Employee mentorship programs can have a groundbreaking impact on an organization’s health but successful mentorship programs are often hard to come by. According to a Gartner and Capital Analytics study, more than 84 percent of Fortune 500 companies have some version of a mentorship program set in place to aid their employees’ growth. 100 percent of Fortune 50 companies believe in the power of mentorship. While this is more feasible for big companies with big budgets, it can certainly become a tougher ask for smaller companies trying to decide whether to invest in mentorship programs in the workplace.
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Demystifying Employee Mentorship Programs: What Is Mentoring in the Workplace?
Mentors can be defined in many ways and have many different angles to their roles depending on the industry they work in. At the very core of the mentorship role, it refers to the guidance a more experienced individual within an organization provides to a person with lesser knowledge in the field. Mentors can be found whether in school or at work, but their role centers around acting as a support system for any assistance necessary. Expanding on this, employee mentorship programs are a way for organizations to assign mentors automatically, rather than leaving it up to a new employee to find and convince a senior team member to guide them.
Mentors in a law firm might have those they mentor follow them around on cases and sit in on important discussions on occasion. Mentors in a tech company may not provide demonstrations or chances for observation but instead might be able to run quality checks on the work done by another employee. In both cases, the mentor helps an employee find direction, instead of leaving them to struggle with where to go next.
Benefits of Mentorship Programs in the Workplace
An employee mentorship program can have multiple benefits that are witnessed either immediately or in the long term. A study by Gartner found that the retention rate appeared higher for mentees and mentors both, 22 percent and 20 percent respectively, as compared to those who were not participating in a mentorship program. The study also found that 25 percent of employees in a mentorship program saw an upgrade in their salaries, as compared to the 5 percent among those who did not participate in such a program. Evidently, successful mentorship programs not only improve the life of the mentee who receives training but also the mentor involved in overseeing the process.
According to an article in Moving Ahead, 87 percent of mentors and mentees feel empowered by the mentoring relationship and improve their confidence. 84 percent also found two-way inspiration from mentorship relationships. Employees in such programs find the support they need to understand their roles while also having a space to discuss all their ideas and clarify all their concerns. Those who feel stuck, lost, or isolated from the rest of the team have their mentor to support them at least, bolstered by the option of confiding in them instead of rushing straight to quitting. Mentors who involve themselves in such programs find new thinking patterns and ideas from those who have stepped into the field with a unique stack of experiences. They also feel pride in seeing their mentees succeed, making it a positive experience for everyone involved.
Types of Mentorship Programs—Exploring the Options
Employee mentorship programs have great potential to create an inclusive work culture where everyone has a place for themselves and feels like an active part of the organization. A successful mentorship program can be what your organization is currently missing and the first step is to understand the types of mentorship programs that are available.
One-on-One Mentorship
The most basic form of an employee mentorship program is usually one that focuses on one-on-one mentoring between a mentor and a mentee. Here, an employee who newly joins a company is usually assigned to a senior member of the company, and for a specific period or for the rest of their time at the company, the mentee continues to work under the wing of their mentor. This form of mentorship is likely one of the most beneficial, as an employee gets individual attention and personalized guidance whenever necessary. The mentor can provide immediate feedback and, as a result, the employee can make immediate changes in the work that they do.
The allotment of the mentor to the right mentee does take some amount of work but the main drawback to this type of mentorship program is that there are likely a limited number of employees at an organization who are capable of taking on the mentor role. As such, employers quickly run out of mentors to allot. Over time, some mentors have multiple employees under their care, making the “one-on-one” aspect of it hard to organize and make time for.
Group Mentorship Programs
Mentorship does not always require individual attention to be handed out. Group mentors invested in mentorship programs in the workplace take on 4-5 mentees and conduct regular training for them. Depending on the kind of work the mentees are involved in, the mentor could provide some form of instruction on how to better handle work-related tasks. Alternatively, the meeting with the mentor could also take the form of group discussions where the mentee could go over a topic or bring forth their concerns in order to find a solution as a team.
The benefit of this form of mentorship is the additional network of colleagues that mentees can create with each other, frequently having to interact when they meet the mentor. It can help employees develop a better sense of belongingness as a result. It also saves the mentor from spending entire days solely handling mentorship responsibilities.
Peer Mentorship
While the previous forms of mentorship discussed the assignment of a senior team member for mentorship responsibilities, peer mentorship programs involve the assignment of a coworker with similar responsibilities, who works at the same level at the organization. Here, the focus lies on showing the new colleague the ropes, but the task is left to someone who has been in the same position, only recently having graduated as a mentor. These types of mentorship programs are especially beneficial during onboarding, where new employees might need some time before settling into their roles, requiring someone to answer their questions on an hourly basis.
This form of mentorship is very beneficial as peers are better able to coordinate their schedules and mentees are likely to be far more comfortable asking basic questions to a colleague they see every day. This gives them an in-road to the immediate social circle and also helps develop a good rapport with the team. The only downside to this is that some new employees might abuse their power as mentors and order their new coworkers around, which might not be received as patiently. This risk does, however, come with any type of employee mentorship program.
Reverse Mentorship
Mentorship programs involve the sharing of insight and guidance from a more experienced source to a less experienced one, but that does not always mean the learning is transferred from a senior to a junior. There are various market fluctuations, technological changes, trends, news stories, etc. that make more sense to a younger crowd, and they are often more equipped to guide other team members through it. Instead of outsourcing the learning, regular sessions can be organized where the junior employees either lead a group session on a specific topic or provide one-on-one assistance to help the senior team members with any challenges that they face.
Such mentorship programs in the workplace ensure that there is a constant transfer of knowledge at work and that everyone is prepared at the same level when it comes to dealing with the tasks they are assigned.
Remote Mentorship
In remote or hybrid work models, employees are significantly more isolated from the rest of the team and find it harder to build connections with each other. It becomes even more important to provide them with some guidance and remote mentorship programs combine any of the other mentorship program types to do just that. These programs use different forms of technology to ensure that an employee is able to keep up with the work, while also providing some regular conversation and connection with the company. It allows remote workers to actively communicate with someone at work, ensuring that each employee has someplace to direct their concerns.
Flash Mentorship
Mentorship programs are usually long-term commitments that continue even after an employee settles into an organization, acting as a repository of information and wisdom whenever an employee needs it. However, employee mentorship programs do not all have to be long-drawn-out. Flash mentorship programs involve a short-term commitment to aiding an employee with a particular task or area of learning.
Consider employee performance reviews and the possibility of discovering an area of weakness during the course of it. Instead of asking the employee to improve and then leaving them to figure the rest out, this type of mentorship program can be used to assign a mentor more experienced in the area, who can provide instructions on how they can improve. Once the training or learning is complete, the employee should be ready to handle similar problems on their own.
Rotational Mentorship
In this type of mentorship program, different mentors take on mentoring an employee by turn. The mentee is allotted to different mentors for different purposes and they learn specific skills during their time with a specific mentor. This is a great way for an employee to gain exposure to different perspectives, work styles, and skills that the company has to offer. It also allows employees to interact with senior team members that they would not have had a chance to work with otherwise, creating a link with the senior management at an organization.
This form of mentorship is not always used as it can be a little difficult to organize and it limits the depth of connection that can be formed with a mentor due to the constant change. The benefits do appear worthwhile, so selecting the right type of mentorship program depends on the purpose of establishing it and the reasons currently available.
Overall employee mentorship programs are a great way to link various employees within a company and create an interconnected web of resources that are constantly flowing. Not only does it benefit the mentee but also brings insight to the mentors and the organization as a whole, ensuring that the transfer of knowledge aids at every step of workplace growth.