How to develop workforce mentoring programmes

Mentoring is a cost effective way to develop employees and can benefit the mentees, the wider organisation and the mentors themselves. But it cannot be done overnight.

Before any organisation embarks on a mentoring programme or introduces mentors to mentees the foundations need to be laid for long term success. These steps will help you develop a robust and effective mentoring programme.

Objectives

What do you want to achieve from the scheme? Is the programme linked to a wider development programme? Is it designed to support new recruits or develop key talent? Is it a reverse mentoring scheme with junior members of staff mentoring senior members of staff in areas such as social networking?

In his book, Everyone Needs a Mentor: fostering talent in your organisation, David Clutterbuck outlines examples of mentoring in the workplace including:

• Ericsson uses mentoring from top executives to help grow its future leadership talent;
• Shell Exploration uses mentoring to develop local indigenous talent for its engineering and management activities in Brunei;
• The civil service public sector leaders’ scheme allows fast stream civil servants to pick a mentor.

System and process

Put a clear process in place that details how the mentor and mentee come together, how they agree objectives, how they set a contract up with agreed rules of engagement and how often they meet. Clear rules of engagement will ensure the programme is a success and also reduce the administration burden.

Make sure the mentoring process fits with your organisational culture. Is your organisation ready for a mentoring process? Are your leaders open to giving up their time to develop others? Will your leaders see the process through or let it drop down their priority list when the initial focus is taken away from the scheme?

The administration of programmes can be labour intensive, so investing in a system that matches the mentors and mentees, provides them with a forum to record details of meetings and enables reporting on the number of meetings and their outcomes is important.

Mentors and mentees

Identify a good ratio of mentors to mentees. Supply and demand challenges can undermine the success of a programme and reduce its momentum. The mentors need to be respected and have the right level of seniority whereas the mentees need to have a genuine desire for a mentor to assist in their development.

Consider the logistics. Do both parties have time to devote to the relationship? Are they close enough together to meet regularly?

Ensure there is buy-in from all parties before starting the relationship. Mentors and mentees who have been press-ganged into a relationship are unlikely to see that relationship through to a useful conclusion.

Development

Provide mentors with the development required to have successful mentoring relationships. Mentoring is a skill and you want to ensure all your mentees have a consistently high experience. Provide your mentors with a development session that outlines the mentoring process and enables them to practise the skills they will need. You should also provide your mentees with a development session to ensure they know how to get the most out of a mentoring relationship.

In addition, provide a support network for your mentors to ensure they have someone to turn to for advice and assistance. Catching up with your mentoring team as a group or as individuals will provide them with a forum to discuss issues that have arisen.

Staged roll-out

Running a pilot with a sample population is advisable. Many organisations underestimate the work involved in setting up, or overestimate the appetite for, such a programme. A staged roll-out will ensure initial problems are overcome and buy-in is gained from stakeholders.

The second article in the series will examine the skills needed for the relationship to be successful, in HSJ next week