Corporate Mentors Programs

According to Chronus, corporate mentoring is on the rise with 71 percent of Fortune 500 companies offering professional mentoring programs to their employees. Successful companies, large and small, use mentoring to tackle complex human resource challenges such as increasing employee retention, enabling company succession plans, and improving workforce productivity. So, what is mentoring and how can it be successfully used in the workplace?

What Exactly Is a Mentor?
A mentor is a more experienced (typically older or ,at the very least, more experienced) professional in your field who offers career guidance, advice and assistance from a real world point-of-view. Mentoring at work is an effective way of helping people to progress further in their chosen careers. It is a partnership between two people, the mentor and the mentee.

How Can Mentors Be Used in the Workplace?

• Mentors can push mentees to hone and learn new skills that are needed for future roles. These roles could be within the area of career development, leadership development or assist with knowledge transfer.
• Mentors can be a cheerleader of sorts. They can praise great work and progress and give excellent feedback on progress that has yet to be made.
• Mentors can be a life-long friendship that can guide and offer advice along the way.
• Mentors can not only explain what it takes to be the best or make it to the top in a certain field but can also show this through actions and work habits.
• Mentors can, many times, allow their mentee to shadow them and learn by doing an experiential way. The best way to learn is by doing it yourself.
• Reverse mentoring can also be a helpful tool in showing older professionals some of the new tricks of the trade, which may be new strategies or technology know-how.

In today’s competitive business world the key to advancement, employee retention and the spread of great ideas in the workplace is mentoring. This powerful process can help the emotional and intellectual growth of employees and engage them in a way otherwise not possible.

Categorised in: Blog, Mentoring