Leslie Peabody

She took a grassroots approach with the program, creating a template that allowed employees to create the different employee resource groups they needed. One, notably, is focused on mentoring. Others create spaces for veterans as well as health and wellness initiatives. These groups are now primarily what run and shape WOW!’s inclusion and belonging program.

“We’re able to deploy a lot of our needs on our people strategies through these groups and they have all types of people in them. I just love it,” she says. “I think that’s where our success has been.”

When folks question her about how to become or find a mentor, she responds by telling people that they’re probably already in a relationship like that, just without the label. It’s about challenging each other, having a certain degree of trust and open communication, but also having some expectations about what will come out of the relationship. 

“It’s just communicating more expectations and seeing where you can kind of push the boundaries to, because once you actually say yes, I’m mentoring someone, then they’ll probably release more strings for you to push some of those boundaries,” she says.

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