Mentoring: What Is It? And Why You Need It?

Mentoring in normal parlance refers to support and encouragement provided to people to manage their learning to maximize their potential, develop their skills, and improve their performance to become the person they want to be.

Nevertheless, in an organization mentoring is the team member training system under which a senior or more experienced person (mentor) is assigned to act as an advisor, counselor, or guide to junior employees or trainees. This mentor is responsible for providing support and feedback on the person in his or her charge.  In this case, mentoring is about sharing the mentor's knowledge (manager or senior team member) and experience with his or her mentee/protégé (junior employee/trainee).  

Mentoring can be both formal and informal. Formal mentoring occurs through a program with an established structure, whereas informal mentoring takes place spontaneously between senior and junior employees. Usually, informal mentoring programs, the mentor is typically not the employee's manager nor even in the employee's chain of command.   

The mentor acts as a role model and is beneficial to both parties involved and the organization. It helps develop new skills, build more extensive networks, reflect on and solve past scenarios, and have a living example to look up to. For the mentor, it serves as a way to give back. It is a crucial development experience as the mentor can rehash or relearn his/her experiences, enhancing his/her core competence.  

Mentoring helps in molding new hires culturally and instills loyalty in employees, thereby reducing employee turnover rate. The mentoring programs within organizations can be in different format parameters that may include:  

• Relationship – 1 to 1 that may be for short term (during office hours) or long term in Groups, forums, etc.  
• Duration - In 1 session of a few hours or days/months to 1 year  
• Audience – Interns, new managers, new employees, high performers and diversity groups, etc.  

 Mentoring needs a high degree of reciprocal trust between the mentor and the mentee. When it comes to mentoring as a mentor, we should develop mentor relationships with those you think would make a good match. You can do mentoring by following the below mentioned good practices:  

Communicate and listen  

Your mentee or protégé should ultimately oversee their career path. Establish trust and openness in communication from the beginning. Hear the concerns of your mentee before offering advice and guidance. Listen with a sympathetic ear, explain unwritten rules, and acknowledge the mentee's disappointment and triumphs.  

Offer constructive criticism  

Offering constructive criticism is a sure way to avoid hurting your mentee or breaking their confidence. For instance, as a mentor, you can tell the mentee about your mistake and how you learned from it. It is important to provide constructive feedback that ensures that the mentee can improve and progress.  

Helping mentee to make decisions  

As a mentor, you should give the mentee some responsibility and allow them to make their own decisions in certain aspects of the job. This will encourage them to think on the spot with competing demands and high pressure.   

Why you need mentoring – Its importance  

Mentoring helps the organization improve its productivity, profitability, employee engagement, and staff retention rates. It helps in the smoother transition of the employee into the workplace. A mentorship program goes a long way in developing positive connections between co-workers, thereby positively impacting the rest of the organization. Workplace mentoring programs promote an excellent reputation for the company internally as well as externally. Employees who develop a mentoring relationship are observed to be more productive in the workplace. Finally, it can be said that mentoring programs help create the pipeline of future leaders who understand the skills and attitudes required to succeed within the company.