Mentoring platform at pladis
Background
pladis is one of the world's fastest-growing snacking companies, and home to iconic brands like McVitie's, GODIVA, and Ülker, alongside regional favourites such as Jacob's, Go Ahead, Flipz and more.
pladis is the proud custodian of over 300 years of baking and confectionery heritage. The 16,000-strong global team crafts delicious treats across 27 bakeries in 11 countries, with the potential to reach four billion consumers worldwide.
Aims
The main objectives of setting up a mentoring platform were as follows:
Foster personal and professional growth - Providing a structured environment where mentees can develop their skills, gain new perspectives, and achieve their career goals through guidance from experienced mentors.
Enhance Knowledge Sharing – Creating a culture of continuous learning by facilitating the exchange of knowledge, experiences, and best practices between mentors and mentees.
Improve Employee Engagement and Retention: Increase job satisfaction and loyalty by offering employees opportunities for personal development and career advancement through mentoring relationships.
Build Leadership Skills: Develop future leaders by giving mentors the chance to refine their leadership and coaching abilities, while mentees learn from their mentors' experiences.
Promote Diversity and Inclusion: Support a diverse and inclusive environment by ensuring that mentoring opportunities are accessible to all employees, helping to bridge gaps and foster a sense of belonging.
Strengthen Organisational Culture: Reinforce our pladis values and culture by encouraging meaningful connections and collaboration across different levels, functions and countries.
Support Succession Planning: Prepare for future leadership needs by identifying and nurturing high-potential employees through targeted mentoring programmes.
Boost Innovation and Creativity: Encourage innovative thinking and problem-solving by exposing mentees to new ideas and different ways of thinking through their interactions with mentors.
Our Solution
The mentoring platform was launched in June 2022 with a general mentoring programme, which allowed those employees who wanted to get the support of a mentor to register on the platform and to search for a mentor with the skills and expertise they were looking for and to send them a request.
On acceptance of their mentoring request, the mentor and mentee were able to access a structured mentoring journey and resources to support this.
Since launch, three additional specific programmes have been added, including a graduate training programme, which is a smaller, by invitation-only programme in which graduates are matched by a platform admin. The other programmes that have been launched are function-specific and location-specific.
Reports can be run on the engagement for each specific programme and the overall engagement with the platform.
Results
"We are pleased to report that all objectives are being successfully achieved. We maintain close connections with both our mentors and mentees on the platform, and we frequently receive feedback about how their mentoring relationships are fostering personal and professional growth."
"Since collaborating with our Europe and Developing Markets region, we have observed a significant increase in the culture of mentoring. Cross-regional mentoring relationships are flourishing, with positive feedback highlighting how having a mentor from a different region offers fresh perspectives on both professional and personal matters."
Kelly Green – Learning and Development Business Partner
Client Feedback
We opted to collaborate with PLD for several compelling reasons. The system seemed to perfectly align with our business requirements, offering exactly what we were seeking. Its flexibility allowed us to tailor it to our specific needs, making it highly accommodating. Moreover, PLD's platform met our expectations while staying within our budget. Additionally, the service provided by PLD was precisely what we desired in a provider, and we greatly appreciate the team's ongoing willingness and support, which we continue to value.
The PLD team are always so helpful and a joy to work with. We have quarterly platform reviews with our account manager, which is really useful for understanding any updates that the platform has had and also a chance to look at our growth and identify where we might want to focus our efforts in the next quarter.
We enjoy the articles that are written by PLD and use these each month to share with our wider mentoring community.
The team are extremely responsive to requests we have. During our quarterly platform reviews, where we make suggestions, they are implemented and communicated to us in good time.
User Feedback
"My Mentor has really helped me throughout the process, this is both in work and also my personal life. With his guidance i have been able to turn things around and have more family time. He was very supportive throughout and came up with new ideas and ways of working. I would recommend this programme to anyone"
"It has been a really good experience overall and I am very grateful that I was given the opportunity to connect with a senior member of the organisation who I could have an open conversation with. In this sense, I could tap in into her experience as a leader but also have an open conversation about many other topics. Also, it has been very nice to have an overview about other areas of the business not necessarily linked to mine. Very useful and valuable!"
