Structured Mentoring: A Critical Component of a Global Talent Management Strategy

Well-designed mentoring programs enable organizations to align and seamlessly integrate training, coaching, and mentoring initiatives into holistic, personalized offerings.

Competing for market share in a dynamic international marketplace, the frontrunners are those who are able to build a skilled, global workforce through multifaceted strategies that enable them to align training, mentoring, and coaching initiatives and implement cutting-edge practices such as social and mobile learning. Structured mentoring forms the foundation of a well-designed talent management strategy. Well-designed mentoring programs enable organizations to align and seamlessly integrate training, coaching, and mentoring initiatives into holistic, personalized offerings. It is through successful structured mentoring programs that organizations are able to sustain a uniquely skilled and internally motivated workforce that sets them apart from their competition.

Before looking at structured mentoring as a key learning strategy and overarching component of a comprehensive talent management strategy, briefly consider the components that form part of the typical organization’s talent management strategy. Structured mentoring affects each in a slightly different way.

  1. Talent Acquisition. A good mentoring program is a powerful recruiting tool. Candidates tend to associate the quality of an organization’s professional development programs with future career opportunities.
  2. Performance Management. Mentoring allows for the development of professional and personal relationships that facilitate internal motivation, effective teamwork and the timely and successful completion of performance objectives and realization of business goals.
  3. Training and Development. Mentoring programs do not replace but complement training initiatives and allow for the development of tacit knowledge and complex skills that cannot be honed in any other way.
  4. Talent Retention. Employee surveys and research studies suggest that employees who are involved in mentoring programs are more likely to report job satisfaction and less likely to seek other opportunities. Mentoring programs that span international boundaries also aid global mobility and increase the availability of attractive career opportunities.
  5. Succession Planning. Mentoring programs seek and are supported by vibrant communities of practice that provide talent managers with the ability to identify talent pools from which positions could be effectively filled.

While mentoring adds value to the overall talent management program, its effect is most visible in professional development. When we look at mentoring as a professional development or learning strategy, we need to consider the mentoring in relationship with training and clarify similarities and differences. Four simple definitions as shown in Table 1 may be helpful.

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Table 1

Mentoring, coaching, and training differ in terms of purpose, control, duration, and focus.

  1. Purpose. With the focus of mentoring on the holistic development of the person, coaching initiatives and training events form part of a well-designed mentoring program.
  2. Focus. Mentorships are always highly individualized whereas coaching events are often conducted in small groups. On average, training events are scheduled for between 6 and 20 participants. Mentors enable mentees to gain additional, individualized value from coaching and training opportunities through follow-up practice and evaluation sessions.
  3. Control. Mentorships are largely collaborative and mentors and mentees share much of the responsibility for the timely and successful completion of the mentorship. Coaching and training initiatives are largely top-down and directed by the coach or instructor.
  4. Duration. The average mentorship tend to be longer in duration than the average coaching or training event and the typical mentorship curriculum will include a variety of coaching and training opportunities.

As noted, by incorporating both coaching and training initiatives into mentoring program curricula, structured mentoring serves as the “glue” that assimilates and aligns organizational learning opportunities into a cohesive and effective offering. With no structured mentoring program in place, training and coaching initiatives remain poorly integrated at best.

Essential Elements

Now that we have seen how structured mentoring fits into the typical talent management framework, we will look at the key characteristics of effective structured mentoring programs. How is structured mentoring different from traditional mentoring? In traditional mentoring, programs include two main components: logistics and support.

  • Logistics. At the onset of a new mentorship program and even of a mentorship, the main focus is on logistics. Stakeholders and talent management design and develop the mentoring programs, screen and match mentee and mentor, finalize mentorship contracts, clarify goals and timelines, and manage the mentorships from beginning to end.
  • Support. Once a mentorship is under way, team support and especially the relationship between the mentor and mentee will become the focal point. Books written on mentoring typically include information on communication skills, relationship building, resources, and support. Structured mentoring programs also include competency-based curricula and tool kits to facilitate the timely and effective transfer of business-critical knowledge and skills.

So, how is structured mentoring different? In addition to logistics and support, structured mentoring adds a learning or educational component to mentoring and emphasizes mentoring as a valuable and powerful learning strategy.

Educational Programs and Mentoring

What does mentoring have to do with learning? Why would structured mentoring programs include competency-based curricula? As a powerfully effective learning strategy, mentoring allows for the holistic development of the total person and involves a significant element of “schooling.”

Similar to an academic curriculum, a structured mentoring curriculum is based on competency to allow for the timely and effective transfer and mastery of business-critical knowledge and skills. By nature, curricula are either strictly or loosely sequenced to let the learner progress through a series of well-organized tasks. Thus, most curricula, even those that allow for significant flexibility and room for personalization, reflect an essentially hierarchical structure.

Academic and mentoring program curricula follow a similar structure and both rely on the availability of suitable learning materials to ensure consistent quality and the effective transfer of knowledge and skills. However, academic programs consist of courses whereas mentoring programs consist of mentorships. Also, academic programs are designed for small to large groups and while they do allow for customization, mentoring programs are designed for highly personalized learning. Based on the skill gap analysis, a structured mentorship will be adjusted to fit the skill level, needs, and context of each individual mentee.

Value Added Through Structure

Similar to any academic program or learning event, a mentoring program can only be consistently effective across mentorships and over time if it includes a well-structured curriculum. In this section, we will outline the most prevalent advantages of mentoring programs that include repeatable and easily customizable curricula.

Structured mentorship programs rely on highly customizable curricula to provide mentoring teams with a careful balance between consistent structure and standardization on the one end and personalization and flexibility on the other. On the one hand, the use of well-structured mentoring program curricula and associated learning materials allows for the timely completion of effective mentorships, consistent quality, and clear value. On the other hand, the flexibility and the freedom to customize a curriculum to meet the skill level, interests, and job-related requirements of each mentee allow for excellence in fit and clear added value. Moreover, as mentoring program curricula and materials are implemented across mentorships and over time, lessons learned are captured and best practices are refined to allow for continuous improvement.

Therefore, when we view mentoring programs as powerful mechanisms for learning and thus for the transfer and mastery of business-critical knowledge and skills, we also need to understand a little about the world of knowledge management. Knowledge is valuable intellectual capital, and as such, it exists in one of two forms: explicit or tacit.

  • Explicit knowledge is overt and thus conscious and clearly “known.”
  • Tacit knowledge is covert, implicit, and internalized, and thus largely “automated.”

We need different strategies for the transfer and mastery of different types of knowledge. While training programs are highly effective in the transfer of known, explicit knowledge and some skills, traditional classroom training does not transfer tacit knowledge and skills very well. Unique to structured mentoring is the ability to ensure the rapid, well-organized, and systematic transfer of business-critical, tacit, internalized, and largely automated knowledge and skills through a combination of training, coaching, and mentoring engagements as built into the curriculum. The transfer of knowledge and skills from the mentor to the mentee is both intentional and unintentional. See Table 2.

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Table 2

  • Intentional transfer. As the mentor consciously and purposefully transfers explicit knowledge and skills to the mentee, the mentee will strive to understand, master, and internalize the new knowledge and skills. Once the mentee has been able to assimilate and internalize the newly acquired, explicit knowledge and skills, the process will form part of the mentee’s mental schema and become increasingly covert, tacit, and automated.
  • Unintentional transfer. During interaction and shared activity, the mentor will also unwittingly transfer tacit knowledge and skills to the mentee, who will observe and unconsciously and unknowingly assimilate and master the tacit knowledge and skills. Some of the most complex and highly strategic behaviors that differentiate frontrunners from the rest of the pack are thus “caught” rather than “taught.”

Challenges and Solutions

What are the challenges that we could expect to encounter with the typical structured mentoring program? How do we overcome them? Organizations often struggle with the timely, effective transfer of business-critical knowledge and skills. Knowledge is not always readily available and also not easily transferable. Moreover, knowledge tends to be “sticky” and the mastery of complex knowledge and skills requires time, and involves a learning curve. Recognized experts are few in number, high in demand, and, thus, expensive.

The greater the complexity of the knowledge and skills, the larger the likelihood that much of it would be overt, tacit, and also subject to continuous change. In such cases, knowledge is best “picked up” and transferred in tacit form through collaborative work rather than explicitly communicated by overt mechanisms such as training. Most importantly, experts are sought after because they effectively internalize and automate their most valued expertise to such an extent that they are able to outperform others. Yet, because of this level of internalization and automation, most experts are hardly conscious of all that they know and struggle to verbalize and explain complex details to others.

Therefore, one of the most effective and proven ways to benefit from such internalized expertise is by using the age-old apprenticeship model and to allow less skilled employees to learn through close proximity, shared application, and continuous observation. However, the apprenticeship model is time-consuming and in today’s fast-paced business environment, time is limited and deadlines tight.

Structured mentoring programs include curricula that allow for the efficient transfer of business-critical expertise through the timely and successful completion of well-planned, tracked, and well-supported mentorships. When curricula are nonexistent; the structure, and guidance and support are not provided; the mentorship progress is not closely tracked against competencies; and the final outcomes are not sufficiently measured, efficiency and consistent quality cannot be ensured.

Value to the Customer

Customer requests typically include several requirements, some explicitly stated and others indirectly implied. Organizations are best able to meet and exceed customer expectations if the right workers are assigned to the right jobs at the right time. Structured mentorships seek excellent customer service, increased customer speed, and ultimately a greater market share by developing a highly skilled, internally motivated, and flexible workforce.

Mentorship Types and Models

What do structured mentorships look like? Are all mentorships not well planned and do they not all have at least some structure? How does a structured mentorship differ from other mentorships? In this section of the paper, we will discuss structured mentorship types, models, and recommended practices.

While most mentorships contain some measures of structure such as goals, timelines, and governance rules, structured mentorships use the instructional design process and draw from adult learning theory to ensure the effective transfer of business-critical knowledge and skills throughout the workforce. In addition to governance rules, mentorship agreements, relationship management, and goals and timelines, structured mentoring programs rely on well-designed, competency-based curricula to facilitate timely completion and consistent quality for all mentorships.

Mentorship Types

Not all structured mentorships are exactly the same. Though highly structured and standardized, structured mentoring programs, and thus the mentorships that they offer, differ in terms of purpose, the type of expertise to be transferred, complexity, and duration. We will now consider the three main types of mentorships:

  • Role transition
  • Leadership
  • Knowledge transfer

They vary in terms of

  • Purpose
  • Population
  • Complexity and duration

Role transition mentorships support frontline managers, senior managers, and executives as they transition out of current positions and into new ones. Role transition mentorships are focused, simple and brief, and designed to reduce time to productivity for incoming managers. The typical role transition mentorship could be expected to last a week or two and should not exceed a month.

Leadership mentorships focus largely on senior management and executives as organizations seek to prepare future leaders and to promote diversity as needed to remain competitive in a global marketplace. These mentorships are larger in scope, more complex, and longer in duration. The typical leadership mentorship could be expected to extend over a period of several months to one or more years.

Knowledge transfer mentorships enable organizations to meet business demand through the timely transfer of business-critical competencies and intellectual property across the organization. Similar to leadership mentorships, knowledge transfer mentorships are larger in scope, more complex, and could be expected to span multiple months or years. Note that the timely and successful completion of a longer term mentorship such as this requires a customizable curriculum, goals and due dates, continuous support, and incremental status and quality reviews. Table 3.

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Table 3

Mentoring Models

All three types of structured mentorship can be set up according to three basic models:

  1. One-to-one mentorships
  2. One-to-many mentorships
  3. Mentoring communities

One-to-one mentorships are the most well known and most frequently encountered mentoring model. Typically, a mentorship will be formed when a more experienced person will assume the role of mentor and commit to hone the skills of a mentee, who will be in need of development in the area that will be the focus of the mentorship. While support might be provided by one or more talent managers and input might be obtained from the mentee’s manager, the mentorship will largely involve only the mentor and the mentee in a one-to-one relationship.

One-to-many mentorships are a logical outflow in communities where the number of mentees exceeds the availability of mentors. Although this may be the case in most organizations, not all organizations have the critical number of experienced mentors who are able to mentor more than one mentee at a time. In this model, we have an experienced mentor working with two to five mentees on the same mentorship, with each mentee following his or her personalized version of the curriculum. While the mentor-mentee relationship remains primarily one-to-one, the mentees are able to work collaboratively and support one another toward the mastery of similar goals.

Mentoring communities develop when a mentoring program has several experienced mentors who are able to work with teams of two to five mentees and a network of skilled subject matter experts have been identified to coach mentees on selected knowledge and skills. Mentees who are enrolled in these more mature mentoring programs benefit from resources available in more than one mentorship team as they collaborate with peers and are coached either individually or in small teams. Teams of experienced mentors and coaches who are well acquainted with the mentoring program are also better able to support one another and substitute services if needed.

In summary, a clear understanding of different mentorship types and models enable organizations to develop and implement effective mentoring programs and, in so doing, to effectively manage the organization’s more expensive resources: people and their time. Table 4 summarizes information covered on the types of mentorship and mentoring models.

Table 4

Finally, we will consider each of three additional factors that affect the way mentorships are shaped:

  • Information flow
  • Sensitivity and confidentiality
  • Communication

Information Flow—Reverse Mentoring

Are mentors always older than mentees? Can younger people mentor senior colleagues? Does knowledge always flow only in one direction—from the more experienced to the less experienced? Do mentors also learn and benefit from the time spent with mentees? Historically, the assumption has been that the flow of information in mentoring is unidirectional, from mentor to mentee and thus most frequently from:

  • Older to younger
  • More experienced to less experienced
  • Incumbent to newcomer

However, we now know that the flow of information in mentorships is not unidirectional. As a growing body of literature reflects on the flow of know-how from mentees to their mentors, we are beginning to understand that in this type of “reverse mentoring,” we have a form of transposition as information will flow from:

  • Younger to older
  • Less experienced to more experienced
  • Newcomer to incumbent

In this reverse mentoring, mentees share alternative perspectives, new information, and experience from “outside” the organization while mentors are also exposed to cross-generational knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

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Table 5

As organizations are beginning to experience the wave of a younger workforce, also known as the “big crew change,” workforce demographics are changing rapidly. See table 5. Generations X and Y are known to be:

  • Connected and highly mobile, used to constant connectivity and social environments
  • Accustomed to personalization and expect to be given choices
  • Socially conscious and work to live, and are unwilling to have work infringe on personal time

Additionally, the new global workforce reflects similar characteristics as it is also highly interconnected, interdependent, and thus increasingly diverse and complex. Employees are now interacting with individuals from various countries, cultures, and languages. The global virtual office never closes and a sense of urgency gives rise to increasingly heavy workload, greater complexity of job-related responsibilities, rapidly growing corporate libraries, and general information overload.
How do organizations prepare for and manage a growing younger workforce? Future success will depend on the ability to provide workers with a better work-life balance and to do more with less through:

  • Standardization and proven process to ensure efficiency, consistent quality, and continuous improvement
  • Competency-based learning and work
  • Personalization and opportunity for professional development and growth

Sensitivity, Confidentiality, and Outsourcing

Are some mentorships more sensitive than others? While all mentorships will have some confidential information that the mentor should not share, some mentorships focus on the transfer and mastery of knowledge and skills that are personal and thus also sensitive by nature. Typically, leadership mentoring programs and  executive role transitions are sensitive by nature and organizations would frequently engage external resources to support and track mentorships. On the other hand, knowledge transfer mentorships and frontline and middle manager role transitions are not usually sensitive and would not typically contain confidential information.

Communication—Mentoring from Afar

Must all mentoring be done locally and face-to-face? Can people who work in isolated locations also benefit from mentoring programs? With the focus largely on communication and relationship building, traditional mentorships are mostly done in person. While mentorship team relationships are of great importance, the primary focus in structured mentoring is on the competency-based curriculum and the mentee’s ability to master knowledge and skills as assigned. Thus structured and managed similar to any other project, mentorship teams are effective across boundaries of time and location.

Structured Mentoring Process

How do structured mentorships work? What are the high-level steps in a typical structured mentorship? In this section, we will outline the high-level steps of the structured mentoring process. Starting a new mentoring program, the organization’s leadership must

  • Recognize structured mentoring as a comprehensive, cross-functional strategy that requires resources, expertise,  support, and participation from various functions across the organization.
  • Identify a mentoring program manager and implementation team.
  • Allocate sufficient resources and time for the mentoring program to be effective and successful.

In turn, the mentoring program team will

  • Establish and communicate the vision, mission, goal objectives, key success factors, and metrics for the new mentoring program and explain how it fits into the talent management infrastructure,
  • Identify target populations and stakeholders as well as a mentorship team award structure.
  • Secure executive and human resources support.
  • Outline roles and responsibilities, identify a mentorship program manager, and establish a support infrastructure.
  • Communicate the program’s vision to key stakeholders and explain
    • Value added to the operation/field personnel
    • Mentorship program team roles, responsibilities, and skill sets
  • Identify a small number of mentors to participate in the initial pilot effort and assess the commitment and readiness of each.
  • Match and train the mentors and mentees.
  • Assist mentors and mentees in the development of the “generic/default” mentoring program competency, and curriculum map and tool kit/materials.
  • Implement, support, and track the first mentorship(s), guide the mentors and mentees through the customization/personalization of the materials, and provide support as needed until successful completion.

Do all mentorships have to be formal? Structure does not equate to formality. Even the most informal and personal mentorship can still be structured to ensure timely completion and quality. Once they have been exposed to structured mentoring, employees are able to

  • Build on knowledge and skill gained and lessons learned through participation in these formal structured mentorships.
  • Initiate and successfully complete informal, spontaneous mentorships—with or without talent management support.

Structured Mentorship Teams

Who can be expected to be part of the typical structured mentorship team? What are the responsibilities that are carried by the various members of a typical structured mentorship team? In this section, we will look at the structured mentorship team and identify the responsibilities of each role. The typical structured mentorship team consists of a mentee, a mentor, the mentee’s manager, at least one expert who serves as a coach in an area of expertise, a talent manager, and the assessor. See table 6.

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Table 6

Who Could Be a Mentee?

Mentoring is expensive and not everyone can qualify to be a mentee. Most organizations mark particular roles as target populations for mentoring programs; most often they are employees working in core business functions or senior managers and executives. To ensure the timely and successful completion of mentorships and thus the responsible use of limited resources, the mentee must be

  • Motivated to learn, actively contribute and add clear value.
  • Able to reflect on own performance, set, and achieve goals.
  • A good communicator and able to participate in questioning and feedback sessions.
  • A strong team player and able to work collaboratively toward shared goals.

Who Will Be an Effective Mentor?

Seasoned experts are a scarce and expensive resource and not every expert will be an effective mentor. The most important requirement for a good mentor is an interest in and commitment to the professional development of another person. Also, while the mentor will be an expert in most of the knowledge domains that will be covered by the mentorship, he or she will also rely on other experts to provide expertise and insight as needed. In addition to commitment, the mentor must share the vision of the mentoring program and should be able to create a personalized version of this vision for each mentee. Finally, effective mentors are good communicators, seasoned team players, and proficient networkers.

How do mentoring programs identify effective mentors?

To ensure long-term success, mentors have to be given sufficient information and time to make informed decisions. Ideally, the mentoring program manager will

  • Provide potential mentors with details about the mentorship and their role and responsibilities, and ensure that they are motivated and committed to the success of the mentees who will be assigned to them.
  • Request permission from each prospective mentor’s manager and discuss time commitment, logistics, and workload. As a rule of thumb:
    • First-time mentors should start with one mentee
    • Less experienced mentors may be asked to work with up to three mentees at a time.
    • Only seasoned mentors may have more than three mentees assigned to them at a time.

Matching

Much has been written on the matching of mentors and mentees. However, while a mentorship relationship is a close relationship, it is still a professional relationship and not a personal relationship. In fact, structured mentorships are primarily project orientated and task focused, therefore they are similar to regular project teams, with the task at hand presiding over individual and personal differences. While the consideration of factors in matching mentors to mentees includes measures to ensure the building of a strong relationship, the list does not explicitly focus on relationship or personal compatibility.

The Mentee’s Manager

How does the mentee’s manager fit into the mentorship? To ensure the timely and successful completion of the mentorship and thus best meet the organization’s business demand, the mentee’s manager (or supervisor) will be expected to

  • Support mentoring efforts.
  • Work with the mentor and mentee to ensure the appropriate prioritization and focus of mentorship. Moreover, managers should not try to mentor direct reports.

The relationship between managers and direct reports is

  • Largely authoritative (top-down) and puts the mentee at a disadvantage.
  • Relatively short-term and subject to a change in assignment.
  • Focused on performance rather than on holistic, long-term professional development.

However, with the correct skill set, managers who have the required expertise could effectively coach direct reports provided that

  • The coaching engagement is brief, timed, and enforce specific skills.
  • The focus of the coaching effort is on performance and fits well with a top-down relationship.

The Coach

No matter how seasoned he or she is, no mentor could know it all. Thus, subject matter experts are appointed by the mentor to serve as coaches in areas of deep expertise. On-the-job training and coaching sessions are important parts of the typical structured mentoring curriculum. The most effective coach will be a recognized expert in one or more areas of expertise. It is important for the coach to be

  • Sufficiently informed about the mentorship upfront to make an informed decision about availability and commitment to the mentee’s success and share practical experience, lessons learned, and best practices
  • A good communicator and skilled in negotiation and conflict resolution
  • A strong team player and able to work collaboratively toward shared goals

The Talent Manager

As mentoring expert, the talent manager provides guidance and support to ensure consistent quality across mentoring programs as well as mentorships. To best support mentorship teams, the talent manager should be a structured mentoring expert, good communicator, and an effective project manager.

Communities of Practice

How do we build mentoring programs of exceptional quality? In essence, structured mentoring programs are only as strong as the mentoring community of expertise that supports the mentorship teams. Successful structured mentoring programs seed the development of vibrant, self-sustaining communities of practices, or knowledge networks, which actively support mentees during their mentorships and continue to engage them in the community once the mentorships have been completed. It is through involvement in this community that the mentee receives the sustained guidance and support that facilitates growth from mentee, to coach, and finally to mentor.

In each structured mentorship, mentoring expertise forms the “hidden curriculum.” Coaches and mentees, and to a lesser extent mentors, learn to mentor from exposure to mentoring behaviors as modeled by the members of the mentorship team. Over time, the mentee develops the ability to first coach and later to mentor through continued active engagement.

The Structured Mentoring Program Tool Kit

In addition to a well-designed curriculum, structured mentoring programs rely on standardized tool kits to ensure the timely and successful completion of mentorships across time. The typical structured mentorship tool kit is repeatable, customizable, and extensible. In this section, we will briefly outline the main components that form the typical structured mentorship
tool kit.

Structured Mentoring Tool Kit Components

The typical structured mentorship tool kit contains 10 basic components. They are:

  1. Mentoring program guide
  2. Mentorship kickoff meeting guide
  3. Mentorship meeting templates and guides
  4. Mentorship agreement template
  5. Mentorship competency and curriculum map
  6. Action plan template
  7. Frequently asked questions
  8. Communication and conflict resolution guidelines
  9. Talent management contact information
  10.  Resources

Mentorship Program Guide

It provides new mentorship teams with an overview of the mentoring program and outlines information such as competencies to be developed, an outline of the standard mentorship curriculum, mentorship team roles and responsibilities, the structured mentoring process, workflows and suggested timelines, and finally, a list of resources and support.

The Mentorship Process and Workflow Diagrams are designed to provide the mentorship team with a high-level overview of the mentorship process and steps. Through the use of these diagrams and associated timelines, the team is able to ensure the timely and successful completion of the mentorship.

The Mentorship Meeting Templates and Guidelines enable the mentoring team to schedule mentorship meetings and to maintain meeting records with ease. The guidelines also include meeting specific checklists and sample role plays. For example, The Mentorship Kickoff Meeting Guide steers mentors through the preparation for and completion of mentorship kickoff meetings and provides information. A few examples are:

  • Kick-off meeting preparation and materials checklists
  • Suggested mentorship kickoff meeting scripts with a brief list of do’s and don’ts
  • Examples of typical kickoff meeting scenarios and answers to frequently asked questions

The Mentorship Agreement Template and Guide allows mentors and mentees to finalize mentorship agreements that enable them to establish common understandings on which to build an effective mentoring relationship. Since the mentorship agreement is not a formal legal document, it is open to periodic review and revision throughout the mentorship.

The Mentorship Competency and Curriculum Map outlines the core, business-critical competencies that mentees will be expected to master during the mentorship. It also outlines tasks, activities, evaluation criteria, and resources for each competency to ensure timely, effective completion, and consistent quality across mentorships.

The Mentorship Action Plan Template and Guide allows mentoring teams to consider the competencies listed in the curriculum map in context of the mentee’s most prominent developmental needs and current job assignments and identify one or more competencies and associated tasks on which the mentee, as supported by the team, will focus for the upcoming 2 to 3 weeks. A clear due date will be assigned for each task, the next mentorship meeting will be scheduled, and the completed action plan will be distributed among the members of the mentorship team.

Finally, selected resources and support mechanisms are provided to each mentorship team as needed to ensure the timely completion of successful mentorships and consistent quality across mentorships and time. Mentoring teams also establish workflows and assist in the capturing and sharing of lessons learned and best practices across mentorships to ensure the continuous refinement and improvement of mentoring processes and tools. Resources most often provided to mentorship teams include

  • Community of Practice (CoP) meeting schedules and informative webinars on selected topics
  • Mentoring team training and coaching sessions to hone mentoring skills and allow opportunities for practice
  • Guidance and support provided by talent managers as well as CoP members
  • Information workspaces that contain discussion boards, frequently asked questions, communication and conflict resolution guidelines, and contact information for talent managers and other support personnel

Success Factors

Finally, true to classic instructional design practice, mentorships are evaluated at frequent intervals from onset to completion and a final summative evaluation is conducted at the completion of the mentorship. Mentoring program teams seek to identify the success factors that are most commonly associated with structured mentoring and to address areas where improvement is needed.

We measure the effectiveness and efficiency of mentoring initiatives in various ways and at different levels. First of all, we evaluate mentorship programs as part of the organization’s overall talent management strategy to ensure fit, alignment, and effectiveness. We also evaluate individual mentorships for mentee satisfaction, mastery of required knowledge and skills, and practical on-the-job application of newly acquired abilities. Finally, mentoring program teams also look at the mentorship team and evaluate the performance of individual members.

Mentoring program teams identify key factors associated with successful structured mentoring programs. These include the organization’s ability to

  1. Establish an infrastructure that supports mentoring as part of the corporate talent management initiative and ensure executive sponsorship and management support and align mentoring programs with business goals.
  2. Provide a shared vision and emphasize value added to the organization and to the individuals involved.
  3. Make mentorships available to meet professional development needs that are not met through training or coaching and align training, coaching, and mentoring initiatives to eliminate overlap and fill gaps.
  4.  Identify risk nodes to ensure the rapid, mission-sensitive capture, structure, and transfer of explicit and tacit knowledge and skills.
  5. Hold mentors and mentees accountable and provide ready access to training and 24/7 guidance and support.
  6. Develop and support knowledge networks and communities of practice that will facilitate formal and informal collaboration and effective teamwork across time, and geographical and organizational boundaries.
  7.  Maintain a sound balance between structure and flexibility.
  8. Demonstrate commitment and support in talk and action and model excellence in mentoring.
  9. Establish and refine metrics and as part of a continuous measurement and evaluation workflow.
  10. Form partnerships with local universities and participate in research and evaluation studies to obtain objectivity and benefit from cutting-edge knowledge and expertise.

Conclusion

In summary, structured mentoring programs add value to businesses and thus to their customers in a variety of ways. Through the availability of competency-based curricula and associated learning materials and resources, structured mentoring programs allow for

  1. Consistent quality and success across mentorships. Sufficient metrics are available to facilitate effective evaluation and to ensure continuous improvement over time.
  2. Reduced time-to-productivity for employees and new hires through role transition and technical mentorships
  3. The ability to place high performers in fast-track positions and provide them with added responsibility, challenges and opportunities
  4.  Mentoring programs that connect and align training and coaching initiatives for a meaningful, individualized, and holistic offering and provide employees with a largely risk-free learning environment
  5. Increased employee job satisfaction and workforce retention
  6. The strengthening of communities of practice and knowledge networks that seed talent pools and aid succession plans
  7. The dissemination and strengthening of organizational culture and political know-how throughout the organization
  8. Improved service quality and customer speed