Management

Group Mentoring

Executive Summary

With the economy picking up, and individuals continuing to work longer hours with fewer staff members, it is important to offer efficient yet value added initiatives to develop employees.

Group mentoring is an initiative that can be customized for any type of organization. Group mentoring occurs when an identified mentor meets with a number of mentees concurrently, therefore developing successful and productive relationships simultaneously. Group mentoring can provide experienced managers as mentors to large numbers of junior employees without depleting scarce resources.

The goal of offering group mentoring is to leverage the mentoring capabilities of the small cadre of experienced managers. One manager can impact and influence several mentees at once. Group mentoring brings together individuals of all businesses who face similar challenges and have common interests.

Objectives

Unlike one-to-one mentor relationships, group mentoring can:

• Provide mentees with peer and manager advice, feedback and guidance.
• Build stronger peer networks across an enterprise
• Build a stronger talent pipeline with shared experiences

Similar to one-to-one mentoring, group mentoring can:

• Help individuals make better decisions about their career, needed experience and training using the advice that has been provided
• Encourage a sense of being part of an enterprise that values its employees
• Give experienced managers a chance to act as mentors and thereby develop their own skills as leaders
• Provide mentors with further means to be recognized for their efforts and skills in coaching and developing professional and/or high potential staff

Benefits

The benefits to the organization, mentor and mentee are numerous. Some are listed below:

• Peer support provided by fellow mentees
• Builds a strong network of junior and/or high potential employees
• Provides opportunities to interact with peers while at the same time receive guidance and support of an experienced manager
• Provides many diverse perspectives on how issues can be handled

Success Factors for a Group Mentoring Program

• At the onset, create specific, measurable goals for the program. For example, will it be used to improve retention of high potentials, develop junior members of the organization, on-board middle managers, etc.
• Senior management support and commitment is needed
• There must be a communication strategy to communicate to the mentees and mentors, as well as to keep senior management abreast of the success of the program
• There must be a clearly defined structure and process that all understand
• Meetings must occur on a frequent and regularly scheduled basis
• Each group has a formal, agreed upon agenda of topics to cover at meetings and a process for sharing ideas and problem solving
• The mentor is open to having one-to-one conversations as needed

Things to Consider

There are some potential downsides to group mentoring. Not everyone feels comfortable is a group setting. There must be a great deal of trust that is built within the group to ensure that mentees will raise legitimate concerns or issues that they are facing and will not be punished or penalized for showing vulnerability.

Mentors need strong facilitation skills and some group process awareness. From a facilitation point, they need to manage that people get equal time to contribute and that the more vocal mentees do not overshadow the quieter mentees.

Time Commitment and Size

It is recommended that one hour meetings take place at least once a month. Face to face meetings are ideal, but conference calls in different locations will suffice. When individuals travel, it is advisable that they meet with the mentor or other mentees to build a stronger relationship. Between six and ten mentees per mentor is recommended. There should be a selection process based on interest and need.