The effectiveness of a company depends on the productivity of its employees. With four generations currently in the workforce, bridging the generation gap in the work environment can seem like a daunting feat.
Each generation bring their own, unique skills and characteristics to the workplace. Millenials are tech savvy, Generation X are problem solvers, Baby Boomers are the team players and the Silent Generation is the most loyal.
So how do you bridge the generation gaps and ensure that each generation shares their unique set of skills, experience and perceptions with each other.
A mentoring program can provide numerous benefits to an organisation, in addition to the individual rewards it offers to both mentor and mentee.
A mentoring program doesn't involve bringing in highly paid consultants to coach your staff. You are creating an environment where there is dialogue among different departments and a regular sharing of ideas and experience. A mentoring program can really help to promote internal communication.
A mentoring program is about providing a real time visual perspective into an employee's career path and building both leadership and communication skills. When you formalise a mentoring program, your mentors understand what the individual and the organisation want to achieve.
What Benefits Can Mentoring Provide
As a mentor you get to meet new people in your organisation who you might not otherwise interact with on a regular basis. This can help hone leadership and communication skills and increase awareness of the talent within your organisation. A mentoring program can help develop the next level of leadership within your organisation.
From a mentees perspective it can also demonstrate that as an organisation you are keen to give them the opportunity to develop their talent. It can help build the mentee's confidence when they interact with senior leaders and the private nature of the relationship allows them to feel more comfortable about being open and candid.
A Mentoring Program Aligned To Common Goals
Successful mentoring programs are aligned around what your company wants to accomplish, whether this is employee retention, knowledge transfer or developing the next generation of leaders.
A successful mentoring program helps you retain talented employees, enhances your culture, transfers knowledge and creates a belief that you care about your people and are willing to invest in their personal and professional growth.
At PLD we have developed and refined our mentoring platform and work with a wide range of professional associations, businesses and universities to run their mentoring programs.
If you would like to find out more about how to implement an effective mentoring program or to arrange a demonstration of our next generation online mentoring program request a demonstration or call us on 01625 251 055.
