Welcome to State Farm^®

Development

Mentoring and Employee Resource Groups

While a great deal of development occurs on the job, State Farm also recognizes the value of learning through experience and relationships with others. We support this idea through our formal Mentoring Program and approved Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).

Mentoring provides opportunities for employees to reach their full potential – learn new skills, build their personal effectiveness, and understand our business – through relationships built on trust and respect. Mentoring relationships are beneficial to all parties involved – the person being mentored, or the “mentee,” the person providing the mentoring, or the “mentor,” and State Farm as well.

Benefits to Mentee

• Develop professionally
• Build informal networks
• Learn strategies to address problems typically learned by trial and error
• Obtain objective feedback on skills and abilities from someone other than your supervisor
• Contribute to our Company through unique talents and perspectives

Benefits to Mentor

• Demonstrate ability to recognize and develop talent
• Obtain new perspectives on our organization
• Broaden professional network
• Gain personal satisfaction from helping others
• Learn new skills

Benefits to State Farm

• Enhance recruitment efforts
• Facilitate leadership and professional development for associates
• Retain a diverse workforce
• Foster commitment to the organization through:
• Added awareness of individual strengths
• Shared organizational values
• Develop and market new business
• Increase productivity

Within a mentoring relationship, the mentee has the opportunity to ask questions, seek knowledge, and obtain feedback from someone they trust and respect other than their supervisor. Mentors share knowledge gained from experience, such as lessons learned, ways to be more effective, or how to overcome obstacles. Our Company benefits from the growth and development of both employees!

Many employees naturally form informal mentoring relationships throughout their career, whether they actually identify this interaction as mentoring or not. In addition to these valuable relationships, State Farm offers a formal mentoring program which matches employee mentors and mentees based on the skills each is looking to develop and/or share with others. Although the program is based on a formal match, the mentor and mentee develop their own plan for how to best proceed once they have been paired.

Those in successful mentoring relationships usually develop specific goals and follow an action plan. Some mentoring relationships are short, based on a single, specific goal. Others may last longer. It’s really up to the employees – both the mentor and the mentee – to determine the appropriate duration for them.

Employee Resource Groups (ERG) provide yet another opportunity for employees to network, mentor, and develop one another professionally. ERGs are independent, voluntary, non-profit groups of employees formed around a recognized demographic segment such as gender, generation, sexual orientation, and race/ethnicity, or common social identities such as “parents” or “military.”

Mentoring and ERGs are just two examples of the opportunities State Farm employees have to learn from one another. Your work group, supervisor, and management team will also prove helpful in your development. Throughout your career at State Farm, you will, no doubt, develop a valuable network of peers, friends, trusted advisors, and professional resources to help you learn and grow to your full potential.

Mentoring and ERGs at State Farm … just a small part of your Total Rewards package and one more reason State Farm is a great place to work!