Having a mentor is one of the most important relationships that an employee can have. Mentors can provide you with valuable advice and support to help you improve professionally and personally.
Employers can develop mentorship programs to help your workers. This will not only result to increased quality of work and productivity - it will also improve employee retention and engagement.
According to Money Web, business owners need to especially nurture their younger workers to facilitate their growth into future leadership. Instead of just focusing on getting new employees on board, it is now the employers' responsibility to help them with their career paths.
Mentorship programs can actually be one of the perks that your company can provide to its employees. Entrepreneur shared three steps to creating a mentorship program at work that actually works.
1. Know what you want to achieve. Why do you want to have a mentorship program in the first place? What are the things that you can contribute to your employees with this program? "It generally comes down to retaining employees, improving employee satisfaction or increasing sales and productivity," Brad Bunt, longtime director of the Small Business Development Center at Kilgore College said.
2. Know who goes well with who. Business owners actually need to put a lot of thought into mentorship programs. It's not just about asking supervisors to mentor their subordinates. Matching employees to leaders with whom they can be inspired and motivated by needs careful studying. One tip that Bunt shared is to figure out the learning styles of potential mentees. Afterwards, find the right mentors for them according to their preferred style.
3. Know when it should begin and end. According to Bunt, it usually takes six months for a mentorship program to be fully established. Moreover, this is also the time when mentors get over their insecurities and see the benefits of the program. Set a timetable that allows enough time for the momentum to build and review the program for factors that gained positive impact as well as areas that need improving.
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