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Given the fierce competition to hire top talent, it’s critically important for companies to find new ways to nurture and retain their existing employees. And one of the best ways to achieve that is through mentoring programs. Effective mentoring programs help improve employee productivity, engagement, and satisfaction in their work, creating a positive workplace experience and increasing retention. These programs have also been shown to be effective in attracting top-tier talent.
A poor mentoring program, on the other hand, can bring about disengagement and decrease employee productivity, increasing turnover and hurting the company’s overall performance. To increase retention and give your employees a better experience, you need to think through how to make training more fun and have a strong mentorship program in place, so they can improve and advance professionally.
That said, here are some actionable tips to help you create a strong and engaging mentoring program:
1. Set Clear Objectives for Mentoring
The first thing you should do when creating a mentorship program is to establish its objectives. Define the goals of your mentorship program, whether it’s increasing retention, creating loyalty and depth within the organization, or improving employee satisfaction. Ensure you set realistic and measurable goals for the mentors and mentees. This will help you to measure the progress and success of your program in achieving your short and long-term goals.
Also, encourage your employees to come up with their personal goals to aim for during the mentoring program. Goal setting often involves identifying the talents and skills of your new employees and matching their growth to their interest areas. It’s also crucial to ensure your program’s goals align with your company’s objectives. This is important as a greater part of the mentorship program involves formulating ways to meet the set goals through developing new skills, improving communication, and more.
2. Use intelligent matching
Next, you need to pair each mentee with the right mentor. The pairing process plays a crucial role in the success of any mentorship program. Matching mentees and mentors solely based on their cultural fit or personality is likely to generate a negative experience for the mentees and mentors. Instead, you should pair them according to shared ambitions or goals for the best mentee-mentor relationship. That means pairing an employee with a mentor with the expertise and knowledge they want. This way, they can benefit more from the mentor’s insightful, informed advice and guidance to achieve a similar career path.
To overcome some of the challenges in the pairing process, you should determine what a great match means for your mentoring program and ensure everyone actively participates in the selection process. You may also consider using an employee engagement platform to help intelligently match mentees and mentors. Also, allowing the participants to make the final decision can give them some control over the entire process. The best matches can lead to more productive relationships and higher engagement.
3. Avail the Necessary Resources to Mentors
Given that a mentoring program positively impacts both mentors and mentees, you should consider it a priority for your business. It makes your employees feel connected and engaged and gain a better understanding of your company, improving their productivity and performance in their work. As a critical part of your business strategy, you should fully invest in your mentorship program.
You should adequately resource your mentoring program with money, people, and time to set it up for success. Provide mentoring training to the mentors and communicate your expectations upon program completion. Also, equip the mentors with the tools to effectively perform their roles and help them choose the best approach to achieve success.
4. Monitor the results
You can’t accurately gauge the success of your mentorship program without tracking program metrics and requesting feedback. Like any other business program, you’ll want to measure your mentorship program’s outcome by determining whether the participants were well-matched and are benefiting from their mentorship relationships.
Request and provide feedback on communication and performance for both the mentors and mentees based on their interactions. You may consider integrating software in your workflow that allows participants to provide feedback. Providing and accepting feedback from the participants can help you assess the results of your mentorship program, ensuring the set goals are being achieved.
Endnote
An effective mentorship program can provide new hires with insightful, actionable advice that they need to develop and grow in their careers. Mentors also benefit from a mentorship program by gaining an added sense of purpose and accomplishment in their work while also honing leadership and communication abilities. When done right, an employee mentorship program can help build stronger professional relationships, foster professional development, and boost employee engagement, productivity, and retention. That way, your employees can feel more connected, valued, and satisfied in their specific roles.
