A guide to mentoring
Mentoring is a powerful tool, but it's often overlooked by HR, says Andrea Kunz
While the concept of business mentoring has been around for decades, it has only achieved mainstream status in the last eight or nine years. Companies have started to wake up to the many benefits a mentoring initiative can bring to their business, including increased productivity, better business relationships, and HR's Holy Grail - successful retention of high-quality staff. But how do you make the most of this tool for your organisation? Well, the answer depends on the structure and culture of the business, the profile of the employees and the amount of effort (though not necessarily cash) you are willing to invest in it.
History
The word 'mentor' has its origins in Greek mythology. In Homer's epic, Odysseus asked his friend Mentor to guard and maintain his son and his estate while he embarked on his Odyssey. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, spoke many a time through Mentor, who was therefore thought by others to possess a wealth of wisdom. Today's idea of mentoring is that of an alliance created to help one or both parties develop.
Forms & benefits
There are many different forms of mentoring, each of which has a slightly different purpose and different benefits.
In the most common set-up, more senior managers agree to mentor less experienced colleagues or graduates. The mentees gain access to a pool of experience that is larger, or at least different from theirs. Through their mentors, they also expand their network of contacts, thereby building their exposure and career options within the firm. The mentors get new takes on company processes and working practices, fresh ideas and the satisfaction of seeing their mentees progress. For the system to work, these relationships cannot be based on authority, but rather a genuine wish by the mentors to share knowledge, advice and experience. It is also essential that mentors and mentees be matched on personality, background and future goals.
Another, increasingly popular option is peer-to-peer mentoring - a mixture of coaching and counselling. It resembles what used to be known as 'buddy' schemes - two colleagues, who are at a similar stage in their careers coaching one another. This is a useful tool in helping new joiners settle into the company, get a kick-start in networking and generally learn the ropes. It is also useful in enabling staff to share experience and contacts on an on-going basis, as well as to provide a platform on which to share ideas and opinions, concern about career progression and even personal issues.
The potential of mentoring does not end at relationships designed to aid career progression or networking. It is also a powerful tool in creating and maintaining diversity within the company and helping staff returning from extended periods of leave settle back into the company.
One example is mothers returning to work after maternity leave. According to new research conducted at Manchester University, the gender pay-gap is particularly alarming when comparing men to women who have taken time out to have children. One of the suggested reasons for this is that during the maternity leave, women are not kept up-to-date with events within the company. They often lose a large part of their contact network, many of whom would have left the company during the period of the leave. In addition, many women accept to step into a role different to their previous one, with different demands, new colleagues and new clients. All these factors contribute to many mothers feeling like their career progression has stalled. A mentor (perhaps a woman who has taken time out herself) can help the returnee rebuild their contact base, get up to date with current company issues and also provide a friendly ear and advice on balancing family and work. Just being reminded on a regular basis that they are not alone will help build confidence and loyalty to the company.
Company diversity, especially at a senior level can also be improved using mentoring. The percentage of ethnic minority staff reaching senior level is very small in most organisations. The majority of firms struggle to attract ethnic minority staff, let alone help them reach senior roles. But it is possible to harness the success of the few that do make it - by encouraging them to mentor junior colleagues facing the problems they did.
Sessions
So what is actually involved in a mentoring session? As before, this depends to a large extent on the company, and even more importantly on the personalities of the mentors and mentees and the relationship that is formed between them. Because the mentors are usually more experienced, they are likely to lead the first sessions. As the relationship progresses, this often changes from session to session depending on the mentees' concerns and experiences.
During the first sessions, the mentors need to find out about the mentees' goals - what they want to achieve in the medium term (about 5 years). This period should not be too short, as the idea is to set goal states substantially different from the mentees' current ones. It should not be too long either, as goals more than 10 years or so away are difficult to focus on day-to-day.
Once the goals have been established, the mentors should provide some reality checks - guide the mentees by explaining if their goals are possible and if so, what realistic short-term (approximately 1 year) goals would bring them closer to them. The mentors should also use their organisational and professional knowledge to suggest some alternative paths the mentees could take to reach their goals, then guide them through each one so that they can make appropriate decisions about which routes to follow.
After this initial session, mentors and mentees should feel 'on track'. The mentees should be in a better position to focus on their career, and will also know that someone within the organisation is taking an active interest in their careers and can be turned to for advice. During the following sessions, which can take place bi-weekly, monthly or even bi-monthly depending on needs and schedules, mentors and mentees can concentrate on dealing with any arising problems and check that progress is being made towards the final objectives.
A word of warning
These sessions only work if the people being mentored have a good idea of their own goals. Mentors are not there to give junior colleagues direction, they are there to help them progress in a direction already chosen. That is not to say they cannot offer guidance in choosing a career path, but the mentees should already have a good sense of objective themselves.
Also, while it is important to draw up a clear strategy, as the mentees progress, their goals may change, requiring a change in short-term focus and fresh guidance. It is often during these changes that mentees rely most on mentors. In these cases, it is often a good idea to repeat the essential elements of the first session and set new or adjusted objectives.
It is also possible that a mentor and mentee pair simply do not get on. A friendship cannot be forced. Mentoring should be informal and trust-based. If sessions are very formal, they will not work. In cases of conflict, the most likely cause is a mismatch between personalities. In these cases, because mentoring is relatively long-term and trust so important for it to work, it is best to find different partners for both mentor and mentee. Apart from the initial set-up period, it is only in cases such as this, where the relationship is not progressing naturally well, that HR should get involved.
Options
If you think mentoring could be a useful addition to your working practices, there are a number of options open to you. What kind of mentoring should you choose? Should you opt for a buddy scheme or a try to recruit senior staff to the programme? And should there be a programme at all? Or should it be operated on an ad hoc basis? For graduates/new joiners/returners only or company-wide?
The answers depend on the company profile. It may be a good idea to restrict mentoring to a small group of people at first. If you employ graduates or school leavers, they are a good starting point, as are women currently planning a maternity leave. Restricting the pilot to a small group makes the idea easier to implement, the demands on HR time lower and the benefits easier to measure.
Should you create a programme or stick to an ad hoc scheme? Well, one of the true benefits of mentoring is its informal, one-to-one nature. Formalising it, forcing into a pre-determined form may cause frustration to all parties and undermine the end goal. However, without some framework, the plan might never take off. A good compromise is to:
- implement an effective strategy for actively recruiting mentors
- offer training to potential mentors if they feel they need it
- match the right pairs
- leave them to it... BUT provide ongoing support whenever needed
It is also worth adapting the basic framework to different groups - graduates and school leavers who have never worked before have very different needs from experienced staff who have simply been away for a while. Flexibility and a personal approach are key.
Guidance wanted
The challenge in setting up a mentoring initiative is to recruit the right mentors and match them to suitable mentees. To achieve this, it may be necessary to employ some sort of internal marketing strategy to convince potential mentors to give up some of their precious free time. This is also a good opportunity to reduce the number of unsuitable respondents by designing a targeted campaign that encourages suitable staff and discourages those who would not fit the profile.
The process for recruiting mentors is similar to other recruitment drives. Firstly, you need to put together a job description - an outline of what the role will involve. This will differ from company to company, and so it is important that the description matches the style of mentoring programme that is being implemented. If two or three different kinds of programmes are to be run, the requirements for each are likely to be different and should be written into the role descriptions.
Once the requirements have been found, the next step is to identify potential mentors and 'sell' mentoring to them.
If the company and the proposed coaching programme are small, it may be possible to 'headhunt' a small number of highly visible potential mentors and approach them individually. If this is the path you take, it is vital to explain in advance the demands of the programme, as well as the rewards. You need to make sure recruits' enthusiasm will not fade when they are faced with demands on their time or their patience. Managing expectations and losing a few volunteers at the beginning will pay off in the long run.
If the organisation is large, or you are looking for a larger number of mentors, the case-by-case approach is unlikely to yield enough high-quality volunteers. You need to 'mass market' the opportunity in some way. If the company has an intranet, advertising on the homepage may be an effective and inexpensive marketing opportunity (provided it is popular with staff). It may also be a good strategy to set up a 'mentoring microsite' and post a banner linking to it from the intranet homepage. If the company publishes a magazine or newsletter, they can also be used as additional marketing opportunities. It may even be possible to convince the editors/contributors of the magazines and newsletters to write an editorial piece on the proposed scheme - but first you will have to sell the concept to them.
Setting up a mentoring website is a useful tool for the initiative, whatever its size; you can use it as an online store for news, notices and help information for both mentors and mentees. You can post guides and tips online and add any necessary forms. Over time, and as the programme evolves, so will the website. Many problems can be solved and questions answered online - reducing your workload and the turnaround time on queries in the long run.
Assuming that a company-wide campaign is run, the overall response is likely to include a number of unsuitable responses. Therefore, you should pre-allocate some time for selection of mentors and also for mentor-mentee matching. It may be useful to get a second opinion on the pairings, or to match the pairs in a group environment, where concerns can be discussed and solved with colleagues.
Qualifications
Following a well-designed and targeted internal communications campaign, you will be faced with a number of keen potential mentors. There will be some completely unsuitable respondents and some who will fit the role perfectly and possess all the necessary skills. The majority, however, are likely to be keen, with good mentoring potential, but a lack of confidence or knowledge of what is required of them. This is where a good training programme can help. It doesn't need to be very expensive, lengthy or formal. A couple of days or a few evenings spent introducing the basic principles of mentoring and what is expected of mentors may be enough. Alternatively, you can put together a booklet that mentors can refer to, detailing; how often they should meet mentees, in what kind of environment, how to steer the discussions and what to do if things go wrong.
There are also some more extensive training schemes. The CIPD has recently launched a Certificate in Mentoring, in association with the Oxford School of Coaching & Mentoring. It is a structured, yet flexible part-time programme built around participants' schedules. It also makes use of online tools. The course normally takes seven months to complete and involves independent study, role-playing and regular seminars. For more information, visit www.cipd.co.uk/training
Summary
Mentoring is a highly effective tool, which can bring significant benefits to most organisation. It can help tackle diversity problems, as well as considerably improving staff loyalty and therefore retention.
If you think a mentoring/coaching scheme would suit your organisation, you need to:
- find funding (this may require a business justification, for which more industry- and company-specific research may be needed)
- identify the group/groups for whom to first implement it
- draw up the requirements to be met by mentors
- recruit suitable mentors (may require an active internal campaign)
- train if necessary
- provide continuous support
Further Information
You can find out more about mentoring from the following sources;
People Management Magazine Online
Has a good archive of articles on mentoring and related stories
Implementing Mentoring Schemes: A Practical Guide to Successful Programs - Nadine Klasen and David Clutterbuck
A structured book which describes some of the tried-and-tested methods in programme design and implementation. It also contains case studies and check-lists.
The National Mentoring Network - www.nmn.org.uk
An organisation founded in association with the Government to support the growth of mentoring in all forms.
Andrea Kunz is a Researcher in our Knowledge workshop.
