Mentoring ADVANTAGE - Supporting and facilitating mentoring relationships in the p&c insurance industry

Some would say that today’s workforce challenges are a perfect storm. With two big groups of workers on the move –boomers moving into retirement and millennials entering the workforce – the workplace will never be the same again. And just as the boomers changed the workplace and changed the way we work when they entered en masse, so too are the millennials.

This excerpt was taken from the February 2016 Trends Paper: The Advantage of Mentoring in the Insurance Industry, which focuses on the growing need for professional mentoring in the workplace as a tool to address the exodus of boomers and the entry of millennials within the insurance industry.

Since its launch a year ago, the CIP Society’s Mentoring ADVANTAGE website has stimulated greater discussions about mentoring and the benefits of implementing employer-based mentoring initiatives. The CIP Society is proud that our online resource of best practices on mentoring provides tools and resources to help organizations, mentors, and mentees have more effective mentoring relationships.

Why is Mentoring in the Industry Important?

In a recent survey, 72% of our members reported that mentoring is ‘valuable’ or ‘very valuable’ to them personally, and 90% reported that it was ‘valuable’ or ‘very valuable’ to the industry.

As our members recognize, mentoring is an important strategy that meets a variety of workforce challenges, including retention and succession planning. Mentoring programs provide employers the opportunity to tap into their own pool of experienced professionals, helping to stabilize the work environment in times of change such as the impending exodus of boomers—up to 22% are set to retire between now and 2022, according to the Institute’s demographic research study.

As experienced workers leave the industry, there’s a risk that organizations will lose those vital skills that are hard to teach through traditional training – such as people skills, leadership skills, and ethical decision-making skills.

What we’re doing for the industry

The CIP Society has created the resources on the Mentoring ADVANTAGE site to support and facilitate mentoring relationships, and provides tools and resources for the following groups: 

Mentors –includes information on managing the relationship, including addressing confidentiality, and tips to help you hone your mentoring skills. 

Mentees –includes advice on how to set goals, identify a potential mentor and how to address common relationship problems. 

Organizations –includes information and tools for HR and management to set organizational goals around mentoring, and initiate, manage and evaluate in-house mentoring programs.


For more information about starting a mentoring program in your organization, visit the Mentoring ADVANTAGE site or email mentoring@insuranceinstitute.ca.