EMPLOYEE MENTORSHIP

WHY MENTOR?

Mentorship in HR refers to a professional relationship between an experienced individual(mentor), who provides guidance, support, coaching, and advice to a less experienced individual(mentee), who is relatively new to a profession or a specific job role. In this context, mentorship aims to foster the growth and development of professionals by sharing knowledge, skills, and insights to help them navigate their careers successfully. Mentors may offer career advice, help mentees set goals, provide feedback on performance, and assist in developing key competencies for active engagement.

Many, if not all the time, hiring managers look to employ the best candidate for the role, the most experienced and skilled just so that work continues at the pace expected to drive in the gains. Hiring managers do this forgetting these are the same individuals who leave at the next juicier offer that comes their way irrespective of how short their stay has been. At the same table, recruiters turn away the young, passionate, and adventurous individuals who appear untrained and would want an opportunity.

Here, the missing factor in today’s top-class corporate work is mentorship. Many of these firms have top-level professionals who have acquired top skills over decades in their respective roles and can just with a structure, pass on this knowledge and skills to the young ones who in the next seeable future will be the rising stars and trailblazers of the firm.  

Some form of mentorship happens in businesses but not much is gained from it because there is no structure nor plan to it. When mentors are tasked to reproduce themselves in younger and newer employees, given the resources and some monitoring, measurable results are gained at the close of a given period adding to the efficiency of the team.

 

APPARENT LOSSES

In a profit-driven corporate world, much of what the board is ready to sit and listen to is what and how more money will be added to what already exists – any proposal that appears to debit the account will receive many criticisms asking a lot of ‘whys?’  but we often forget that sowing precedes the days of harvest so definitely, some resources will have to be invested over a period after which the gains begin to drip in.    

In some cases, a lot of resources must be committed to any attempt to train and equip the capacity of trainees due to the kind of business of the firm. It will be helpful to consider the resources budgeted for mentoring as investment. When they do and the leadership and management of the firm get intentional about these programs, they will turn out well achieving the intended purpose. 

 

TODAY VERSUS TOMORROW

In a very normal way of life, we tend to look more into the now and get all that we need in the shortest possible time. The desire for immediate gratification often hinders us from giving thought to future considerations that will give us better returns. Unfortunately, this isn’t how businesses work or thrive – strategic planning is a discipline and an art that every business minded person must engage in as they build a competitive business.

No matter how today lasts, it will end at the beginning of tomorrow and it is the amount of work put into the anticipation of tomorrow that sustains the business. The best investors of today are those who not only survive tomorrow but become its leaders because they made adequate preparations for it. A business that is clueless about its tomorrow has already gotten out of business.

The empowerment, support and opportunities given to a newbie staff today with consistency will not only produce an effective and efficient young professional tomorrow, but one whose confidence and self-worth has been developed to tackle their duties with more grace and a greater sense of commitment to the firm.

 

EARNING THE WORTH OF A MENTEE

The possibility of finding some irrational individuals among a group of people should not be the reason a business won’t secure its future, besides, the business itself is a venture full of risk so why don’t you take a strategic one with security measures?  Surely, some will recognize the good done to them and will show some gratitude to those who provided the opportunity in giving their best of productivity.

In the wake of the leaving and cleaving of a mentee to the next most fascinating and wealthy firm, after they have built some level of understanding, your firm will retain some grateful people who acknowledge the great and rare opportunity which has made them of great value. And let's dare to say that the future that may meet this firm may not be like the great old days, your firm may be struggling for survival and it will be the sacrifice of the management that will save the firm and see it out of the woods.

CONTINUITY

There are great firms today who are great because they had great employees at a point in their lifetime but more than having them, they decided to intentionally reproduce them. But if in the good times of a firm, no plan and great steps are taken to think about who takes up from the excellent employees at their resignation, departure, or demise, it will soon come crashing down. Great work of wisdom is always needed to keep a business going and one strategy management cannot and shouldn’t overlook is raising promising applicants and doing the hard work to get them useful and able in good time.

 

A WORKABLE STRUCTURE

1.      Have a minimum qualification for trainees, don’t wholesale.

2.      Design a program with specific outcomes in mind

3.      Eliminate the lousy along the way

4.      Don’t share with the mentees what the training program is intended for until they succeed

5.      When it becomes necessary, sign a contract.

6.      Intermittently review the plan and update it to suit purpose

 

Formally or informally some of the top giants of various industries were raised through mentorship through their own initiatives and the assistance of the firms who saw potentials in them, and today we celebrate them. Mentorship certainly has great benefits to offer any business size from small to large businesses. Thank you for reading. Kindly do visit our blog to read on other thrilling topics.

 

12^th APRIL, 2024

THE COLLEGE BUSINESS CONSULT  

thecollegebc@gmail.com