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Mentoring New Technical Employees
Copyright 2020, Faulkner Information Services. All Rights Reserved.
Docid: 00011556
Publication Date: 2007
Report Type: TUTORIAL
Preview
A formal technical mentorship program is designed to help new employees –
who tend to be highly skilled in certain areas – adapt to the intricacies
and customized needs of a new role within an organization. This transition
can include, but is not restricted to, those joining a new company,
transitioning from academia to business, switching to management, or selecting
and pursuing personal and career goals. A mentoring program for technical
employees can offer numerous benefits for not just the protege, but the mentor and the
organization as well, including shorter assimilation and learning curves, increased
career satisfaction and retention, preservation of accumulated knowledge and
wisdom, and improved communication and collaboration among departments. This
tutorial examines some of the major considerations in instituting a
mentorship program.
Report Contents:
Executive Summary
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As technical employees are often highly trained in their fields, most
employers assume that they are fully prepared to function productively in
their new roles. This is, however, not always the case.
Related Faulkner Reports |
Managing Group Dynamics Tutorial |
Basic Communication Skills for Technical Managers Tutorial |
Most often, technical employees can benefit from some form of guidance in
transitioning from:
- Academia to business.
- One company to another.
- Technical to managerial roles.
- Personal and career-related goals.
What is Mentorship?
Traditionally, the term "mentoring" refers to the task of helping employees
with orientation,
assimilation, and development. A mentorship is a form of apprenticeship in which a novice is paired with a more
experienced worker who acts as a role model, sponsor, challenger, and guide.
The mentor and the protege form a relationship that is independent of
the corporate hierarchy.
Many forms of mentoring take
place informally, with no specific training or support, and with vague – if
any – goals,
roles, and timelines. To ensure a more consistent and broad-based
approach, many firms tend to implement a formal mentoring program that focuses
on:
- Clear goals and measures that establish a focus.
- Steps to connect employee development with strategic business needs.
- Facilitated matching between
protege and mentor. - Training and support for protege and mentor regarding their roles within the mentoring program.
- Definite timetables – usually lasting 6-12 months – followed by informal
contact, as needed.
Benefits
Mentoring programs offer numerous benefits for the
protege, the mentor, and the organization, as detailed in Table 1.
Protege | Professional | Organization |
---|---|---|
|
|
|
It should also be noted that most mentoring is done as a one-to-one
relationship between a mentor and protege. A team-based approach, however, can
also provide improved accessibility for the protege, lighten the
burden on each mentor, and provide a more broadened experience for the protege,
who, in turn, benefits from relationships with several mentors
in various roles and disciplines.
Considerations
Resources
Help design, implement, and manage a mentoring program
- Informational Web sites
- Articles
- Books
- Case studies
- Conferences
- Seminars
- Training
- Consulting services
- Software to facilitate, manage, and match mentoring pairs
Chain-of-Command Independence
Ensure honesty and objectivity
regarding protege situations and plans
- Mentor independence of protege’s
chain-of-command with no direct, working relationship - Mentor having no more than 1-2 levels senior to protege
- Mentor having the ability to perceive,
understand, and accept protege experience - Mentor possessing the protege’s needed skills or knowledge of to whom to
point the protege - Protege chosen based on future growth
potential, not just current task performance
Levels of Commitment
Willingness and ability to commit
extra time and effort
- Strictly volunteer basis
- Enthusiastic embracement
- Commitment to the relationship, and
making its meetings a priority - Availability outside of scheduled
meetings by at least telephone and e-mail
Post-Mentorship Evaluation
Effectiveness monitoring of a mentoring program
- Conducted after several months
- Consideration of mentorship effects on protege, mentor, and organization
- Tying evaluation back to the program’s original objectives
Description
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Generally speaking, a mentoring program provides a form of apprenticeship in which a novice is paired with a
more experienced worker who acts as a role model, sponsor, challenger, and
guide. A
successful mentor-protege relationship is characterized by
- Frequent communication and collaboration
- Open sharing of organizational
and technical knowledge - Improved protege motivation, performance, innovation, and leadership
development in the protege
Formal Mentorship
Many firms implement a
facilitated mentoring program to ensure a more consistent and broad-based
approach. Formal mentoring provides a
structured approach that includes the following components:
- Clear goals and measures,
both long- and short-term, that establish a focus for the program and
connect the employee’s development with strategic business needs. - A facilitated matching
process between the protege and a peer or more senior
manager not in the protege’s chain of command. - Specific training and support
for the protege and mentor regarding their roles and
responsibilities within the mentoring program. - A definite timetable, with a
formal stage lasting perhaps 6-12 months, followed by informal contact
as needed and desired.
Informal Mentorship
Many forms of mentoring take place informally,
either under the radar or developing out of a friendship through idea sharing. With informal mentoring, there is usually no specific
training or support for either party, and the process is likely to unfold
without clearly specified goals, roles, or timelines.
What Mentorship Entails
Table 2 looks at what mentorship is (versus what it is not).
Mentorship IS: | Mentorship IS NOT: |
---|---|
|
|
Benefits
Mentoring programs offer
numerous benefits, not only for the protege, but also for the mentor and the
organization.
Assimilation. A mentor can help a new employee
learn and more quickly adapt to a company’s unspoken rules, improving the
employee’s ability to operate successfully within the company’s culture. The
mentor can also refer the protege to other sources of
information within the company, concerning personnel policies and benefits.
Skills Development. Mentoring speeds and enhances
learning, so a new employee is more quickly performing up to potential and
contributing value. The shorter learning curve benefits both the
protege and the company. Mentoring is especially effective in
helping engineers and other technical people improve their non-technical
skills, which are increasingly needed as teams become more interdisciplinary.
When combined with a training program, mentoring can serve to translate classroom knowledge into practical experience.
Individual Development. Both the
protege
and the mentor become more valuable to the company through the
mentoring
process. A mentor can provide guidance, modeling, and feedback to
support the protege’s professional and personal development beyond the
skills needed for his or her current position. The protege is
helped to identify areas of weakness, perhaps in communication,
interpersonal
relations, change management, or leadership, and then meets with the
mentor
to make a concrete plan to address them. The mentoring relationship
also
promotes the mentor’s development in numerous areas, including
interpersonal
skills, goal-setting, and objectively recognizing needs, deficiencies,
achievements, and contributions in both self and others. In addition,
association with the protege can expose the mentor to new
methods and ideas that have changed from when the mentor’s career was
beginning.
Career Satisfaction and Loyalty. A mentor can help with career
guidance by matching the protege’s interests and goals with the
company’s needs, and helping the protege clearly define and
achieve goals that will contribute to the protege’s career
objectives. The mentor may also act as a sponsor and advocate for the protege for a particular position. Through this process, the
employee sees that the company considers his or her growth and development to
be a strategic business goal and worthwhile investment, leading to greater
career satisfaction for the employee, as well as loyalty to the company.
Similarly, the mentor’s career satisfaction and loyalty are enhanced as the
mentor experiences increased responsibility and influence, as well as
affirmation of his or her value to the company.
Recruitment and Retention. Recruitment and training are
expensive. Some estimate that it costs 150 percent of an employee’s salary to
replace him or her, and that employee turnover can cost up to 40 percent of a
company’s profits. Other costs are in the negative effects high turnover has
on the corporate culture and employee satisfaction. A mentoring program is
likely to significantly improve retention of high-performing employees.
Preserving Institutional Knowledge. Much of the accumulated knowledge
and wisdom in a company’s senior staff would be difficult to capture on paper,
as it is based largely on practical experience and responses to situations.
Mentoring allows a company to retain this asset by passing it on to
apprentices in the next generation.
Networking. A mentor can open internal doors for a
protege, providing introductions
to other departments and projects as well as to influential senior managers.
Conversely, through association with the protege’s area within
the company, the mentor develops connections and knowledge outside his or her
own department. Both the protege and the mentor thus become
more rounded and more valuable to the company. And by encouraging cooperation
and bridge-building among departments, mentoring helps to break down the
isolated “silo” mentality that often develops within a company.
Social Support. An important function of a mentor
is to serve as a confidential, supportive sounding board to provide feedback
to the protege regarding critical decisions, frustrations,
concerns, and successes, as well as emotional support in emergencies or stressful
times. Through this process, the protege gains self-confidence
and an increasing ability to manage situations on his or her own, while the
mentor gains the satisfaction of making a positive contribution to someone’s
development. The personal contact inherent in a mentoring relationship is a
benefit to both mentor and protege. Often a deep and enduring
friendship develops between the two.
Current
View
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There are a number of considerations in implementing a modern mentorship
program, as listed in Table 3.
Consideration | Description |
---|---|
Objectives |
The first step in implementing a mentoring program is to clearly identify its objectives, which should relate to the strategic goals of the company. If mentoring is begun based only on a general expectation of benefits or a vague sense that it will be a good thing, neither the protege nor the mentor can know what is expected of him or her, and the program is less likely to provide business benefits. When defining objectives, some companies implement parallel programs and let participants choose between technical and managerial tracks rather than forcing all technical people to develop managerial skills. The potential benefits of |
Group vs. One-to-One |
Most mentoring is a one-to-one relationship between a mentor and a protege. However, there can be advantages to a team-based approach. A team of mentors can provide better accessibility for the protege, since the protege can always contact one mentor even if another is unavailable. It also lightens the burden on each mentor by spreading the load across a team. A team might include a representative from Human Resources, for example, to ensure alignment between individual development and corporate goals, create developmental activities, and provide overall management of the program. An outside consultant could also be involved to administer and interpret psychological and aptitude tests, and to match individuals with different kinds of work based on their strengths and needs. Most importantly, the team approach can provide a more broadening experience for the protege, who benefits from relationships with several mentors in various roles and disciplines. |
Qualifications |
The attributes required in a mentor depend on the objectives of the particular mentoring program. For example, to help with assimilation, a mentor must know the company’s culture and unwritten rules for how things are done. To help a protege with networking, a mentor must be politically aware, understand the power relationships within the company, and have both influencing skills and a wide network of contacts. To help with technical skills, the mentor must either be an expert in the relevant technical field, or know how to point the protege toward someone who is. Regardless of the program’s objectives, the mentor should be a supportive, accepting listener; respect the protege as an individual; and give the protege full attention during each meeting. Of course, honesty, integrity, and confidentiality are essential. To ensure objectivity Many companies invite all salaried employees to apply to their mentorship Perhaps the most |
Matching |
Not every mentor and protege will be a good match. The mentor need not be similar in all respects to the protege – or else no learning would occur – but he or she must be able to perceive, understand, and accept the protege’s experience, and have the skills and knowledge the protege needs to develop. In some programs communication style is also used to match mentors and proteges. A mentor serves as a role It is generally |
Meetings |
At the first meeting, the mentor and protege should jointly discuss their expectations for the mentoring relationship, including the following:
To get the most out of
|
Evaluation and Feedback |
After the mentoring program has been operating for several months, its success in meeting the needs of the protege, mentor, and organization should be evaluated.
|
Outlook
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Various resources are
available to help a company design, implement, and manage a mentoring
program, including informational Web sites, articles, books, case studies,
conferences, seminars, training, and consulting. Software is available that
can help facilitate group or one-to-one mentoring, managed or self-directed
mentoring, matching between mentors and proteges, and
reporting. Below are several organizations that offer mentoring-related
resources:
- The Coaching & Mentoring
Network offers articles, book referrals, and case studies, as well as
mentor matching software that helps match mentors and proteges based on desired skills, location, experience,
and personal characteristics. - Peer Resources Program supports
mentor research, training, consultation, and program development;
their Web site lists articles for download, books, conferences,
seminars,
workshops, and links to other resources. - The Mentoring Group offers
mentoring-related consulting, technical assistance, assessment, and
training, as well as resources in printed, audio, and video formats.
Most of the cost of a
mentoring program is in the time expended by the mentor and the
protege. There may also be the salary or fee of a program
coordinator, if one is used, as well as costs for program materials,
training, ongoing administration, and outside consultants. Most companies who
have experience with mentoring programs consider them a worthwhile investment
that pays off by speeding staff development, reducing turnover, and helping
new employees become valuable contributors to the company.
In general, a mentoring program
does not have to take a lot of time. Mentors and proteges who
are pressed for time can keep in contact during the normal course of work,
through informal meetings of a few minutes, by e-mail discussions, or with
occasional lunch meetings.
Mentoring Priorities
While mentoring programs generally reflect organizational needs, and are
tailored to produce the type of employee that best serves the company,
agency, or nonprofit for whom the mentor and protege labor, certain
requirements are nearly universal:
- Communicating effectively, especially in writing;
- Eliminating
unforced errors
, or the type of miscues which could have been
avoided if the protege had exercised greater due diligence. In a
computer programming context, for example, many, if not most, failures can
be attributed to inadequate software testing. - Achieving a
self-directed
state,
or the condition in which the protege functions with minimal supervision. Employment ads often feature self-directedness as a key criterion for
hiring.
Mentors should concentrate on helping their charges achieve these
highly-regarded capabilities.
Reverse Mentoring
From an information technology perspective, every employee today is a
technical employee. Even executives are expected to master smartphones and
tablets as business instruments. Unlike other technical areas, younger
employees, who literally grew up with information technology, are generally
experts while older employees may be novices.
As Sue Shellenbarger of The Wall Street Journal reports1, There is a growing digital divide in
As Didier Bonnet, a global practice leader in London for Capgemini
tech-impaired older managers. To address it, more companies are trying
reverse mentoring, pairing young employees with older colleagues to work on
tech skills.
Consulting, observes, The main aim is to raise the digital IQ of business
leaders in the firms.
While reverse mentoring can be awkward – intimidating for the young mentor
and embarrassing for the older protege – a program targeted narrowly on
transferring basic IT and social media skills can be enormously rewarding, both
for:
- The established protege, improving his or her job performance; and
- The novice mentor, by providing high-level organizational exposure at a
young age.
Recommendations
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Mentoring is at heart a
relationship between individuals, and therefore its success depends not only
on setting up a program with a clear focus and strategic purpose, but also on
less tangible factors relating to the personalities and histories of the
people involved. Mentors should guard against falling into one of the
following dysfunctional roles:
- The needy mentor, who builds
himself or herself up by trying to impress the protege with self-talk
and war stories, or uses the mentor arrangement and the
protege to enhance his or her own prestige, position, and
influence. - The vicarious mentor, who
treats the mentoring relationship as a do-over for righting his or her
own past mistakes. - The rescuer, who loans money
to the protege, gets involved in dispute resolution on the protege’s behalf, or tries to prevent every mistake
instead of allowing the protege to learn through some of
them. - The micromanager, who tells
the protege exactly what to do and how, and gives answers
rather than helping the protege come up with his or her own. - The cloner, who tries to fit
the protege into the mentor’s mold rather than providing
guidance based on the protege’s unique perspectives and
abilities.
Those organizing a
mentoring program should avoid the following potentially counterproductive
approaches:
- Using a mentoring program for
remedial work or discipline, rather than keeping a positive focus on
growth and development. - Coercing mentors or proteges to participate when they may lack the time or
desire to do so, or not providing a way to choose a new partner or withdraw
from the program if it isn’t working. Astressed-out
mentor might
quit the company, which would become a lose-lose situation for the mentor and the company. - Beginning a mentoring program
when the company is going through difficult times and everyone’s focus
and priorities are elsewhere. - Failing to maintain clear,
visible, and continuing senior leadership support. - Beginning a mentoring program
during the summer vacation or winter holiday season, when it will be
more difficult to get mentors and proteges together. - Using a mentoring program to groom a mentor’s successor. Mentors should
not be expected to facilitate their own layoffs. - Allowing mentors and proteges to primarily communicate through text
messages, tweets, and other social media instruments.
While confidentiality is critical to any mentoring relationship, both the
mentor and his or her protege must understand that there is no absolute
mentor-protege privilege.
If either party crosses the line
in terms of
acceptable enterprise behavior, the other party is responsible for reporting
such transgressions to the mentoring program administrator. Potential
violations include:
- Excessive use of profanity (a casual utterance is usually acceptable);
- A physical, especially sexual, overture;
- Derogatory statements directed at enterprise officials; and
- Any endorsement – explicit or implied – of illegal, immoral, or
unethical activity – particularly enterprise-related activity.
Before certifying any individual as a mentor, he or she should be subjected
to a series of role-playing exercises in which the mentoring program
administrator (or his or her designee) assumes the position of potential
protege. In this way, the administrator can get a feel
for whether the
mentor-to-be is good for the program, and even offer suggestions for
improvement.
A mentoring program can
be supplemented with a training or coaching program, but they are not the
same. Mentoring is a long-term, multifaceted relationship, whereas training
and coaching focus on teaching specific skills related to an employee’s
current position and are finished when the skills are learned. Mentoring is
also more than a buddy system, which exists only to help a new employee
adjust to the company, has no strategic goal, and lasts only two or three
months.
Even if they lack the resources – or inclination – to establish a
formal mentoring program, the owners and operators of small-to-medium-sized
businesses (SMBs) should mentor their employees. It’s good for them; it’s
good for their employees; and, perhaps most importantly, it’s good for their
businesses.
Even the best mentor can experience
unsatisfactory results if his or her protege is not
presently
prepared to be mentored. Even an eager protege can waste a
mentoring opportunity if events, situations, or circumstances conspire
to interfere with his or her receptivity to the mentoring process.
For mentors and proteges alike, most importantly is to not allow
failures – which are usually temporary – to distract from one’s
commitment to mentoring or being mentored.
References
1 Sue Shellenbarger. "Pairing Up with a Younger
The Wall Street
Mentor: In ‘Reverse Mentoring,’ Tech-Savvy Twenty-somethings Help Older
Managers."
Journal. May
28, 2014.
Web Links
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- The Coaching & Mentoring Network: http://www.coachingnetwork.org.uk/
- Management Mentors: http://www.management-mentors.com/
- Peer Resources: http://www.mentors.ca/
About the Author
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Brady Hicks is an
editor with Faulkner Information Services. He writes about computer and
networking hardware, software, communications networks and equipment, and the
Internet.
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