The Value of Cross-Company Mentoring
Relying on basic resources and trivial workplace perks to attract and retain talented employees just doesn’t cut it in today’s competitive corporate landscape. Employee development is critical for a company’s continued growth, productivity, and ability to retain high-potential employees. For many organizations, making sure that employees have opportunities to succeed is essential to continued profitability. Development programs are attractive to lower-level and senior employees alike, and an effective one can prepare your key talent for success as they seek to progress in their careers.
Without opportunities for further learning and development, employees can feel frustrated, unchallenged, and undervalued. Through the use of business mentoring programs, an organization can reduce turnover, increase performance and engagement, and improve work environments. Cross-company mentoring in particular provides a unique opportunity to develop and satisfy your workforce.
Cross-Company Mentoring and Beyond
Cross-company programs can be a great way to dive into the world of mentoring if your company has never had such a program. This type of program works by pairing a mentee with a mentor from a different company. At Menttium, our matches are created by a team of skilled interviewers, rather than a computer algorithm, which leads to a more personalized pair prepared to work towards concrete goals. Ultimately, a cross-company program helps to diversify and challenge the way your employees think.
While all of our mentors are seasoned business leaders, they have vastly different life experiences and career journeys to share. To create the most valuable partnership possible, we encourage our mentees to seek out a mentor who has a different background than themselves. This results in a mentoring relationship that allows both mentees and mentors to broaden their scope of knowledge, engage in authentic dialogues, and come away with new perspectives.
The mentor-mentee relationship is the most important aspect of a mentoring program. Mentees need a mentor who will be open to vulnerable, honest conversations and will encourage them to move outside of their comfort zones. With the right mentor, a mentee will learn to more effectively navigate through challenges and successes in the workplace. By the end of the program, participants will walk away with increased confidence, readiness for career progression and reporting a positive impact to overall engagement.
Benefits of a Mentoring Program
It’s no secret that well-trained, educated employees produce better work. They are more engaged, more productive, and more motivated to excel. Mentoring is a practical and pragmatic leadership development intervention that can unlock the full potential of your employees. A mentor provides insights and knowledge that can spark growth in a promising mentee. Not only does a mentoring program easily relate back to goals in the workplace, but it leads to personal growth as well.
Mentoring programs improve engagement and work satisfaction like no other development program. In fact, 85% of Menttium program participants agreed that their mentoring program positively impacted their enthusiasm to seek career opportunities within their current company. When high-potential employees know that they have someone rooting for them, helping them through obstacles, and celebrating with them during success, they are more engaged, and motivated.
Mentoring in Your Workplace
Cross-company mentoring programs are particularly beneficial to smaller and mid-sized businesses that can’t yet support an internal program. If you are just beginning to look into the possibility of instituting a mentoring program in your office, you may find yourself faced with a range of issues, from a shortage of experienced mentors to a lack of enthusiasm or internal support.
Starting a development program and beginning to create change within your workforce is no easy task, but a cross-company mentoring program can be a great way to jumpstart success. Perhaps you want your employees to learn from external. seasoned business leaders or perhaps you’d like them to focus on unique perspectives and ways of doing things differently than how your company currently functions. You can cultivate that unique culture of learning and improve your business performance with the help of a structured program that encourages cross-company learning.
Cross-Company Mentoring from Menttium
As a leader in your workplace, you obviously seek to provide your employees with ample opportunity to grow, learn, and excel at your company. By instituting a cross-company mentoring program, you can show your rising leaders that you care about their development and want to see them evolve into authentic leaders and changemakers within your company. With the help of a mentor, whether from within or outside of your company, employees can unlock their potential and navigate down the path to career growth.
At Menttium, our 28 years of success prove just how passionate we are about helping businesses large and small design, facilitate, and implement structured mentoring programs. If you are ready to invest in the success of your employees, contact Menttium today to learn more about our unique program offerings.