MENTORING

Vijayalaxmi writes about the concept and the manifold advantages of MENTORING.Read on:

The idea of mentoring is very old, older than Socrates and Plato and prevalent in history, literature, and pop culture”. Socrates called mentoring a "midwife assisting the labor of the mind in giving birth to wisdom and knowledge.” Mentoring gets its name from a Greek word that means enduring and is a prolonged relationship between a youth and an adult. The adult supports, guides, and assists the younger person as he goes through an intricate period, facing new challenges, or works to correct earlier problems (Lytle & Tamara, 2009). The extensive study on mentoring began in the United States. The cause of this sudden interest was the country’s bureau of statistics mentioning that the workforce would decrease by 2% in 2014 due to the retirement of baby boomers along with the fact that the birth rates of the United States was also declining (Tossi, 2005).  This propelled the organizations to explore various methods to hire and retain employees in order to maintain competitive edge. One such strategy that emerged was the implementation of a formal mentoring program.

Mentoring is a form of employee development. It is a long-term relationship where the goals may also include personal development in addition to professional improvement. According to Wong & Premkumar (2007) mentoring is a method of learning wherein personal and reciprocal relationships are built. The stress is on task achievement with an emphasis on emotional support. Mentoring is a process that utilizes workers with more experience to assist the development of workers with less experience (Holliday, 2001). Organizations discovered this method had manifold advantages. It not only benefitted employees, but also helped the workforce to become more communicative. Mentee learnt from practical experience and developed into a better and more productive worker and the mentor took pride in the fact that he was able to pass his legacy of knowledge to the next generation. 

Models of mentoring 

The three most commonly acknowledged models for understanding the process of mentoring are apprentice model, competency model and reflective models.
Apprentice model the mentee learns from observation of the tasks done by the mentor.
The competency model stresses on the systematic feedback given by the mentor to the mentee on performance and progress.
Reflective model- the mentor encourages the mentee to become a reflective practioner. This is considered to be a more insightful and nurturing model of mentoring.

Mentoring has evolved from a dyadic concept to a concept that involves a set or constellation of relationships. Mentoring as a concept of developmental process in organizations was first mentioned in 1977 and has emerged as an important process for student enrichment, for leadership development and for professional progression. The benefits of mentoring for an organization are substantial – both tangible as well as non-tangible for the protégé as well as the organization. Mentoring serves varied purposes in an organization; for new recruits, it is used as an orienting and integration process. For existing employees, it is used as a method of acclimatization and socialization and as a training and development tool for managers and leaders. It helps improve recruitment and induction procedures, improves succession planning, and increases organizational commitment and leadership development.  The positive outcome of mentoring on individuals is reflected in some comparative studies between mentored and non-mentored. These studies show that mentoring has positive effect on career satisfaction, career mobility, and positive job attitudes. Today, the importance of mentorship has increased in most institutional settings. Organizations as well as educational institutions have started to use mentoring as a tool to serve a wide variety of purposes from the career development of students to accelerating career development of young managers. Indeed, mentoring has made significant contribution in the growth and performance of the employee and helped the organization achieve a competitive advantage in a changing and complex environment.


The author can be contacted at vijaya@niilm.com