Networking is a fundamental part of modern working life, whether it’s conducted face to face or on the various online networking sites. Alas, studies suggest that men and women don’t always get the same out of the activity.

For instance, a paper published earlier this year from INSEAD found that men are more likely to gain from networking than women. Whilst men and women were not found to be more connected than each other, the men appeared better at converting those connections into cash.

Online versus offline

A second study, this time from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, explores whether online versus offline networking makes any difference to this discrepancy.

It found that women tend to do much better when their networking is of the face to face variety rather than online.

The researchers explored the mentoring network within a Chinese technology company and found that in these close, offline relationships were much more beneficial to women than men.

When this was explored, it emerged that the women experienced a boost in visibility and legitimacy as a result of the affiliations they had with their high profile mentor, which in turn made them more attractive for potential collaboration partners elsewhere in the organization.

“It is well understood that networks form organically. In contrast, I am interested in understanding how managers can actively shape workplace networks,” the authors say. “In this company, as in many other comparable companies, technical employees tended to build relatively small networks, mostly within their own groups. Senior leadership believed that the people who did well in the organization were those who had not only depth but also breadth of social capital.”

The value of mentoring

The company implemented its mentoring program in a bid to help employees develop their social networks. Junior employees were paired up with a senior peer for a dozen days over a three month period.

The mentoring involved regular meetings with the mentor, plus some short project assignments that could be worked on under their guidance.

“Most mentoring research is based on cross-sectional surveys that are ill-suited to assessing whether formal mentoring programs actually work. The goal of this study was to provide more credible evidence about whether these programs can work, and if so, for which kinds of employees,” the authors reveal.

Suffice to say, it would be risky to read too much into the findings of one study, but nonetheless, the results showed a significant increase in network size for those in the mentoring group. The authors believe they support the implementation of formal mentoring programs, not least because they believe it will help to correct some of the inbalances in the networks developed by men and women in the workplace.