Mentoring from Deckers Brands -

Mentoring to Solve Diversity & Inclusion Challenges.

This case study explores the challenges faced by Deckers, the solution PushFar offered and the results of implementing a mentoring program.

An introduction

Deckers Brands is a global leader in designing, marketing and distributing innovative footwear, apparel and accessories developed for both everyday casual lifestyle use and high-performance activities, including brands such as UGG, Tiva and HOKA. Deckers Brands has a 40-year history of building niche footwear brands into lifestyle market leaders attracting millions of loyal consumers globally.

Deckers wanted to implement mentoring and reverse mentoring for all employees, giving them the skills that they needed.

They were originally going to launch their mentoring program to one specific location but realised the impact and benefit it could have on people throughout the whole organisation.

Deckers had employee resource groups set up for Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DE&I) and one specifically for mentoring. Led by the US, the initial plan was to do it on spreadsheets and match people based on the skills that people wanted.

Career pathways, talent management, learning and development are key for Deckers. They outlined mentoring as a great way to kickstart this process.

“PushFar's UI and UX is fantastic.”

Deckers Brands

The Challenges

Deckers use Workday® but felt that it could be done better. They needed a solution that offered a deeper and more enriched learning experience.

Deckers were concerned about personal bias if DE&I matching was done manually.

With different DE&I teams across continents, they needed a platform that enabled effective communication.

The Decker's customer service team is very diverse and the L&D team wanted to ensure this was consistant throughout the whole orgnsiation, therefore needed a way to promote equal career progression opportunities at every level.

The Solution

PushFar self-led matching process and algorthim allowed Deckers employees the ability to find their own matches which eliminated Admin bias.

PushFar enabled Deckers to tackle mentoring seriously with a more enriched program to support the experience.

Deckers were able to feed it into career pathways and their existing talent management systems.

Deckers found PushFar simple to use, with a great UI and UX design. Suitible for all employees. It also allowed the leadership development team to sort information easily.

The flexibility PushFar offered Deckers allowed them to run multiple mentoring programs concurrently.

The PushFar algorithm allowed for matches to be made automatically.

The mobile app created accessibility for all team members.

The Results

The platform is being used across the organisation in the US, EMEA, and APAC.

An increase in the number of mentors, mentees and engagement.

Employees felt Deckers were investing in them.

Out of the initial pilot of 100 people that had agreed to sign up, 46% of them were in mentoring relationships within the first week.