Open Access

Katharina Friedmann

• The aim of this bachelor’s thesis is to give a detailed description of how Reverse Mentoring is applied in practice. Reverse Mentoring is the mentoring of a senior executive person in a company by a younger employee in topics like Web 2.0 and new technologies. Considering current trends like the demographic change, the multi-generational workforce, the digital transformation and the current demands on knowledge management, it becomes obvious that a new form of learning is required for an organization to stay competitive. Nine people that have experienced Reverse Mentoring in their company served as subjects for a study to further investigate about the practical application of Reverse Mentoring. The study was carried out via telephone interviews. The subjects responded to questions regarding the implementation of the program, the formal structure of the programs, the procedure of matching tandem partners, the characteristics of the program’s participants, the challenges they experienced, the positive and negative experiences and the factors they consider vital for a successful implementation. In a next stage the main aspects of the study’s results were compared to findings in literature in order to verify their generalizability and to develop those findings further in theory. The thesis concludes that Reverse Mentoring can be a tool that helps companies to face current trends, and the reader gets a detailed view on how Reverse Mentoring can be applied in a company.