In the last blog post, we discussed the results of a Gallup survey that was hoping to shed light on why people stay at a job. This look at retention techniques available to organizations hoped to identify the main drivers of retention from the employees perspective. The results? Their findings can be summed up in a single sentence: “Do you have a best friend at work?” It is clear that a connection to other employees in a job outshines all of the other factors like pay, growth, and even flexibility. With that in mind, I’ll lay out a mentoring idea that I teach my client companies.
While it may now be obvious how this mentoring program might benefit the new employee (the mentee), I’d ask you to consider the benefits of a program like this for the other side of the equation: the mentor.
If you consider an employee’s growth path through the life cycle of working for you, you might notice that something happens in their relationship with you around 18-24 months of employment — They start asking about growth opportunities. Remember, you did a great job in your hiring process of only hiring people who wanted to learn, develop and grow. If they did not demonstrate those traits during the interview process, you likely dismissed them as a candidate. So what happens when we hire in only talented, driven people who are ready to develop and grow…. and we have no plan for how we will do that? The mentoring program answers THAT question too.
What growth does a mentoring opportunity supply the mentor? Let’s see… communication, problem solving, conflict resolution, teaching, and coaching, just to name a few. I think you would agree that these traits are valuable ones for all of your supervisors and leaders. So if you don’t have a mentoring program, where else are you teaching these skills? And how else will the technically-gifted employees you want to develop these people-based skills if they don’t develop them through mentoring others?
You brought in only the best people, and those people want to develop and grow in their career with you. My clients would tell you that this is the zero cost/great return place to start. What to learn how? Drop us a note…
Check out more Winning the War for Talent content on my website, www.ChrisCzarnik.com.
