Workplace mentoring is a “learning partnership between employees for purposes of sharing technical information, institutional knowledge and insight with respect to a particular occupation, profession, organization or endeavor”. If this process is done correctly, the organization may reduce turnover and increase productivity. It can be via two ways, Formal mentoring and Informal mentoring. Informal mentoring, meaning the mentoring is unstructured and unofficial, is a situation in which for a new employee is taken care of and taught by a ‘seasoned’ employee voluntarily (i.e. providing career guidance). On the other hand, formal mentoring is done formally and in a structured process, often when the predecessors (staffs who are about to leave the organization soon) are required to transfer their knowledge to the selected employees to in order to minimize the loss of Knowledge Management and encourage the growth and development of new or junior employees.
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History of Mentoring
The concept of workplace mentoring has grown in many organizations. The original form is the idea that an experienced worker train the incoming new worker. Recent data shows that mentoring, can be seen not only through the passing down of information from experienced workers to new workers, but also the development of lasting relationships that can affect how the work develops at his or her new job.
Effects
One positive effect of Workplace Mentoring includes the assistance toward new employees in order to receive the resources they need. This allows for the new employee to perform better at their careers. As a result, new employees typically learn different roles through their transition.Workplace Mentoring therefore has a tendency to create an amicable environment through transition for the new employee. This type of work environment can be found in many careers thoughout the country. Workplace mentoring is not limited to a certain age and is not restricted to the mentor being older than the mentee. In many cases, the mentor may be older than the mentee.
Examples of Workplace Mentoring
This is a style of mentoring that is based on peer interaction. Whether it be an older associate, or their boss the mentoring comes from a close bond with another associate.
This type of mentoring takes place when, a younger member of a company is the mentor of an older member of a company to foster a better pipeline of leadership in a company.
This type of mentoring can be an example of a subset of relational mentoring. Informal mentoring is where the mentor-mentee relationship is not defined by rules. This can allow new employees to be trained in a variety of different ways. An ex. Is a new cashier training under an older cashier on how to do their job, if they train with several cashiers they will not receive all the same information.
This is also another type of relational mentoring, but unlike informal, the mentoring has a strict guideline in which the mentoring follows, allowing for a company to train an employee how they want.
Formal & Informal Mentoring
The most used forms of mentoring in today's society can be narrowed down to formal and informal mentoring.
Formal Mentoring
Due to the popularity of workplace mentoring increasing, many companies have attempted to create programs within their organizations that would benefit both the proteges and mentor. Formal mentoring is typically contracted to last a designated amount of time and the mentor is from the organization the protege is currently employed. However, formal training for the mentor may come from outside sources and may not always work for all organizations. A benefit from formal mentoring is that the employee can be molded to do what the organization wants due to the mentor being assigned to the protege. Formal mentors are also less likely to have had a relationship with the protege prior to the assignment and will not have a close relationship, which can cause the mentor to be more focused on company tasks than on the proteges personal life.
Informal Mentoring
Compared to formal mentors, informal mentoring is typically unstructured and partners meet as much as they deem necessary. Mentors and proteges chose each other in informal mentorings. A mentor will pick a protege they identify with while a protege will pick a mentor due to similar career goals. While an informal mentor that is not a part of the organization may not have all the resources that a formal mentor will have to advance the protege within the company’s hierarchy, they can provide a more personal relationship and will not be involved in workplace politics and will be able to provide bias free advice.