Many organizations struggle to keep their young and high potential employees these days. They don’t want to waste their time and wait until there could be some kind of opportunity, they seek for it every day. So, companies should take measures to keep their high potential employees and give them possibilities to develop their personal skills or giving them other opportunities outside their usual role within the company. This also fits to the top-5 reasons for young people to quit, according to Forbes:
Better opportunity
Relocation
Go back to school
Learn new skills
Change fields
Whereas relocation is hard to tackle and won’t be covered by this article, all other points could be met by a mentoring program for young and high potential employees. It can give them the possibility to grow their skills and learn new and different fields and most important, challenges them.
But how should such a program look like to address all the needs of this young generation? First of all, it needs to be said that such a program is only one tool that can help, and there is no guarantee that it works out in the end.
By starting such a mentoring program, the following points must be considered in the design phase of the program to make it successful:
Finding the best match – mentor/mentee
It is very important, that each mentor and mentee is given the chance to get to know each other before they possible spend their time together. This process needs to be transparent as possible, so that a perfect match between the mentee and the mentor can be achieved and nobody is left behind frustrated.
Within this process there can be some rules so that people get to know different fields of the organization and do not stick to their own one a.m.
Compel Mentoring Pairs to Define Learning Objectives
Every mentor and mentee needs to agree on certain learning objectives they like to achieve together. Keep in mind that this is not a one-way street, so the mentee also wants and is able to share his knowledge with the mentee. There can be some goals or milestones given by the program in advance, but it is important to keep the area of the goals as wide as possible, so that mentor and mentee can choose the best topics for them.
Set Clear Timelines
It is important to set timelines which not only include the milestones and goals mentor and mentee agreed on each other, also the program itself should consist of certain timepoints and also an end.
Have Mentors and Mentees Clarify Their Ground Rules
This point is very sensitive, because it defines how the mentor and the mentee will work and talk with each other and also how often they meet and so on. Besides that, it is inevitable that everything that is said between the two participants stays between theme and must be treated as confidential in order to trust each other.
Train Mentors and Mentees
Besides their own goals, additional training is inevitable. Of course, there is training before mentors and mentees engage in the program to clarify their roles and expectations, but there also needs to be training sessions besides that, for instance personal skills and career development or specific courses regarding to the field of the company.
Provide Tools and Resources
The organization needs to provide additional tools to support the process and also assign dedicated resources to support the mentors and mentees within their progress, so that they don’t get stuck or frustrated in the end.
If you follow those points your mentoring program will most likely support your organization and hopefully helps you developing and keeping your young employees and older employees as well.
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