Employees who are just starting out may struggle with a number of things in the workplace, and be unsure of who to ask for help. To provide these people with the things that they need to succeed consider utilizing a mentoring program for your business. Mentoring programs are a fantastic way to create opportunities for employees to develop professionally. Skills such as communication, leadership, goal-setting, and organization can all be built upon with mentors. Furthermore, studies show that companies that offer development improvement programs also have increased retention rates.
Follow these three steps to prepare a mentoring program so that you can help your employees to develop.
Determine Your Mentors
You should define what qualifies people to become mentors. Do they need to work at a certain efficiency? How many years of experience are necessary? Ask yourself questions similar to this to figure out which of your employees qualify as mentors.
Finding your mentors will be the most important part of the process. If you can’t find people to teach your employees, then your program will fail. Make sure that you find the right people for the position. It’s important that mentees understand that while it is a leadership role, it is not an opportunity to seek a raise or promotion solely for participation.
Find a Strategy
You can use different strategies and approaches when you establish a new mentor program. Will the mentor be side-by-side with the other person at all times? Do the employees need to report to their mentors? Making mentoring a part of the onboarding process is a great way to introduce new hires to the company. Create a structure that sets clear expectations so that everyone is on the same page.
Everyone should understand their role in the process, what they need to do and how to approach the mentor program. This guidance will help both sides to succeed and to understand the dynamic between them.
Properly Train
If you want effective mentors that can train your employees, you need to effectively train your mentors. Make sure that you create an effective plan and to build a training system around that idea. This will help you to know what to teach your mentors.
Put some serious effort and time into the training process so that your mentors can feel prepared. This will help them to succeed and ensure that the new employees can receive the help they need. Furthermore, it’s important that once the program is established there are scheduled check-ins with the mentoring pairs to ensure that things are going smoothly and get feedback from the participants.
When you set up a mentoring program, you can make sure that your employees get the training that they need. As you take the time to properly prepare and train your mentors, you can set up an excellent program. Put some time and effort into it so that you can get your employees the best mentors possible.