Why mentor?
Mentoring programs offer many benefits for both employee and employer. They help prepare your most talented employees for a brighter future, and while this may mean they apply their new skills to another job at some point in their career, companies that offer mentoring have a higher retention rate than those that don't, with 79% of millennials saying mentoring programs are crucial to their career success. Add to this the fact that 47% of millennials actively disengaged from their current job said they would change jobs to find a better "culture", and mentoring plays a key role in that culture.
The positive impacts of a mentoring program
Skills development
There's no debate that educated, well-trained employees produce better results in the workplace than those who lack knowledge and training. While learning and training are essential for acquiring knowledge or developing skills (especially if they promote active learning), most learning is informal and simply acquired over time, from others. By introducing mentoring programs, companies can ensure that their employees are able to perform their jobs with a thorough knowledge of the field and their position. What's more, mentors promote knowledge sharing, in that their experience can benefit the mentee, which is useful for reducing the time it takes an employee to learn how to perform a new task. In short, this means that companies can have highly productive employees in a much shorter space of time by introducing a mentoring program to better guide them.
Reduced turnover
One of the main benefits of a mentoring program is that the mentor can play a major role in reducing employee turnover. Did you know that losing a good employee can cost a company up to twice its annual salary? By providing personalized advice to a mentee, a mentor can help ensure that employees overcome any frustrations or concerns they may have, and help them develop the skills they need to succeed. In this way, employees will be encouraged to stay with the company and develop over a longer period of time. By keeping staff turnover rates low, companies will constantly have experienced staff, rather than the burden of constantly training new employees to replace those who have left. Sodexo even estimated that for every dollar invested in its mentoring program, a return on investment of $2.28 was achieved through staff retention and increased company productivity. However, estimating such a ROI remains a complex operation...
Ready to move up the ladder
Having employees ready to take on management positions and, more broadly, ensuring succession within the company with appropriate training is invaluable, as it reduces the need for external recruitment, saving the company time and money. By setting up a mentoring initiative, mentors can help teach leadership skills to employees showing potential for future management positions.
Where to start: think about your corporate culture
Mentoring builds relationships between managers and employees. A national survey of 1,500 employees revealed that the relationship between an employee and his or her colleague (either a supervisor or simply a colleague with more years of experience) is one of the top three factors in employee engagement. These relationships are performance drivers that help workers overcome office challenges, leading to higher levels of engagement and satisfaction. In this context, a formalized mentoring program creates an environment where mentoring is the norm, allowing employees to feel comfortable asking for help and advice when they need it, and most importantly, preparing and empowering young employees to face professional challenges head-on. As a company, this creates a culture of communication that helps employees at all levels of their careers.
To find out more :
Mentoring: how to leverage it to manage talent in your organization
