Common-Sense Workplace Mentoring

Introduction: How Common Sense Workplace Mentoring will benefit your business. The case for mentoring. When employees constantly share their expertise and talents, the business builds a foundation of shared knowledge. This builds competitive advantage. The knowledge stays with the business even when key people leave, because those people are not the sole possessors. It is just not reasonable for the boss or anyone else to be a lone guru. That can overstress the boss, and undermine the business. Organizations do their best to hire talented people with great potential. Then the new employee has to learn how to work within the specific business. How does he or she cultivate expertise? Whom does he or she go to? It may feel uncomfortable to ask for help, for a variety of reasons. New learners can flounder if they believe they must figure it all out themselves. Their colleagues likely have a wealth of expertise and experience to share and would gladly do so. But − they are busy and may not realize how much their help is needed, or know how to offer it if they do see the need. In organizations where mentoring is a key part of the culture, new and experienced managers and employees count on each other as mentors, at all levels. There is a fundamental expectation that everyone will teach and learn. The infrastructure contains processes to support and reward mentoring. The mentoring relationship is a reward itself. The differences among training, delegating and mentoring. Training is generally the most effective approach when there is a low baseline of knowledge and skills, such as with a new employee. The trainer is the expert. The curriculum is typically standardized, and group classes are common. The classroom environment may be different from real life, so the learner may need to translate the lesson to the job. Learning may occur before there is a chance to apply it, so it may fade. Delegating occurs when the employee becomes more proficient, and is able to take on more responsibility. That person’s supervisor can assess the employee’s strengths and opportunities for further improvement, and delegate work that matches developmental needs. The employee may not have the skills and knowledge to do this new work without guidance. Mentoring dovetails with training and delegating to boost the learning curve and sustain development beyond the basics. Mentoring is targeted specifically at the learner’s needs, and uses the actual workplace as the classroom. The content is directly applicable and just-in-time, so retention is higher. Although there is expense in the cost of the mentor’s time, it is an investment in longer-term productivity. Typical costs incurred by new hires include repeat questions, high error rates, re-work, and customer complaints. A mentor can anticipate such problems and course-correct efficiently. Mentors may need help in prioritizing and managing time, keeping in mind that leaving a mentee to flounder is very unproductive. Businesses that use workplace mentoring find that learning curves are sharper when the learner is mentored. Other common benefits. The team environment is fostered because staff members take shared responsibility for each other's and the organization's success. We often think of team-building as a group event taking place separately from day-to-day work. Workplace mentoring builds a culture of teamwork right on the job, by building teams one person at a time. A team is a fabric made up of individual interwoven threads. Each thread gives to and gets strength from the others. The more connections there are, the stronger the fabric. In a true mentoring culture, team members stay connected by constantly sharing expertise and encouragement. Employee retention is often increased. Mentors feel greater job satisfaction from teaching others. Mentees feel valued to get so much attention focused on their success. A mentoring culture fosters loyalty. Mentors develop leadership skills as they learn to communicate effectively, plan and measure performance goals and give feedback objectively. Process improvement opportunities are often uncovered as mentees and mentors share ideas. Mentees ask great questions. Excellent customer service often results from colleagues constantly sharing expertise.