Career mentoring is where the focus of the mentoring is purely on career development. This usually means a strong focus on career stepping stones and on team members who are new or team members who have high potential.
I see career mentoring best used when the wider aspects of all career needs are included. This may, for example, include career enrichment, career secondments, career changes, returners to work, new leaders or senior team members wanting to achieve more impact in the same role.
We miss opportunities to help people when a mentoring programme isn’t inclusive of all our team’s needs. When we design mentoring programmes, we help the exploration of behaviours and thinking patterns. These wider issues can be missed if the focus is on stepping stones and this exploration acts as a practical enabler. This is why mentoring is such a brilliantly practical way to help people at any stage of their career journey.
How does Career Mentoring Work?
Some organisations create a full in-house internal mentoring programme where more experienced employees support other lesser experienced team members to ‘show them the way’ This is often more of a training role rather than a mentoring one. This type of career mentoring programme needs extra care in planning and development to support people in the right way and to protect against conflicts of interest. In these cases, we help to plan and design programmes to include training the mentoring programme leader and the mentors and we give tailored guidance to mentoring programme ambassadors to ensure the programme is sustainable and successful.
Other organisations have totally and partially outsourced their career mentoring programmes to organisations like ours. We can provide guidance on every aspect of design and delivery. This includes tailored training and career mentoring to nominated individuals and individuals can, of course, seek external support such as our Career Crossroads Service.
The decisions over these flexible career mentoring programmes are about choosing which elements are to be outsourced. These elements can cover the full range of areas from pre-launch activities through to launch and then ongoing matching, communication and management responsibilities.
Benefits of Career Mentoring Programmes
By creating a mentoring programme you can increase the following for both mentors and mentees:
Mentoring versus Training versus Support
One key area of strategy here is deciding exactly what team members want and need.
If we take the example of the mentoring programmes set up for employee next level professional accreditation purposes, then the mentee often wants:
There are lots of protocols to consider here too. For example, acting in the mentee’s best interests and confidentiality could come into conflict with your role and responsibilities, if your mentee shares that they are considering leaving/taking time out/not completing the next stage of their career. An example we see frequently is that a mentee has sought mentoring because of a perceived lack of support from their Line Manager or, on occasion, difficulties with their Line Manager. That means extra care with designing protocols is very often needed for in-house programmes.
In programmes like this, mentoring often works best as part of a blended holistic programme including training and access to an experienced training colleague for knowledge and technical help to support overall. Mentoring can additionally be a really helpful intervention after training to help the mentee put the training into practice over a longer time frame.
Career Mentoring versus Overall Mentoring
The reason I am often concerned about positioning career mentoring programmes is that I honestly believe mentoring works best for everyone when it is a holistic development.
The focus on the career step result can make for very narrow mentoring interventions which may lead to less value being added. Whereas if you take extra care to position that mentoring is for overall career success (whatever that means to the individual staff member), then this will work better.
The positive boundary of the programme will need to make clear that this is holistic career support which is different to personal mentoring or indeed counselling. The full understanding of the differences of all support roles and, therefore, what the mentoring can and cannot help with by everyone involved are very important.
Top 3 Things to Consider in Introducing Mentoring Programmes
Inclusivity
If the programme has been created for a specific sector such as new entrants, then how do other employees feel? Only providing support to certain employees can result in resentment building over time, as team members feel that they have not been invested in whilst others have.
A recent Investors in People survey found 60% of UK employees were not happy in their jobs, with a lack of job satisfaction being cited by 48% of these and feeling undervalued by 30%. So, creating a positive mentoring programme for a few and not considering inclusion could create even more disengagement.
Mentoring can and does help at all career stages. Senior staff, for example, can gain enormous amounts of value from being mentored, as they can then potentially see the impact of long-standing mindsets or approaches through different perspectives. Those in senior positions then have wider opportunities to add value to their teams and the business.
Training and Support for Mentors
Clearly, I’m biased 😊, however, after supporting the training of hundreds of mentors I have yet to find someone who regretted taking the time out for the training.
However, just because someone is experienced and skilled in their role, it doesn’t mean they will naturally make a great mentor. Even where mentors have had previous leadership and senior experience, the mentoring means that they now need to use those skills in a unique way. In fact, some of the skills that are needed to be highly focussed and successful in some roles are the ones that are unhelpful in mentoring roles.
If you take a sports example here, then the best coaches are not necessarily the best sports achievers in their field. This means it is very important to consider the application process to become a mentor to ensure only the right people who can give the right support get involved.
Once the mentor training is completed then that’s only the start of their journey. It is critical to build in ongoing training, support and peer learning to develop your mentor’s confidence, engagement and skills. This ongoing support protects everyone involved and ensures the programme is a sustainable one. It means any issues or mentoring practice concerns get supported quickly and appropriately which increases impact and retention of your mentors.
The investment in mentor training here will help your organisation in so many ways. Mentor training means high levels of employee engagement which is, of course, crucial to boosting business profits. However, training also contributes in another way. It is only logical that by improving your team members’ skills, they are going to be better at their jobs.
The special thing about mentor training though is that it boosts confidence, communication and emotional intelligence skills which leads to a much better working environment for all.
Mentee Guidance
This stage often gets ignored and it can cause real issues. It makes a real difference that well before the mentoring starts the mentee fully understands what to expect. The Mentoring Code of Conduct comes in useful here as you can use it as a discussion point. I’ve found that reassurance over confidentiality and being very clear on boundaries has been especially useful here.
The mentees also need a central point of reference for any issues and of course sharing success! This is also a great opportunity to bring together communities within your organisation with ongoing mentoring events or mentoring cohorts who then stay in touch as cross-organisational support.
Mentoring Next Steps
I do hope this blog has helped you to think through your own options. Mentoring really does make an amazing difference to individuals, teams and organisations, so it is definitely worth doing!
If you want our help at any time, then we would love to hear from you. We have a flexible support for Mentoring Programmes and various training and qualification options for mentors.
Happy mentoring! 😊