Mentorship is a very strong tool that can impact your short or long term personal or career growth. In other words, it can help you make lifetime goals reality. It can make things that look impossible to possible by grabbing a subject matter expert's mind. We refer to them as mentors in mentorship. Mentee is referred to person who requires a guidance and expertise on a specific area.
According to Diversein's survey on various social media channels, 28.6% participants didn't have any mentor in their lives. 58.9% of the participants said that they had 1-5 mentors, while 12.5% said they had more than 5 mentors.
There are many reasons why organisations should start mentorship programs:
Win-Win-Win
Mentorship makes a win-win-win situation for mentees, mentors and also for organisations. While mentees get an opportunity solve a problem they have, mentors get a chance to share their expertise with them. For organisations here are some of the benefits they get by starting mentorship programs:
Mentorship increases happiness and satisfaction in the workplace
In today's world, we are all craving for workplaces that keeps our moods positive and make us happy and satisfied with the work we do. 9 out of 10 employees who have a career mentor say they are happy in their jobs. [1]
Mentorship increases employee retention
Happy employees stay longer in their organisations. A seven-year period study shows that mentors retention rate increased by 69% and mentees by 72% with mentorship. [2]
Mentorship attracts talents
Human resources departments and managers consistently look for best talents to join their teams. This comes with a big cost. Mentorship is also a way to attract more talents, get to know them and their skills at first hand.
To be able to get the best out of mentorship programs and make it more effective, these are the key metrics you need to be aware of:
Good match
The mentorship magic happens when there is a good match between mentors and mentees. This match can be done based on skill set and background experience. Both parties personalities, values and communication styles such as extroversion/introversion also play a big role for the success of mentorship.
Building trust
Trust is the first factor to make mentorship more effective. Without building trust, a mentee might not be able to open up easily, a mentor might miss the underlying issue. Both mentors and mentee start mentorship with very positive feelings. This continues mostly with a professional manner through the session.
Empathy
The advice that we would give ourselves with good intentions is not always the best advice for another person. A good mentor must understand the values of the mentee and put himself/herself in the shoes of their mentees and empathise before suggesting any advice.
Inclusive Mindset
During the pandemic days, I signed up for a business mentorship session as a mentee. In that session, I was recommended by a mentor to get my Inclusive Intelligence e-course recorded by someone with a different accent such as Irish or Canadian accent. The sad fact that, if this advice was given to me 10 years ago, when I was new in business and with less self-confidence, unfortunately, I would have definitely taken it and my work would loose its authenticity. The mentor was actually a nice person and made good suggestions to me in that session too. However, this mentorship experience and all mentorship programs can turn to be more effective with a diversity and inclusion guidance for mentors.
Furkan Karayel, an inclusive leadership advisor; women in tech and female founders ambassador. Founded Diversein.com after 10 years of software engineering experience. Diversity and Inclusion lead at Startup Week Dublin. Advisory board member at InspiringSTEM and Sprinters, global organisations to support diverse female entrepreneurs and young generation STEM. Honoured with "Diversity and Inclusion Role Model in Business" and "Trailblazer" Awards.
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/furkankarayel