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Mentorship is a form of leadership that can help to foster a sense of community and belonging within an organisation, writes Shay Dalton The concept of mentorship can be traced back to the character of the Mentor in Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus, King of Ithaca, asks his trusted companion, Mentor, to keep watch over his son, Telemachus, while he is away. Mentor acts as a guide to Telemachus, supporting him in his father’s absence. In the Middle Ages, mentoring became popular as part of the apprenticeship process in trade work. It wasn’t until the 1970s that mentorship made its way into the business world, however. Though the stakes may not be the same as they were in ancient Greek civilization, mentorship can play a key role in career growth and success. What is the role of a mentor? A mentor is someone with more experience than the mentee who passes along their knowledge and experience in the field in which the mentee aspires to work. The role of the mentor is to guide the mentee throughout their career progression. Anyone, at any stage in their career, can—and should—have a mentor. Benefits of mentorship According to a Harvard Business Review survey, 84 percent of CEOs with formal mentor relationships were less likely to make costly mistakes and more likely to become efficient in their roles. Seventy-one percent of CEOs who had formal mentoring arrangements said they “were certain that company performance had improved as a result”. Mentorships can also help with: Support systems: Mentorship offers a built-in support system, which is essential in any career or industry. It positively impacts mental health and improves self-confidence and self-esteem. In the early days of entrepreneurship, mentorship can alleviate feelings of loneliness and isolation. Accountability: A mentor holds their mentee accountable for their goals. This may mean verbally checking in on how their progress. It also means both parties hold one another accountable. If the mentor is not prioritising the mentorship, it is the mentee’s job to check-in. Accountability is critical to success. Confidence: Mentorship provides confidence as the mentee begins to develop their skills and autonomy. It also helps build leadership skills for both the mentor and mentee. Networking opportunities: Through time and experience, the mentor has developed relationships with others in their field. Mentors have a network of people to introduce to the mentee and can expose them to more career opportunities. Four phases of mentorship Kathy E. Kram, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Boston University, lists phases of the mentoring process in her research from the early eighties. According to Kram, mentorship is an ongoing exchange that moves between these four phases: Initiation phase is when the relationship is established, and trust is built between the mentee and mentor. Cultivation phase is when more frequent interactions and collaboration occurs (this stage can last two to five years). Separation phase is when the mentee begins to operate more independently from the mentor; and Redefinition phase is when the relationship shifts from mentorship to peer. The mentorship relationship should also have specific and measurable goals, frequent interaction, and actionable steps. There should be a clear desired outcome for both the mentee and the mentor. Mentorship as leadership Mentorship is a form of leadership. It is a way for those with more experience to give back to the company and leave behind a legacy from their own experiences. It can help to foster a sense of community and belonging within a corporation. Shay Dalton is the Managing Director of Lincoln 

To effectively determine future workforce requirements, employers must commit to longer planning horizons. Ger McDonough explains why Shifts in technology, workforce demographics, the automation of jobs and pressure on staffing budgets are just some of the trends shaping the future of the workforce. Businesses need to align strategy choices and workforce implications with reliable workforce data and analytics capability, to ensure that the number of staff and the right mix of skills and capabilities are considered. A mature approach to strategic workforce planning and meaningful people analytics will help leaders make informed decisions about their workforce for the long term. Planning for the future Workforce planning is an essential part of enterprise planning. Leaders must consider the capabilities they will need in the future and put in place firm plans for developing, buying or borrowing talent to ensure they can deliver against their strategy. Competition for the right talent remains tough. Organisations could fail to consider a range of external and internal drivers without an appropriate focus on scenario planning and impact modelling, increasing their workforce risks. Without a clear plan, organisations may continue to make short-term decisions based on affordability without considering long-term capability requirements. Making a future-ready workforce All roles will be affected by change over time—the question is: to what degree can this be managed in order to minimise adverse effects on the workforce? Digital transformation will profoundly affect the types of roles, business processes, customer behaviours and ways of working within our organisations. Leaders must ensure that their workforces are future-ready. By clearly understanding their current and future workforce capability, they can determine workforce gaps and implement strategies for skills development. Reassuringly, the results of PwC’s 2022 Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey show that companies are investing in their workforce through upskilling, with 40 percent of employees indicating that their employers are upskilling workers to address labour shortages. Four key actions for workforce planning To mature your workforce planning capability and look further into the future, we recommend taking action in four areas. 1. Align business strategy and capabilities with workforce strategy Workforce planning should be carried out alongside business planning in a two-track process. One is operational and aligned to business and budget planning. The other is a longer horizon, data-driven, strategic sweep that accounts for seismic shifts in workforce supply and demand. The second track must forecast the impact of environmental changes—including technological, generational and cultural—and define the required future workforce to meet these challenges. 2. Look for iterative improvements to your workforce planning process For organisations with workforce planning processes in place, analyse the strengths and weaknesses of your approach and look for opportunities to improve. The key is to concentrate less on cyclical workforce planning processes and more on continuous improvement to the overall approach. Value comes from embedding processes, measuring outcomes, digitally enabling the process wherever possible, using better data and building your workforce planning capability. 3. Accelerate the development of critical capabilities Once you have identified capability and capacity requirements, a tactical approach is essential to accelerate the development of critical capabilities by having a robust action plan to develop, buy, or borrow to address capability gaps. Successful organisations accelerate the development of critical capabilities to maximise investments and carefully consider the breadth of available reskilling, upskilling, and employment models. 4. Build confidence in your data for people-focused decisions Data-based insights can tell you a lot about your people and drive better decisions at every level. However, data is rarely harnessed and taken from analysis to action. HR must take the lead in building confidence in data across the employee lifecycle. With the correct data, you can create simple but powerful models to scenario plan and predict future needs. Ger McDonough is People & Organisation Partner at PwC

CEOs are taking a measured approach in an uncertain market and focusing on strategic investments that can deliver long-term value, writes Graham Reid According to the EY CEO Outlook Pulse survey, CEOs are determined to act decisively and forge ahead, delivering growth and competitive advantage for their business, despite a uniquely challenging economic environment. Investment strategies Ninety-seven percent of CEOs in the Americas, Europe and Asia have altered their planned investment strategies in response to recent global turbulence, with almost a third (32%) halting a planned investment. The volatile geopolitical environment has curtailed the relatively liberalised global trade era, at least for now. Restrictive regulatory trade and investment policies have overtaken COVID-related issues as the key reason for altering international investment plans. Indeed, 52 percent of CEOs cited restrictive trade policies and political policy uncertainty as key drivers behind their decisions to alter strategic investment plans. Just 19 percent pointed to pandemic-related issues. CEOs have reported that they have mapped out specific actions such as: delaying a planned investment until the situation improves (44%); supply chain reconfiguration (41%); relocation of operational assets (36%); and exiting businesses in certain markets (34%). CEOs response For CEOs, the pandemic continues to loom large regarding risks for future growth. Thirty-two percent of respondents consider a continuation or return of pandemic-related disruptions as a key threat to growth. Twenty-eight percent consider climate change impacts and pressures to build sustainability among the most significant risks they face. Other risks include: uncertain monetary policy direction; increasing cost of capital; higher input prices and inflation; rising cybersecurity risks; a further increase in geopolitical tensions; and the regionalisation and fragmentation of the global economy. The findings of the EY CEO Outlook Pulse survey point to a two-stranded response among CEOs to these challenges. First, they are tackling immediate issues through increased investment in internal functions such as finance, accounting, supply chain, and logistics, as well as in marketing and customer experience.  Second, CEOs are taking a longer-term view and investing in sustainability, including net zero, other environmental issues, and societal priorities. That longer horizon is also evidenced by intentions to continue investing in digital transformation, innovation, research and development, cybersecurity measures, and talent development. These findings demonstrate a calm and measured approach among CEOs as they face a period of uncertainty. Despite anticipating a global downturn and heightened geopolitical risks, CEOs are still intent on making strategic investments that can deliver long-term value for their business. Graham Reid is Corporate Finance Partner and Head of Markets at EY Ireland

OECD countries will not close the gender pay gap for at least 50 years if we continue at the current pace of progress, despite the potential economic gains, writes Ger McDonough To mark International Women’s Day, PwC released the results of our Women in Work Index, assessing women’s employment outcomes across 33 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The Women in Work (WIW) Index shows that female workforce participation across the 33 OECD countries increased slightly in 2021. Progress towards gender equality remains too slow, however.  In fact, based on OECD countries’ gender pay gap of 14 percent in 2021 and historical rates of progress towards gender pay equality, our findings show that it will take more than 50 years to close the gender pay gap. This means that a 20-year old woman entering the workforce today will not see pay equality in her working lifetime. At the same time, our analysis also shows that, by closing the gender pay gap, OECD countries could make trillion-dollar gains. By increasing women’s average wages to match those of their male counterparts across the OECD, female earnings would rise by more than US$2 trillion per annum, our research has found.  In Ireland, closing the gender pay gap could boost women’s earnings by US$4.32 billion per annum (8%) and increasing women’s employment could boost Irish GDP by US$50 billion per annum or nine percent. Ireland ranks in 12th place overall out of the 33 OECD countries in our latest WIW Index, up from 15th place in the year prior. This improvement was in large part due to a rise in the female labour participation rate from 65.6 percent to 69.6 percent. Our research also reveals that just 25 percent of women in Ireland have an established plan to advance their career with their current employer, however, compared to 35 percent of women globally.  If the rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we can’t rely on economic growth alone to produce gender equality—unless we want to wait another 50 years or more. Employers can make a material improvement to women's empowerment in the workplace now by focusing on fair reward, autonomy, inclusive leadership and instituting a data-driven diversity strategy. Women working full-time in person have the lowest empowerment score in our WIW Index. This trend follows suit for men—suggesting that autonomy over how, where and when people work fuels feelings of empowerment across the workforce. According to our WIW Index, the women who are most empowered also have greater opportunity to work remotely (74%). However, close to half (48%) of women can’t do their job remotely.  Of the 11,285 women who can, 29 percent are working remotely full-time, and 56 percent had some level of hybrid work pattern. Autonomy fuels empowerment for both women and men, but women currently have less autonomy over how, when and where they work.  Demand for flexibility is a talent-wide proposition, and one that cannot be ignored by employers as they seek to enhance diversity, fuel engagement and innovation, and position themselves as an employer of choice. Ger McDonough is Partner and Leader of the People and Organisation Consulting Practice at PwC Ireland 

There are many reasons why our confidence can falter. Dawn Leane explains how we can overcome our self-doubt and silence our inner critic so we can achieve our goals In the workplace, being confident means feeling self-assured and believing we are capable of achieving our objectives. We often think that confidence is intrinsic; we either have it, or we don’t. In fact, our relationship with confidence is more likely to be influenced by our conditioning, life experiences and environmental factors. Handling feedback Confidence is one of those words that often triggers an emotional response in us, particularly if we struggle with it. We’ve all had an experience where we make a proposal or suggestion and have it critiqued. If we work in a psychologically safe environment, we take feedback from colleagues and leaders at face value. We appreciate the input and guidance and trust that the motivation is to help us refine and improve the idea. However, if the environment is not psychologically safe, we are much more likely to receive such feedback negatively. Perhaps we perceive it as criticism, a chance to settle a score or ‘mark our card’. This is especially true when our work is deeply personal and connected to our values and sense of self. In this situation, it can be hard to avoid internalising or personalising feedback—and when we do, it has the potential to erode our confidence. Limiting beliefs While our environment is hugely significant in determining our level of self-assurance, we are also influenced by our own limiting beliefs. A limiting belief is a state of mind or belief we think to be true, but one which will limit our potential. A limiting belief could be about you, your relationships with other people, or with the work environment. Self-limiting beliefs have the greatest potential to negatively impact our ability to achieve our full potential and are usually developed in response to our experiences, and because we are shaped by these limiting beliefs, we then go on to adopt behaviours that reinforce them. While many of our beliefs are formed as we grow up, we can develop new ones as we grow. Our inner critic Everyone has a voice in their head that reinforces their worst fears – an inner critic. The voice may be a whisper, or it may be so loud that it paralyses us. The voice holds us back from trying new experiences and rubs failure in our faces. It is possible to let go of limiting beliefs and tune out the inner critic, however. People can develop new ways of thinking and behaving that can help to create a positive narrative for themselves. To help silence your inner critic and build your confidence, there are several steps you can take: Identify any self-limiting beliefs and the behaviours that have resulted from them; Consider where these beliefs might have come from; Reflect on instances where these beliefs have been shown to be incorrect; and Decide on new behaviours to replace the limiting beliefs, then practice and reinforce them After acknowledging a self-limiting belief when it occurs, learn to replace it with something else. Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, has a simple but effective solution: add the word ‘yet’ to any limiting belief. For example: ‘I don’t have much experience at public speaking… yet.’ By adding ‘yet’, it allows you to acknowledge your shortfalls while also identifying that you are actively working on correcting it. Finding confidence Being a self-assured person without doubt is a lofty goal and probably not a realistic one. Acknowledging your limiting beliefs and working on silencing your inner critic is important, however. Your confidence will rise and you will be far more likely to achieve your objectives no matter the environment. Dawn Leane is the Founder of Leane Leaders

As the fastest growing consumer app ever to launch, ChatGPT has the potential to support and enhance marketing for accountancy firms. Maryrose Lyons explains why By now, you’ve probably heard of ChatGPT. As the fastest growing consumer app ever to launch, it reached 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after going live. ChatGPT marks the start of the mass adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). Hailed by Bill Gates as the biggest innovation in technology since the invention of the internet, it is just one of the many AI tools that are taking the marketing world by storm. The question is: have you thought about how you might use it to improve your marketing efforts? ChatGPT is an advanced language model that is capable of understanding natural language and generating human-like responses. It’s a chatbot with a range of applications, including in the area of marketing. With ChatGPT, accounting firms could potentially enhance their marketing efforts by engaging with their customers more quickly and in a more personalised manner. When applied thoughtfully, the results could be impressive. Personalisation One of the key benefits of ChatGPT for marketing your organisation is its ability to generate personalised marketing messages and content. By analysing customer data and behaviour, ChatGPT has capacity to generate targeted content that is tailored to the needs and interests of specific customers. This could increase engagement and conversion rates and help businesses to build stronger relationships with their customers. Automation In addition to personalisation, ChatGPT could also save time and resources by automating repetitive tasks such as email campaigns and content creation. This has the potential to free up marketing staff to focus on more strategic or creative activities. In the case of owner-managers doing marketing themselves, it could also save valuable time. By using ChatGPT to automate repetitive tasks, businesses could streamline their marketing efforts and improve efficiency. Embrace AI At this point in time, just three months into its evolution, incorporating ChatGPT into your workflow could give your organisation a competitive edge, particularly for businesses that are early adopters. If you are an accountant with responsibility for marketing your business, or you employ marketers to do it for you, ChatGPT is a tool worth considering. Who wouldn’t want to leverage AI and take their marketing efforts to the next level? ChatGPT will not replace marketers, but marketers who use ChatGPT could have a competitive edge. My advice? Don’t fear AI. Embrace ChatGPT and the potential benefits it could bring to your marketing today. Maryrose Lyons is the Founder of Brightspark, a future-focused marketing consultancy Brightspark offers a Digital Marketing with ChatGPT course. Learn about the AI tools that free up time for staff to focus on higher-value tasks. Understand the rapidly evolving digital landscape. Experiment and implement, under the expert guidance of Maryrose Lyons.