'We've been there in the mud': Wendy Gower's mentoring lifeline for redundant media veterans

Unlike other situations where people experience a sudden loss, no formula exists for what to say or do when someone’s role is made redundant.

"When I was made redundant, people reached out to me, but those people weren't always the ones I expected," she told Mediaweek.

Gower has since turned that lesson into ‘Been There Too’. The new mentoring program pairs senior media people, generally with 15 or more years in the industry, who are going through redundancy with experienced industry people who've lived through it themselves.

"We've been there in the mud, in the trenches with you. And so we can listen in a way that somebody that hasn't been through it can listen."

More than a job title

When a long media career ends on a video call, most mourners turn up on LinkedIn, with a heart emoji and the word "gutted". Gower knows the damage goes deeper than that.

"I think when you've been through it, it just hits you in all sorts of different ways. There are feelings of shame and humiliation. You don't just lose your community – all the people that you love and you see on a daily basis – you also lose a little bit of your purpose."

"And for a lot of people, their identity is wrapped up in their job title."

Australian media has spent the best part of a decade restructuring, consolidating, and "right-sizing", and nobody needs telling how close to home that lands. [Insert recent redundancy rounds for context.]

"So many roles are being made redundant. Whether it's impacting somebody I know, or somebody connected to somebody," Gower said.

"There are a lot of really amazing people who have been through that same redundancy experience."

Where the idea came from

The WeGrow founder and CEO didn't come to mentoring cold.

“I'm the external facilitator with IMAA's Female Leaders of Tomorrow programme, and over the last three years, I've seen up front how impactful mentoring can be.”

Her first call was to oOh!media's Mark Fairhurst.

"Mark was the first person I asked. And he was like, 'Wendy, if you're asking me, I'll say yes.' It's so lovely."

Fairhurst had his own case study. "Then he told me a story about a friend of his that had been out for quite some time," Gower said.

"He said he saw this real gap in this guy's resume and helped him recraft it. And as of a few weeks ago, this guy had three interviews and hadn't had any in two months."

With that, the floodgates opened. "After seeing Mark, I sent out about 15 emails, and everyone got back to me. A couple of people said, I'm happy to help behind the scenes, but it's not good timing for me. But nearly everybody else said, I'm in."

How it works

Participants share a little about themselves, and ‘Been There Too’ looks for a mentor who "feels like a useful fit". If both agree, they meet once a month for three months, by video, phone, or over coffee. The conversations are confidential, and there's no set agenda.

"You bring the questions. Your mentor brings their experience. You work out the rest together," the program's outline reads.

For Gower, the value is in the questions, not the answers.

"A lot of this is about holding up a mirror to the mentors and asking really good questions, which actually makes them self-reflect. We want to set them up for success."

It's pointedly not a recruitment service, therapy, or counselling. "We want to come at this with a different perspective," she said.

Who it's for

The 15-year threshold is telling. Senior people are often the most expensive line on the spreadsheet, and the least likely to have touched their CV since the GFC. They're also usually the ones everyone else called when things went wrong, which makes being the one in trouble its own peculiar indignity.

Nobody is expected to arrive with a plan. "You don't need to have it all figured out," the program says. “You may just need to start the conversation.”

So, still no casserole. But a coffee, once a month, with someone who's been in the mud too. Ask Fairhurst's mate with the three interviews: that's not nothing.