What does it take for an HR department to contribute to the organisation’s continued success? The answer lies not only in the availability of qualified human capital committed to achieving company’s goals and objectives. Fetching the best talents will not help much for the company to grow, unless supported by the right employee management.
Then how do you ensure that everyone in the team can synergise and work together towards the same goals? The answer is implementing mentor programs. Are mentor programs incorporated in your long-term employee management strategy? If not, then you should arrange it immediately.
Mentor programs are a foolproof tool that encourages faster organisational growth and establishes a dynamic workplace culture. The success of a company is not the result of one’s achievement alone, but effective workings of a team. When a company has talented employees as their resources, they should then think about how to make the whole employee base equally, or even more, talented.
There are copious positive impacts you can gain from implementing efficient mentor programs. Mentoring is the best way to train new hires. By appointing your top performers as mentors, new employees can learn everything about the business, directly from the best sources.
When employees are motivated to develop themselves through continuous learning, this will boost morale while improving employee retention altogether. Additionally, this not only help employees to connect with their coworkers, mentoring is also able to build leadership and interpersonal skills for both mentors and mentees.
How can business leaders create and implement impactful mentor programs? Either you want to establish new mentors programs or revamp the old ones, here’s how you should do it:
See: 17 Accredited Mentor Partners Appointed Under Startup SG to Groom High-Growth Startups
Having clear and specific goals is the first step towards realising successful mentoring programs. By determining the program’s objectives, both mentors and mentees will have a clear idea of what they should achieve. From there, they can set the step up and sketch out a strategy to accomplish the expected outcomes.
To define goals, first you must know why and how mentor programs can help solve problems faced by the company. When you have decided on the goals, you also need to think about the benchmarks, to measure the effectiveness of the program.
The next step once you have set the purpose of the mentorship is choosing the right format. There are many types of mentoring that you can adopt and adjust to meet the organisation’s needs. Besides typical supervisory mentorship that involves one-to-one mentor / mentee relationship, there are some other structures that you can perhaps consider.
Such as for example, there are group mentoring sessions (one mentor, several mentees), peer-to-peer mentoring (both mentor and mentee are in the same job position), or mentoring team (multiple mentors, one mentee). You can even combine one format with another, to match with your workplace culture.
Helping mentees with the right mentors is the key to a smooth implementation of a mentoring program. Business leaders must consider several points before assigning someone to be a mentor, such as their motivation, readiness, and ability to assist and help others toward success.
Make sure that the mentors demonstrate a strong commitment and willingness to join this program, such that they do not feel compelled and halfhearted to do so.
Get people to participate in the program by socialising its purpose. While some employees might feel they do not have time to be a mentor, or even do not need one. This is where you need to explain the significance and advantages of the program for the organisation’s development, as well as the reasons why everyone should be involved.
Assure employees that mentorship is a program to deify seniority, but rather a fun forum for sharing experiences and knowledge between coworkers.
After running mentor programs for some time, you need to check how it is going and evaluate the outcomes. You need to maintain constant check to see if the mentorship programme is running smoothly, or there are obstacles that make it awry.
Creating an employee survey could help fetch these insights on what employees think about the mentorship program, gauge the improvements, as well as gain feedback. If designed and implemented correctly, mentor programs can be a win-win solution for company’s future success.
Junior employees will have an opportunity to learn directly from the higher-ups, while senior managers can help mold the company’s future direction by transferring their skills and knowledge to the younger generation. However, in order to keep mentorship running seamlessly, it needs commitment and collaboration from both parties.
Read also: Mentoring Right for Superior Employee Performance
