| HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT NEWS |
| August 15, 2000 |
| Taking Steps to Create a Mentoring Culture To create a true mentoring culture a company must tie in mentoring with the overall mission, purpose and vision of the organization. If a company decides to launch a mentoring initiative without establishing sound business reaSons for it, “it loses its purpose for being. It becomes the fad of the month,” says Lois J. Zachary, author of The Mentor’s Guide and principal of Leadership Development Services in Phoenix. It’s not just ‘push a button and have a mentoring culture,”’ Zachary tells HRMN. “It needs an infrastructure to support it. If you don’t value the program enough to give it time and budget you undermines it.” Before beginning, a company should ask it-self: What are the business reasons for develop-ing a mentoring program? What is the goal of the program? Whom will it serve? How will it benefit the participants? and What learning outcomes should be realized as a result of participation? Engage Top Management To succeed there must be visible support from top management, Zachary says. “Create an action plan for engaging top management in roll-out and support. Be specific and detail the necessary steps to make that happen.” Define and create the pool of people to be mentored. “Some companies do a lot of informal mentoring. They have resources and training for people who have sought this out themselves. Other companies create pools. For example, a pool might be everyone who comes into orientation. That works remarkably well; then people are just expected to have mentors throughout their careers.” "It's not just 'push a button and have a mentoring culture.'" Many companies use mentoring to fast track employees when they need more talented people in the pipeline, or when they have superstars they want to develop, she says. “You need to decide who your audience is.” Then create a description of the roles and responsibilities for all parties involved in the mentoring relationship. “If you’re going to have a culture of mentoring, there have to be rewards built in” and participants should not feel punished for taking time out to be involved in the process, she adds. “This is about dedicated time and time that is valued in the organization." She also urges program planners to anticipate stumbling blocks in the roll-out process and to develop contingency plans. Also, identify policies and procedures for handling mentonng “casualties." The best mentoring programs are integrated into the company’s professional development plan, according to Zachary. “An employee will identify objectives and mentoring will be one vehicle [for achieving objectives]. It’s another mode of learning.” A good sign that a company has achieved a mentoring culture, according to Zachary, is when “a shared vocabulary and set of assumptions in-forms conversations. People value mentoring ex-periences and seek out additional mentoring re-sources and learning opportunities.” Mentoring makes a good recruitment tool because employees in their 20s and 30s are looking for com-panies that help them grow and develop, she says. “The other piece is that once you get them in the door, you can accelerate employee development” and improve the company’s bench strength. Invisible Partner In every mentoring relationship there are visible partners and some invisible ones. HR plays an important behind-the-scene role in educat-ing participants and providing them with resources. “Many times it’s the HR person who makes the pairings,” Zachary says. “HR is very often where a person goes to seek advice when a mentoring relationship isn’t working. HR often gets involved in conflict management with the mentor and mentee." To provide mentoring resources, “look at what you have in your pipeline. You don’t have to rein-vent the wheel. For example, feedback is critical — what do you already have” in place? In one case, a company did Myers Briggs [testing] and said ‘how about using that knowledge in terms of the mentoring relationship?” Another role for the HR department is in cel-ebrating mentoring accomplishments, Zachary tells HRMN “Encourage employees to celebrate small successes, but also celebrate corporate mile-stones. It’s a time for reconnections to the mis-sion of the organization. Have people who are leaders within the company participate. It’s a great opportunity to tell success stories.” The Mentor’s Guide is published by Jossey-Bass. For more information call (800) 956-7739.
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