How Mentoring supports professional development

The 21st century business environment demands employees who are lifelong learners and companies with cutting-edge training strategies. How can mentoring help?

Do you sometimes feel as if your training department is becoming a mini-university? Developing job-specific skills, keeping your employees on the cutting edge, and preparing employees for advancement all require considerable resources and commitment. But your payoff is having more qualified employees and a more productive workplace.

Mentoring can help you meet your organization's professional development needs by identifying current training needs and methods, evaluating the effectiveness of current training, and developing compatible mentoring approaches.

First, you have to identify your current professional development needs and the methods being used to meet those needs.

Training Methods - Your training methods may include outside classes, on-site trainers, books and manuals, Web-based training, and training from supervisors, co-workers, or inside experts.
Training Needs - Your employees may need to acquire skills and knowledge related to technology, computers, writing, presentation, accounting, leadership, sales, and so on.

Next, you need to evaluate the effectiveness of your company's current professional development.
Are all professional development needs being met?
If your company has a high turnover rate, you may need an induction program. Or if you lack qualified candidates to promote from within, you may need to focus professional development efforts on leadership preparation or providing support to new leaders.

Are training methods appropriate for the material being taught?
A classroom is an effective setting for training a group of people on the same skills. But most classrooms—except for computer labs—don't allow learners to apply what they're learning. You may need to replace or supplement classroom training with other hands-on methods.
Finally, you must develop mentoring approaches that are complementary to and compatible with your company's current professional development. Mentoring programs should support other training methods, not conflict with them. Depending on the specific need, mentoring may replace or supplement other training methods, but shouldn't duplicate them.

When new employees need to learn specific job skills, mentors provide the most effective instruction by working alongside their proteges on actual project work.
If you provide Web-based training and leading books to help prepare promising employees for management positions, you will find supplementing those training methods with a mentoring program for new managers will improve the effectiveness of your training program.

Having a mentor is like having your own personal instructor and guide. You can use mentoring to meet professional development needs and improve the outcome of your current training programs. Mentoring supplements traditional training. When you identify current training needs and methods, evaluate the effectiveness of current training and develop compatible mentoring approaches.