How to Manage an Employee Mentor Program
An employee mentor program can build solidarity among your staff. You encourage promotions from within your company, which is more cost-effective than recruiting outsiders. Mentoring creates better relationships between staff members improves your bottom line by making your weaker employees more efficient. Here's how to manage a mentoring program.
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Instructions
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Set goals for your employee mentoring program. Examine personnel files to zero in on problem areas like inefficient or poorly managed departments. Be honest about the weaknesses in your organization.
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Designate a committee of staff members to oversee the mentoring selection and day-to-day operations. Human resource department staff and key management can give you valuable input.
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Solicit volunteers from your strongest-performing employees. Write up a procedural manual explaining what the program is about and how it works. Offer incentives like recognition in the company newsletter and on the website.
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Create a plan for each mentoring pair. Have the program committee discuss the goals they want to accomplish and create a reasonable schedule to accomplish these.
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Develop a system where program participants can update you on how the work is progressing. Make these reports confidential so they feel comfortable openly addressing stumbling blocks. These help keep track of irresponsible participants and incompatibilities.
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Hold monthly meetings where all mentors and those they mentor can get together to discuss the program. Be open to criticism from any of the participants. Your employees are in the best position to update you on your company's day-to-day operations.
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Celebrate the successful completion of the employee mentor program with a picnic, dinner or party. Invite only those who participated. Create a report with photos and stories about what the program accomplished. Give it to everyone in the company and post it on the website.
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Tips & Warnings
Make sure your mentoring employees know the program isn't a threat to their jobs.
Compulsory mentoring creates resentment with both mentors and those they mentor.
Run a 3-month trial of the program with 20 participants to evaluate your program.
Ask participants to commit to staying in the program from 6 months to a year to get the most out of it.
