The purpose of a mentoring programme varies a lot, however one of the most common purposes of mentoring programmes is leadership development. When well designed and implemented, mentoring is a strategic tool that provides developmental support, accelerates leadership development, and fills the talent pipeline for succession purpose.
Talent development is essential if organisations want to have the best talent in order to be successful. It requires financial investment, and even though mentoring is not a simple line on the budget, it provides a significant return on investment over time, and is provides the organisation with a pool of talent to ensure the ongoing success.
The benefits of a workplace mentoring programme
A mentoring culture is when an organisation successfully embraces the principles of learning, knowledge sharing and personal development.
As stated in Harvard Business Review[1] “Creating a mentoring culture … leads to better retention, more loyalty, and commitment among employees, stronger succession planning, more organic mentoring, and strengthening of resilient developmental networks or mentoring constellations in the workplace. Rather than a single assigned mentor, junior employees are more likely to construct a web of supportive relationships.”
According to a ATD Research with answers from 969 participants about their organisation’s mentoring programmes, the top benefits organisations receive from mentoring programmes are
- Higher employee engagement and retention
- Supporting growth of high-potential employees
- Stimulating creation and intra-organisational relationships and collaborations
- Knowledge management and transfer
For these reasons, talent development should be at the top of the agenda for leaders across the organisation. Every leader has a responsibility for developing their direct reports – some development that be delegated in the form of employees participating in education and training. However, to ensure that talents are developed and retained, they require attention and recognition from their leader. Research tells us that especially knowledge workers are motivated by autonomy, mastery and working for a higher purpose. This also means that leaders need to ensure that employees see the connection between training and how their new skills can have an impact on the organisation – on the higher purpose.
We see that some leaders are able to create “talent factories” giving their direct reports the opportunity to be challenged, to learn and to grow; and the leaders help and encourage their direct reports to move in their career, thus making room for new talents to enter the team. In this way the leaders are creating a work culture that will attract new talents as they see how being in this team accelerates their learning and their careers.
The study also shows the top 3 benefits of mentoring respectively from the viewpoint of mentors and mentees:
Top 3 benefits of mentees
- Professional development
- Better understanding of organisational culture
- Developing new perspective
Top 3 benefits of mentors
- Developing new perspectives
- Developing leadership skills
- Gaining insight into the organisation
Mentoring programmes provide employees with a place to develop their talents based on their needs and ambitions while the programme framework ensures that relevant employees are invited to the programme, matched with the best mentors from across the organisation, and given the support needed to accelerate their growth and become aware of new career paths. Additionally, mentoring programmes provides mentors with training and skills to become even better talent developers in their daily work.
Effron and Shanley talk about the 6 talent development roles[2] that leaders need to know and apply: Talent Evangelist, Active Investor, Talent Accelerator, Performance Driver, Talent Scout, and Transparent Coach.
When trained and experienced as mentors combined with an understanding of the 6 talent development roles, leaders will be extremely well prepared to build and maintain a mentoring and learning culture in the organisation. This means focusing on developing diverse talent in daily life, supporting direct reports in seeing new career opportunities within the larger organisation, and actively promoting talents to new roles when they are ready for new challenges.
[1] https://hbr.org/2019/12/real-mentorship-starts-with-company-culture-not-formal-programs
[2] Talent6 – Becoming a Talent6 Leader – Marc Effron & Jim Shanley, 2016
