What are good corporate mentoring program objectives & best practices?
Answers
What is your objective? This first needs to be answered, in my opinion, before you can adequately start. For instance, do you want to train people so they can be promoted within? Will they be promoted to open a new site, in another city, state, country? Not too long ago I saw a job posting for an assistant
A best practice, once again in my opinion, is to have the employee attend continuing
I would encourage having them take part in writing a
This is a tough one.
I have often seen inputs measured instead of outcomes, as they are harder to assess. Examples of inputs include mentee assessment scores, numbers of meetings, training etc. What you really want is the advancement and improvement of the performance and confidence of the mentee. However, there still is value in establishing accountability between the parties and getting a qualitative assessment of the benefit of the relationship at agreed to reporting periods.
For many years I had a mentor, but the firm had no program. I might look how coaching programs work. I have resources at www.elevatingyourbusiness.com/b/coaching.html that might assist your company.
What I would do if I were going into a company to create a mentoring program is to create a one-plan plan for it. Vision, mission, objectives, strategies and actions will get you a viable program description.
My mistake. The links should be www.elevatingyourbusiness.com/favorites/coaching.html
Sorry about that.
I have seen companies establish mentoring programs but the fact is that most supervisors and managers are NOT good mentors because they have not been mentored.
Mentoring has a positive effect if the mentor has been properly trained as a mentor, otherwise it is a poor way to achieve cross functional networking.
A good program will identify the super stars early and help them develop relationships across the company and help them to acquire a mentor that has experience and connections to help their
Too many times companies use a mentoring program as a back-door disciplinary process that gets in the way of proper performance
Mentoring has its place in the first 3 years to help employees learn the ropes but after that companies rarely ensure there are qualified mentors on staff.
After my experiences in large companies I don't find that mentors internally can exist below the executive level because once an employee starts to rise through the ranks, the competitive feeding frenzy begins and the mentors can undermine someone who will potentially actually out perform them.
If you want to provide a mentoring program, and you are serious about growing top talent and identifying and retaining your rock stars, then invest in an externalized program of professional mentors and coaches rather than trying to add another job responsibility for your overworked and under-interested management team.
Management exists to serve a purpose but it doesn't do well in growing people.
If your purpose is to claim a best workplace award because you have a mentoring program that might attract junior talent, this type of program will be poo-poo'd by internals who see it for what it is, a
Staff levels come an go, so if you want to invest in a mentoring program you will be doing that at the senior levels most likely.