effective coaching and mentoring programmes which can contribute to organisational success in an ever-changing business environment. This paper explores current business challenges and how they can be overcome.

Creating a mentoring culture can transform a business. It can address many talent and leadership-based challenges and tap into the potential of knowledge transfer across a multi-generational workplace. The paper includes two case studies of organisations whose experiences of mentoring and coaching have been overwhelmingly positive and led to much-needed cultural shifts.

This paper attempts to raise awareness of the benefits of mentoring and coaching as an effective method for attracting, developing and retaining people and meeting the challenges of a modern workplace.

Reverse mentoring though widely discussed and adopted in practice, scholarly research on the same is scarce. This paper thus attempts to provide an overview of the extant literature and highlights the developments taking place in the practical arena so as to reveal the research-practice gap and identify new avenues with respect to the expanding role of reverse mentoring.

This paper is based on the review of important developments in research and practice related to reverse mentoring.

Despite the multi-faceted benefits of reverse mentoring observed by practitioners, the academic literature is not only scarce but also confined to its vignettes and anecdotes. This review highlights how reverse mentoring has much more to offer than being just a tech-savvy tool.

This review calls for abandoning the single-faceted outlook (of a tech-savvy tool) towards reverse mentoring by exploring the concept from a broader lens.

The insights covered in the review highlight the expanding scope of reverse mentoring and present future pathways both for researchers and practitioners. It inspires the readers to re-visit the concept and explore how it can deliver valuable outcomes especially with regards to the multi-generational workforce.

Research on mentorship has been dominated by the West and little is known about the cultural variations of the mentoring phenomenon in Asian countries. A richer understanding of the cultural context that is more attuned to mentoring experience in Asia can help to improve workplace experience, in general, for those working in and for those who intend to work in the region. This chapter captures the important theoretical lenses in the mentoring literature, and also provides a clear demarcation between negative mentoring and dysfunctional mentoring. This is followed by contextualizing mentoring as per four of Hofstede's six cultural dimensions by dwelling on mentoring experience in countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. It is hoped that this chapter will pave the way for further research, which may be a precursor for theory development.

This chapter presents digital reverse mentoring as a novel kind of human and technological resource management intervention. It presents a case study of digital reverse mentoring at a large metal multinational. It highlights the various design elements of digital reverse mentoring that contribute towards achieving digital transformation and rebuilding of mindsets in the company. Through the case study the chapter also suggests that HRM needs to look beyond adoption of technological tools to actively participate in addressing the strategic concerns of digital transformation in a company.

This chapter offers an original conceptualization of co-mentoring – situated in the wider literature – together with evidence of its impact and factors facilitating impact across applications of co-mentoring in transnational schooling contexts. Co-mentoring is an alternative to more traditional, hierarchical, and unidirectional approaches to mentoring in education. Extending the extant literature on collaborative mentoring (or “comentoring”), co-mentoring is a collaborative, compassionate, and developmental relationship – informed by specific approaches to mentoring and coaching – that is intended to support participants' professional learning, development, effectiveness, and well-being, and potentially improve their workplace cultures. Detailing three different applications of co-mentoring across the United Kingdom and United States, the chapter evidences the realization of these intended outcomes (professional learning, etc.), and highlights factors found to be instrumental in facilitating the positive impacts of co-mentoring. We end with recommendations for undertaking research and practice that build human and organizational capacity through co-mentoring. A takeaway is that intentional approaches to co-mentoring can have value for participating parties and broader impact, as well as wide applicability.