ESPN Case Study
More Than 5,500 Hours of ERG Mentoring Success at ESPN
When Dayana Falcon thinks about the legacy she wants to leave, she sums it up in one word: Comunidad. As a Latina with Cuban roots, community is a core part of what drives her. This is evident in the work she did as a Talent Mobility Manager at ESPN, where she created a mentoring program focused on building community and career.
“I was born in Cuba, and then raised in Miami since I was two months old. I saw my parents fight and hustle just to put food on the table. So when I was the first to go to college and the first to be class president, it’s all been ignited by the hard work that I’ve seen my parents go through to make us coming to America and me having a future a possibility. My ‘why’ in life now is to create equal access to opportunity because I was given that opportunity when my parents did that for me. So I’m not resting until the rest of my community has that too,” said Dayana.
My ‘why’ in life now is to create equal access to opportunity
Senior Manager, Career Infrastructure and Engagement at The Walt Disney Company
Peer Mentorship at ESPN
Dayana launched Peer Mentorship at ESPN with an objective to ignite a culture of career, where career meets community. Run through ESPN’s award-winning Career Center, the program is specifically for members of the Business Employee Resource Groups (BERGs) at ESPN and it focuses on three pillars:
- Wellbeing
- Career development
- Inclusion
Designed as a group mentoring program, each cohort consists of one mentor and five mentees who are matched using SMART match in MentorcliQ. The program is a six month experience, with participants meeting once a month for a curriculum-based agenda that addresses:
Building relationships
Setting goals across the three pillars
Learning about the business (includes guest speakers)
Developing a personal brand
Identifying transferable skills
Creating a feedback and sponsorship experience for participants
“I didn’t want this program to be something where advice was only given in one direction: from the mentor to the mentees. I wanted it to be a sense of community where everybody was coming together to reach what they wanted to impact in our company,” said Dayana.
I wanted it to be a sense of community where everybody was coming together to reach what they wanted to impact in our company.
Senior Manager, Career Infrastructure and Engagement at The Walt Disney Company
Design Tips
Participants have to be a member of one of the BERGs at ESPN in order to be able to join the Peer Mentorship program. This purposeful design decision ties in with the goal to create intersectionality and community across all the dimensions of diversity.
One preference question that participants answer helps drive this even further: Do you want to be paired in the dimension of diversity that you associate with or that you’re an ally of? SMART match is used to form the cohorts for this program and help people from across diverse populations come together, find their tribe, and thrive.
Another design choice Dayana made for this program is to allow mentors to be from any job level. “I wanted to create a culture that didn’t feel hierarchical. You don’t have to be a VP to be a mentor. We’re all here together to serve a sports fan anytime, anywhere. You can learn from anyone, and I wanted to tap into that in this mentoring program,” said Dayana.
The program has mentors at all levels because Dayana designed a very curriculum-based program with agendas, guides, and resources. She gives mentors a toolkit so they have a roadmap of what the 6-month mentoring experience should cover, but then each mentor can personalize it to make the conversation more authentic.
You can learn from anyone, and I wanted to tap into that in this mentoring program.
Results
5,500
Mentoring Hours
4.6 stars
The Peer Mentorship at ESPN launched in 2021 and has recorded 5,500 mentoring hours since then. Participants have rated the program with 4.6 out of 5 stars for both the program and relationship experience.
“There’s power in the we. Participants not only feel seen, but they feel like they are a part of something bigger, which then inspires them to take what they’ve learned and experienced and apply that on the job. So it’s unlocking business value tenfold because of the relationships it builds and how we connect the dots. For me, that’s the proudest thing that I have in seeing how this program’s impacted the lives of our incredible talent at ESPN,” said Dayana.
