"It's definitely opened my eyes": FR30U30 finalists on the power of mentoring programmes

Mentoring has been a huge part of mortgages and financial services for decades, with those at the top helping to guide and shape younger talent. But how do we make mentoring programmes work for this next generation?

Financial Reporter 30 Under 30 is working in collaboration with Working in Mortgages (WIM) to give a voice to the young people of today’s industry. WIM runs its own mentoring programme, designed to support career growth by helping both mentees and mentors develop their skills and knowledge while addressing barriers to career progression and increasing diversity in the sector.

FR30U30 finalist Leah Williams, Regional Sales Officer at LSL Financial Services and Under 30 Live speaker, began her WIM experience when she was new to the industry and working in a marketing role.

"While I was learning that side of the company, I just wanted to enhance my overall knowledge of the basics of the industry, like what jargon people use," she explains.

In the process of learning more about financial services, Leah notes that mentoring helped her to discover "the different areas of the industry and what I like to do."

“It opened up job roles that I didn't previously think I would have even been interested in.”

Leah also took part in an internal mentoring programme at LSL Financial Services, where she found that she was able to enjoy "a slightly closer relationship" with her mentors because "we all work together."

Ultimately, Leah found her mentors "so willing to teach and really passionate about what they do," giving her an insight into "a really heartfelt, passionate side of financial services."

"I think when you're a younger person and coming into a new industry, it's quite daunting speaking to people that are higher up," she says, "you think, 'Oh gosh, I can't really ask them that.'"

"I was pleasantly surprised by how open people were with sharing their knowledge and how down-to-earth they were."

She adds that her experience in the Working in Mortgages mentoring programme was an "exciting" way to enhance her network through being mentored by someone she didn’t previously know.

Meanwhile, Daisy Richards, FR30U30 finalist and regional sales manager at PRIMIS Mortgage Network, had a slightly more unconventional mentoring experience.

"The network that I work for launched an internal mentoring scheme, so you could either be mentored by a member of the exec, or you could reverse mentor somebody. I mentored a member of the exec.

"Our managing director was really keen to learn about people who were of Gen Z age within the network. It was another person and I who were mentoring him on what it's like to work in the network as a Gen Z person and how accessible the network is for us," she explains.

Daisy adds that she had "never experienced anything like it before," and admits that she was "apprehensive at first."

"I was like, ‘What can I actually teach him?’ But it was more like cultural mentoring as opposed to skills and knowledge. It was really interesting to do from my perspective.

"I thought it'd be more formal, more like an interview, but it was very much about trying to understand how they could make the network more accessible for the younger generation, which was quite different to anything I expected," she says.

The generational divide is a much-discussed issue in mortgages and financial services. Daisy believes that the "lack of younger individuals" in the sector and its "ageing population" comes down to awareness, something which her mentoring programme aimed to help change.

"It’s not taught at school properly, it's only touched on here and there," she says. 

“I think it's a more unconventional career path to go down for the younger generation.”

"My mentee had a really big interest in how the younger generation within the network feels. He was really interested in what their working environment was like - so if they worked from home, did they like it? If they worked in the office, did they like it? Did they have problems with colleagues of a different age? What are we really passionate about?"

Daisy’s mentee also had some "really abstract questions" that she "wasn't always prepared for."

"For example, would we rather be paid a little bit less, but the company be more environmentally friendly? They were questions that I'd never really considered at first, and it really got me thinking.

At the same time, Daisy was able to challenge her mentee’s perceptions of younger people: "It was interesting because he'd read out different statements, such as young people are really focused on the environment, their mental health, eating healthily, etc. and some of them were completely right, but then there were other ones where I was thinking, 'that literally could not be further from anything that I'm really very interested in.'"

Similarly to Leah, Daisy found that her mentoring experience gave her "a lot of exposure to people who have a lot of power within the network, like senior management and the exec team."

"I think it's probably raised my profile to a certain extent within the network. I've also been used to advertise the mentoring scheme going forward, which is nice.

"It's definitely opened my eyes to the ingrained perceptions of younger people, and I can really get on board with some of those perceptions and actively try to battle the other perceptions."

Meanwhile, since beginning her financial services career in marketing, Leah has transitioned into sales, something which she believes wouldn’t have been possible without the "transferable skills" she learned through her mentorship.

"I always thought that if you work in marketing, you'll never be able to work in a sales team. They were so different. I do a lot of career planning in my mentorship, and that's helped me because I get to spend time with different teams and see what they do. 

"I'm also currently studying for my ceMAP, which opens up more doors as well. When I was asking, 'What can I do? What can I learn?', it was my mentor through Working in Mortgages that said the ceMAP is a good place to start because it covers a lot of things within the industry," she says.

For Leah, mentoring programmes are an opportunity to "just be able to ask the silly questions," and "explore options," all while "enhancing your confidence."

"I think people are mentors because they've got a way of looking at things, and they want to share that. It's interesting to hear people's takes and why they're in the industry; hearing about their journeys can inspire your own."

“It's interesting to hear from people who joined the industry before the financial crash about how their careers have changed.” 

"A few people that I spoke to have seen their careers go all over the place, but still within the financial services industry, and it's got them to where they want to be," she says.

In Daisy’s opinion, mentoring programmes are "definitely worth taking the step," as "they open so many connections to other individuals, whether it be within the wider industry or within your current company," she says.

"I think it's definitely worthwhile."

Leah will be sharing her mentoring story at Under 30 Live on Friday, 27th February, in her session 'From Mentee to Momentum: A Real Life Mentoring Success Story.' To join us in celebrating the next generation of mortgages and financial services at Studio Spaces, London, click here to book your place.

To learn more about the Working in Mortgages mentoring programme, click here.