Lean on Me: How to Create a Corporate Mentorship Program
By The Rockwood Mentor Program Team
Navigating a career can be like flying a kite: catching the wind tends to be tricky business. Some days the kite may soar high, bolstered by the push of a westerly wind. However, on other days the wind may disappear, sending the kite to the ground. Although we cannot control the wind when flying a kite, we can push our own professional growth through a mentor. A mentor can help lift someone up and take them to greater heights in their careers.
Organizational structure tends to support project team collaboration but not necessarily cross-team collaboration. Individual employees tend to interact exclusively with their own project teams, leading to segmentation across the organization. How does an organization connect these matrixed staff to maintain a strong identity and culture? By establishing mentorship programs, organizations can help build strong bonds between colleagues, prevent project teams from becoming siloed, positively impact the employee experience, and increase professional growth (which in turn leads to better results for the mission).
While mentoring can benefit employees in many ways, one that often falls lower on the priority list is that of organization connectedness and cohesion. Mentoring is designed to be a deliberate, developmental process where a more senior employee provides advice and career development to a less experienced employee. With time, both the mentor and mentee can build mutual trust, form bonds, and begin developing new shared experiences.
As organizations continue to recover from COVID’s impact on workforce collaboration and connection, leaders should look to mentorship programs to help facilitate these important qualities. Studies show both mentees (22% more) and mentors (20% more) experience a higher retention rate than do employees not participating in a mentorship program. In addition, 89% of those mentored go on to mentor others, contributing to a culture of learning and connectedness.[1]
With this context in mind, Rockwood created a mentorship program to help initiate and mature relationships between junior and senior employees across the company. As with other similar programs, Rockwood’s mentors provide advice and career guidance to mentees, while the mentor learns how to coach and develop others. The mentor-mentee relationship is meant to be bi-directional and collaborative, promoting long-term career growth and opportunities for both parties to learn.
How to Develop a Professional Mentorship Program
Define the program purpose: What problem will your mentorship program help solve? Examples might include a lack of collaboration and teamwork or a need to supplement existing professional development opportunities. Whatever the motivation, be intentional about the program’s purpose and goals at its outset.
Create a program enrollment form that addresses (1) your purpose and (2) the participant’s personality traits and interests: If you are looking to promote cross-team collaboration, ask questions to determine how the participant intends to support that goal. Additionally, ask questions that will inform optimal matches. Request details about what the applicant hopes to improve, their strengths, and/or how they can help mentor less experienced employees.
Establish criteria to match mentees with mentors: For this step, you will again consider your program purpose. For example, to enhance cross-team collaboration, strategically match individuals who are not on the same project team.
Set clear expectations for mentees and mentors (but avoid being too specific about meeting times, etc.): While Rockwood established a formal program with a mandatory orientation to set expectations, participants are not bound by agreements or paperwork. A mentor and mentee are expected to nurture their relationship and determine the scope and growth goals of the relationship on their own.
Mentees: Encourage mentees to drive the relationship by scheduling meetings, defining their goals, and being honest about the support they require. Most importantly, encourage mentees to have an open mind and take direction.
Mentors: For mentors, encourage them to listen more than talk, share their professional experiences, learn from their mistakes, and enable them to drive the relationship. A good mentor will understand their role isn’t to know everything but to help find an answer.
Both: All participants should be open to feedback and willing to share relevant information. Both mentees and mentors should be ready to develop new ways of thinking, behaviors, and attitudes.
Market the program to all employees with consistent communication and information: Launch your mentor program with announcements that help employees understand the program’s expectations prior to applying. Promote the value and parameters of the program through various organizational venues on an ongoing basis. Marketing your program to employees is key to the program’s success because without a sufficient number and diversity of applicants you cannot be successful.
Rotate mentor-mentee pairings on a semi-regular basis: Rockwood’s program runs in six-month cycles, evaluating employee pairings each cycle. The purpose is to expose more associates to different perspectives and foster more cross-collaboration. This does not mean a mentor-mentee relationship should conclude at the end of six months. If participants find their relationship fruitful, the program should encourage them to continue that relationship. Note that this step may not be applicable to your organization’s program depending on your program purpose.
In his famous quote, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” Sir Isaac Newton acknowledges that a person’s success builds upon the success of those who have come before. From Newton’s perspective, he was able to develop his scientific inventions because of previous generations’ hard work and experience. In the workplace, we rely on teamwork and trust to move forward together. We (hopefully) complement our colleagues’ expertise by collaborating and learning from them, and vice versa. Corporate mentorship programs provide a formal platform for this type of peer learning and relationship-building, while also serving to strengthen an organization’s culture and make it a more enjoyable place to work. In essence, mentors serve as the proverbial wind bolstering their mentee’s professional development and leading the mentee (along with their organization) to greater heights than they could have achieved on their own.
[1] “Why mentoring: what the stats say,” McCarthy Mentoring, https://mccarthymentoring.com/why-mentoring-what-the-stats-say/, 2017