Mentoring in companies: a system at the service of performance

Corporate Mentoring is a system that contributes to the development of talents and to increase the productivity of the company. It consists of a special and personal relationship between a Mentor, usually a more experienced person, and a Mentee. The objective of this relationship is to allow the Mentee to better position himself in his current role and to promote his personal/professional development in the long term.

Mentoring in business: definition

First, mentoring must be distinguished from coaching, management mentoring, favoritism and cloning.

Structured Mentoring improves the performance and decision-making process of managers and produces a balanced exchange of benefits for both the Mentor and the Mentee, with development specifically aimed at broader business goals.

Faced with this reality, many organizations invest in the professional development of their employees by building Mentoring programs adapted to their needs. An investment that is proving to be fruitful, both for organizations and employees.

Mentoring is a great way to improve retention rates. In addition to facilitating the integration of new recruits, a Mentoring program clearly shows talents that the company provides them with effective tools to evolve within the organization.

For example, the French company Sodexo estimated that for every dollar invested in its Mentoring program, there was a return on investment of 128%.

Mentoring: what are the benefits for stakeholders?

The benefits of mentoring for the mentor:

• A motivation to contribute to the development of a person and the organization

• An opportunity for personal and professional development

• Positive exposure in the organization

• A broad vision of its role and responsibilities

• Real tools to optimize the success of others and of the relationship

• Sharing ideas, testing new skills, and taking risks

• Valorization of its experience and expertise

The benefits of mentoring for the mentee:

• A protected learning process

• Professional and structured support

• An opportunity to develop your skills

• Strengthened technical, cultural and business expertise

The benefits of mentoring for the organization:

• An environment that encourages personal and professional development

• More sharing of information, skills and behaviors

• More “reference” managers, more collaboration between leaders

• Better management and retention of the talent pool

• More job satisfaction for Mentor and Mentee

How to deploy a mentoring program?

Key points to define before starting a mentoring program:

• Define Mentoring goals and KPIs

• Choosing the target of Mentees

• Evaluate your strategy in light of best reference practices

• Measure the commitment of key players around the Mentoring journey

• Train and prepare the HR community for its role

• Organize the selection of Mentors and Mentees

• Manage the Matching between Mentors and Mentees

• Define the communication strategy

• Train and support Mentors and Mentees

• Define the rules for monitoring and managing practices

Managing the Mentor/Mentee Matching

Definition by Mentors and Mentees of the following elements:

• Skills

• Motivations

• Objectives in Mentoring

This definition then makes it possible to combine the skills, motivations, objectives of the Mentor and the Mentee in order to identify the compatibility of mutual skills and motivations for optimized learning.

Matching can be carried out by HR teams or by a digital matching tool via numerous applications available on the market today.

Framing mentoring sessions:

• Recall the goals of Mentoring

• Frame the subject/choose the theme of the session

• Take stock of the actions accomplished since the last session

• Highlight progress, learning, discoveries

• Identify the areas of inquiry, the subjects to be studied in greater depth, the challenges and challenges

Mentoring: what roles and postures for the Mentor?

The Mentor is a guide, a support and a facilitator.

It must be a “mirror” for the Mentee. He should therefore not advise him based on a situation he may have experienced during his career, but on the contrary, he must try to put himself in his place so that his support is best adjusted to the situation of the Mentee and what he faces in his position, in view of what he has already been able to face during his career.

The Mentor is therefore seen as a coach for the Mentee, which implies that he helps him to learn about company codes and guides him constructively on his choice of actions and/or decisions.

The roles of the mentor:

• Mirror, allowing better self-knowledge

• Transmitter to share experiences and successes

• Connector to support the Mentee in developing their network and visibility

• Booster by helping the Mentee to structure their professional project

The skills and postures expected of the Mentor:

• Define the mentoring contract: objectives, operating rules and modalities

• Laying the foundations of trust and cultivating it

• Practice positive confrontation

• Giving and receiving constructive feedback

• Practice powerful questioning

• Mentor by adapting to levels of autonomy

• Remove resistance

Mentoring: rules and postures for the Mentee

It is important for the Mentee to maintain the level of commitment in the process, in particular by signing a contract and an ethics charter with his Mentor, who will set the objectives, and so he can assess his own level of commitment throughout the experiment.

Expected postures for a Mentee:

Be a volunteer in the process

Accept and appreciate the Mentor's contribution

To be a claimant

Accept feedback from the Mentor positively

Express your needs and expectations

Be aware that the process is limited in time.

Evolution of mentoring practices

We are witnessing a clear evolution of Mentoring as a commercial tool. It has evolved from its organic roots where collaborators naturally built networks and developed interpersonal professional relationships, to more structured Mentoring programs.

A new approach that takes advantage of technology will make mentoring a full-time component of the work environment and an essential part of contemporary employment culture.

Nearly every Fortune 500 company has active mentoring programs. Mentoring programs will be deployed on mobile platforms.

Mentoring will include diversity and inclusion training where a retention rate of 72% can be observed for women who have taken part in corporate mentoring programs.

Today, companies such as Danone, IBM or even SNCF use reverse mentoring as a means of supporting their employees.

In conclusion, for businesses looking to stay at the forefront of trends (and build quality businesses based on the latest studies), it's clear that fostering strong Mentoring programs of all kinds is the way to go!

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