One of the best ways to stay competitive in today’s business world is to institute mentoring programs within your company. Mentoring has been around for many years and many businesses have used it to encourage better thinking, better productivity, to increase revenue, market share and profit. Corporate mentorship programs are becoming more and more part of a company’s culture and natural way of doing business. If your company does not yet have one, here are some reasons below as to why you should implement one in your organization.
Speeds up development and growth while attracting and retaining new talent
Studies have shown that mentoring programs have helped employees to reach higher positions and many of those success stories, such as Warren Buffett or Oprah Winfrey, have given clear credit to such programs in helping them to reach their goals. Mentorship programs can serve to create such benefits, and can also help to retain top talent.
Indeed, many who have been surveyed when asked why they left their jobs within 12 months of being hired, attribute their decisions in part to little or no mentoring at all within their respective companies. It’s important to have a mentoring program to prevent this, but such measures need to be taken in the correct way. Not all managers possess the ability to effectively mentor, so creating an official program of experienced individuals is probably the best way to both attract and retain new and existing talent.
Draws Millennials to your company while keeping Baby Boomers up to speed
When surveyed, many millennials have problems with the old ways of cultivating employees. Many companies in the past have taken a disciplinarian approach to their employees in which they have relied on the threat of some sort of punishment to motivate employees to achieve their goals. Millennials consequently have always been looking out for an alternative place to work while still employed at such companies and much prefer organizations which focus on mentoring as the main way to cultivate workers who have the potential to excel. As Millennials are increasingly making up the majority of the workforce, companies which do not already have mentorship programs should seriously examine reconsidering their business’s culture and goals in order to attract this group.
At the same time as attracting Millennials, it is important to note that mentorship programs benefit older Baby Boomer employees as well. Younger mentors can get Boomers up to speed on newly emergent technology and help them to become conversant in it. At the same time, implementing such an arrangement helps to build positive working relationships between generations of employees, making for a better, more productive organization.
Benefits not only the CEO, but also everyone else at your company
With mentorship programs, those being mentored have the chance to increase not only their working skillset, but also their interpersonal skills which would help them to achieve a better understanding of how the company and its culture operate. Mentors can share their experience and knowledge with mentees, which allows the latter to build respect for their superiors and at the same time gain valuable knowledge and experience. It also helps them to build better relationships with their co-workers, which can only serve to improve their self-confidence and can make for a better employee. Mentorship programs can also help to improve the performance of those higher up in the organization, including chief officers such as CEOs. Here, CEOs can utilize such programs to get advice, feedback and counsel, which can help them to make better, more informed decisions that can affect the company’s bottom line.
Good mentorship programs do not happen overnight, and it will take resources and time in order to implement one at a company that does not already have it. However, if the right steps are taken to create one, this can only serve to improve a business’s culture, productivity and, ultimately, profitability.
