Ascential plc
October 2021
Background
Ascential plc deliver specialist information, analytics and ecommerce optimisation to the world's leading consumer brands and their ecosystems. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Ascential has two divisions within the company which are Digital Commerce and Intelligence & Events.
With more than 3,500 employees across five continents, they combine local expertise with a global footprint for clients in over 120 countries.
Aim of the Program
When seeking to implement a mentoring platform Ascential was looking to easily showcase their internal talent, allowing staff to offer their services as a mentor, or find one for themselves.
Ascential sees mentoring as one of the key ways to break down silos, build leadership careers, and foster internal talent with their own experts as well as helping to nurture talent and develop careers.
Our Solution
PLD spent time with the Ascential team to understand the various programmes they wanted to support through the mentoring software.
The Ascential team were able to work with PLD to brand the solution to their requirements and tailor the user journey. Any additional requirements that came out of Ascentials' internal user testing were quickly incorporated into the solution.
Supporting equality and diversity across the Ascential global workforce was a key success criteria for the programme with several members of Ascential's EDI initiative involved in programme design.
Ascential chose to work with PLD as they recognised they would get a staff benefit that offered value for money from a tried and tested mentoring software solution.
Results
There has been a positive uptake from employees with a high level of engagement across divisions, covering a broad range of Brand/Functions and Departments.
Over 450 mentees/mentors have registered since launch.
The platform has enabled mentees and mentors to register in their profile that they are part of specific D& I 'Employee networks'.
The data analysis to date demonstrates that the mentor marketplace is providing valuable mentoring support to help break down silos, build leadership careers, and foster internal talent.
The feedback from the surveys shows positive results for both mentees and mentors.
Client Feedback
"Our experience working with PLD has been seamless. PLD are extremely responsive and adept at customising the platform to fit our needs"
Mentee Feedback
"Working with my mentor changed my life, I never had help from someone in the business that wasn't directly my manager. This has helped me see my career from different angles, build up my confidence and challenge myself in ways I have never done before."
"Great experience - a strong experienced mentor who genuinely cared about my development and made sure we had a structure in our sessions."
"My mentor was very helpful in providing a perspective on how I can improve communications across cultures. Definitely sad to know that our journey has ended. Thank you very much!"
"My experience was excellent. After finding it difficult to find a mentor, the marketplace was such a welcome platform. It was easy to navigate and clear. I found a mentor very easily. I had an excellent mentor experience as well, my mentor was exactly what I wanted and I really got loads out of it. I would recommend everyone at least have a look at the mentor marketplace and think about signing up as it's so valuable."
Mentor Feedback
"Great experience and I derived great passion from the mentorship scheme."
"This was a great experience for me to work with someone and provide some feedback and suggestions to help empower them in their career."
"Great platform and scheme"
