Employees who are mentored have longer employment retention and feel more workplace satisfaction. According to LinkedIn, 94% of employees said they would stay at an organization simply if they would help them learn. Join us to learn more about an online and inclusive internal training and mentoring program that promotes employee growth.
Mentoring programs increase career outcomes, employee engagement and inclusion within an organization (Brandman University, 2020). Mentoring programs can be a formal experience through scheduled meetings, and a designated mentee/mentor relationship or informally through book clubs and interest groups. Building an inclusive mentoring program that is accessible to all employees can be a powerful tool to increase engagement and retention while targeting personal and professional growth and development. In a 2019 survey, 97% of employees stated they desired a work mentor, however, only 37% of professionals actually have one (Cronin, 2019). Additionally, mentoring programs increase diversity and inclusion by boosting minority representation at the management level (Cronin, 2019). Creating a mentoring program that is available to all employees, regardless of their work location or current position, can transform your work environment and empower your employees.
In a Clear company survey, 68% of employees say training and development is the company’s most important policy (Stevenson, 2019). Middlesex University surveyed 4,300 workers and found 74% of employees felt they were not achieving their full potential at work due to a lack of training and development opportunities (Shift, 2020). Finally, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found in 2018 that companies with fewer than 100 employees only provided 12 minutes of training every six months while organizations with 100–500 employees only provided 6 minutes (Tschohl, 2018). Our employees desire training and development, our organizations need internal training to ensure consistency and growth, why then, is there such a disconnect?
Creating an internal training and development program does not take a large budget or an entire department to begin making a meaningful impact on your organization. We began our internal Training and Development department with 1 employee in 2017 and slowly began developing internal trainings focused on our employees' needs. Partnering up with our leaders to create self-paced, interactive micro-learning opportunities for our employees as well as highlighting our organization’s growth and development in a college-wide newsletter, led to employee buy-in and increased engagement. Four years later, our internal Training and Development department consists of three employees with over 100 trainings developed and launched for our employees. Our internal trainings cover both personal and professional topics and range from our Leadership Development Program to Coping with Stress and Anxiety during the Pandemic. In a recent program effects case study, our employees stated internal trainings were the primary method they remotely connected with our institution and had a direct impact on our students and their instruction (Pelham, 2020).
Specifically, this session’s presenters will share how their organization implemented a mentoring program to meet this important need. The presenters will share how they identified an affordable online platform to help manage the program, how they developed the mentoring program, how people qualify for mentorship, how mentors and mentees are matched, what occurs during the mentoring process, and outcomes of the mentoring platform. Session attendees will leave with a “blueprint” on how to introduce a mentoring system at their institutions.
In this session, A PollEverywhere word cloud and/or polling feature will be utilized to gather insights from the crowd in an interactive manner. Interactive questions and a PowerPoint presentation will also be used to explore ways organizations can be growth focused through formal and informal strategies. In this session, attendees can expect to learn:
1. Informal and formal mentoring strategies
2. Informal leadership coaching strategies
3. The impact of internal training on an organization
4. The effects on leaders and future leaders.
References:
Brandman University (2020). Exploring the mutual benefits of mentoring in the workplace. Brandman University. https://www.brandman.edu/news-and-events/blog/benefits-of-mentoring-in-t...
Cronin, N. (2019). Mentoring statistics: The research you need to know. Guider. https://www.guider-ai.com/blog/mentoring-statistics-the-research-you-nee...
Pelham, N. (2020). A program effects case study on online professional development in higher education. American College of Education.
Shift. (2020). 10 Statistics on corporate training and what they mean for your company’s future. Shift. https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/statistics-on-corporate-training-and...
Stevenson, M. (2019). 7 Stats that prove training value. HR Exchange. https://www.hrexchangenetwork.com/learning/news/7-stats-that-prove-train....
Tschohl, J. (2018). Are you worth more than 6 - 12 minutes of training? HR.com. https://www.hr.com/en/magazines/talent_management_excellence_essentials/...