USA 
United KingdomNicole Brown,
CHRO, Mediaocean
Chief Human Resource Officer Nicole Brown speaks to HR Grapevine to lift the lid on the outstanding mentorship program and break down Mediaocean’s hugely successful talent development practices...
Nicole Brown,
CHRO, Mediaocean
Chief Human Resource Officer Nicole Brown speaks to HR Grapevine to lift the lid on the outstanding mentorship program and break down Mediaocean’s hugely successful talent development practices...
2023 marked eight years since Mediaocean launched its pioneering mentorship scheme.
In that time, some 934 employees have taken part in the scheme. What’s more, it shows no signs of slowing down. 2023 saw a 25% increase in participation and a 57% increase in the number of female participants, thanks to its substantial impact on career progression. Indeed, in 2023, 13.6% of participants received a promotion, compared to 9.6% of employees not enrolled in the program.
Chief Human Resource Officer Nicole Brown speaks to HR Grapevine to lift the lid on the outstanding mentorship program and break down Mediaocean’s hugely successful talent development practices.
Growing our people is critical to Mediaocean’s continued success. Each year, as we continue to evaluate our employee engagement surveys, it is increasingly apparent that our team members are looking for more ways to expand their knowledge, skills, and abilities. With Mediaocean's rich culture and tenured history, we know we have a unique opportunity to create a talent development function that can meet these needs.
To support this effort, our mentorship program provides opportunities for ongoing engagement and continuous improvement. Since the original pilot in 2015, we have seen 934 employees engage in mentorship connections through the annual program, with 56% of participants returning to the program to work on new and future goals, or take on a role as mentor.
Based on self-reporting from mentees, the top competencies improved through the program were ‘enhancing business perspective and acumen’, ‘managing effective teams and work groups’, and ‘understanding and navigating the organisation’. Similarly, for the top skills improved through the program, mentees identified ‘career guidance’, ‘improved job effectiveness’, and ‘leadership skills’.
We wanted to address team members at multiple stages of their career life cycle. In doing so we created several distinct programs that were able to focus on specific needs of our various team demographics.
The first program that we have in place is called LIFT, which stands for learn, inspire, flourish, and transform. From our standpoint, we wanted all individual contributors to have access to content that was going to inspire them to flourish at Mediaocean and transform them to do their very best work. We also have our EMERGE program for emerging leaders. This is designed to support the needs of our rising stars who are on the track for leadership development.
We also have LEAP – lean leadership & executive advancement program. With this program, we focus on leadership development and skills beyond management capabilities including coaching feedback strategy and building diverse teams.
Since the original pilot in 2015, we have seen 934 employees engage in mentorship connections through the annual program, with 56% of participants returning to the program
We take a varied approach where not all of our training is synchronous. Some of it is instructor led and some of it is e-learning. Additionally, we leverage both external content providers and internal development. Our main goal is to try and make learning as accessible as possible to our team members, while also making it fun. We know that there are a lot of options and ways for people to learn and we try to meet our team members where they are.
For each aspect of knowledge sharing, there is an element of action and activity. At the same time, we aim to connect the learning to who people are as employees and their sense of belonging and how it relates to their role. We also applied gamification so that we are recognising and rewarding our talent for prioritising their learning and development.
The program continues to grow in popularity and in 2023 saw 140 employees engage in 81 mentorship connections, a 25% increase in participants year on year, and a 58% increase in the number of female participants. This surge in participation, especially among women, reflects the program’s growing appeal and its ability to attract diverse talent, aligning with the broader industry trend where women are 12.5% more likely to have a mentor.
The program also helps Mediaocean retain and promote top talent. In 2023, 13.6% of participants received a promotion, compared to 9.6% of employees not enrolled in the program, and analysis showed that employees were 41.4% more likely to receive a promotion if they were engaged in the mentorship program than if they were not. Retention was also slightly higher for participants in 2023.
To manage everything, we have an internal hub, which is our learning management system fuelled by an outside vendor. We also have tools that we use for additional employee development programs such as career circles, employee resource groups, and mentorship programs. The learning hub creates structure for our team members to easily be able to access content from a variety of providers.
In 2023, 13.6% of participants received a promotion, compared to 9.6% of employees not enrolled in the program
Our team members are able to choose their own journey and continue to follow classes in that path or search the library and take classes that are more interesting to them based on what their specific role requirements are. Within that, the content is adaptive so, as people start taking classes and assessments, the courses become more robust or rigorous based on increasing levels of knowledge. We also try, when possible, to make learning available on the go. We know that all of our team members are not only learning on their laptop, but also on phones, so we ensure our content is mobile-enabled.
Springboard! is our newest employee program launched in February 2024. The program aims to support employees in learning and sharing their technical skills and expertise, by providing a platform for skill seekers to search for and match with employees with skills and expertise to offer.
They go on to have a one-time connection focused on developing and sharpening a specific technical skill with additional benefits of leveraging cross-departmental knowledge, exploring internal career paths, and building stronger professional networks.
The program is in its first phase of the launch as we gather profiles of those with skills to offer and, in the first two-weeks of opening the program, we saw 264 employees create profiles to share their skills.
