Good mentors can teach your staff in ways that can't be duplicated by training programs or seminars.
However, mentoring isn't just a matter of asking new employees to follow seasoned staff members around the office. You'll have to set goals and guidelines so that your mentoring program meets the employee's - and the company's - expectations.
Here are some suggestions to help make the relationships work:
- Teach mentors the essentials of guidance and leadership. For instance, mentors should understand that their role is to coach, model and advise -- not dictate particular methods and solutions. They should also be prepared to share their professional successes and failures in ways their students can use and understand. To those ends, consider an informal training session for mentors.
- Invite mentors to volunteer; don't mandate participation. That way, you have people who are willing, able and enthusiastic about devoting the time and energy to the job.
- Pair new employees with mentors who share their goals or interests. Ideally, a mentor holds a position in the company that the new hire would like to reach at some point in the future. Look for a mentor who previously held the same position as the new hire now holds.
- Choose mentors with a substantial range of experience and responsibilities. Optimally, a mentor is someone who's been with your business for at least several years and has a wide variety of contacts both inside and outside the company. To the extent possible, the mentor should have some amount of say-so or in strategic decisions or at least some insights into why the business is moving in its current direction.
- Avoid mentors who are conflict avoidant. Not everyone is cut out to be a mentor. Pick seasoned employees who aren't hesitant to tell new employees, in an appropriate manner, how to improve on shortcomings and shore up weaker skills. Mentors should take on an "educator's mindset" and develop teaching tools and assignments for their students.
Once you've designed a mentoring program, you'll want to measure its success. One way: Design a survey that both the mentor and student can complete to quantify and track the progress of their partnership.
