Mentoring at the enterprise is recognized as one of the best in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of the methods that are used to train new employees.
The peculiarity of the current situation in the world of business can be called serious difficulties with the selection of professional staff. It is almost impossible to find a ready-made specialist who can immediately start work. Mentoring, as a method of training personnel, allows you to practically train personnel with specific knowledge and skills relevant to a particular company. Many large enterprises are moving to this method of team building. This technique becomes especially important in those cases when the personnel of the enterprise are young people with minimal work experience.
What is coaching
Depending on the size of the organization, as well as on the specifics and complexity of economic activity (production, trade, services, consultations), a manager can hire personnel with little or no experience at all. In the process of training, a highly qualified specialist (this is the mentor) provides the newcomer with the information necessary for work.
His responsibilities also include monitoring the process of assimilation of this knowledge, the formation of the necessary skills and, in general, the desire to work. Upon completion of training, the young specialist passes certification and may be allowed to perform labor functions.
Distinctive features of mentoring is that the whole process takes place directly at the workplace, touches on real-life situations and illustrates the entire labor process. That is, such training contains a minimum of theory, focusing the student's attention on the practical side of the activity.
Company internal and external school
Most often, the term “mentoring” is used in connection with the concept of “learning company”. This is the name of organizations and enterprises that respond with high speed and efficiency to emerging changes in their business sphere. They create new technologies, learn and master skills and knowledge, and also extremely quickly integrate new developments into the production (trading, consulting or other) process. The purpose of these actions is to transform the core business to maintain and enhance competitiveness.
An integral part of this process is the continuous improvement of staff qualifications and professionalism. For effective and high-quality training of workers, two systems are used:
- An external school provides for the organization of a kind of training center on the territory of the company or outside its walls. Here, company personnel who are trained from scratch or improve their skills can attend trainings, seminars or lectures conducted by their own trainers or invited specialists.
- An internal school is a more individual way of learning. The young specialist uses the instructions, advice and recommendations of a more experienced worker in his workplace. The advantage of an internal school is the transfer of individual experience and observation.
Who is a mentor and what should he be
Mentoring, as a method of training personnel, involves the preliminary training of the instructor himself. He can only choose the leader, specialist or manager who has been selected, has been enrolled in a group of mentors and meets a number of requirements:
- The current level of competence corresponds to the profile of the position that he occupies.
- Mindfulness in the performance of their work, as well as in relation to other employees.
- Work experience in this organization for at least one year.
- Experience in performing their professional duties for at least three years.
- Having a personal desire to become a mentor.
- Good performance in MBO.
When the company needs to train new employees, the manager selects a candidate and signs a mentoring order. In accordance with this document, all actions are later carried out to assign the trainee to a specific instructor, accrue the last remuneration and to enroll a new employee in the staff after his successful training.
How is enrollment in a group of mentors
Based on the fact that working with staff is a rather complicated process, and its results have a significant impact on the productivity of the company, they approach the selection and training of mentors with maximum responsibility. Along with the abilities and desire of the employee who claims to be a mentor, the decision to be included in the group is made by the HR specialist in agreement with the immediate supervisor of the employee.
This happens when the chief examines the application filed by the employee in writing or electronically (this depends on how the corporate portal is organized). In addition, the manager can independently choose and recommend a specific employee, and the candidate for mentors has a chance to be included in the group based on the results of the annual staff assessment.
Being in a group, mentors take training courses aimed at systematizing and harmonizing the mentoring process. They set out the content, style and the correct order of submission of educational material.
For what mentors are excluded from the group
Being among the instructors, employees must fulfill the duties assigned to them at the proper level, otherwise they will be expelled. The reasons for such a radical action on the part of managers may be the following factors:
- The employee does not demonstrate personal progress, his competence does not develop.
- More than 20% of the new company employees supervised by this mentor did not complete the adaptation program.
- The specialist is not able to efficiently perform their direct duties.
- More than 30% of interns complained about this employee for one year.
Mentor Interest
Mentoring, as a method of staff training, imposes certain obligations on the instructor and trainee, but they are also given the opportunity to use a number of rights.
In addition to the realization of their aspirations and abilities, the specialist, to whom the student is assigned, is paid a monetary reward. However, in order to receive this money, the mentor must perform all his functions well and wait until the staff training process is completed and certification is passed. It is common practice to pay remuneration two months after an HR specialist assesses the knowledge of a new employee and approves his admission to the staff.
Such measures are justified, because the goals of mentoring are to transfer experience and educate an employee who is useful for the enterprise. The company is not interested in losing money due to incompetent mentors, negligence, laziness or negligence of students.
The importance of setting goals
One of the most important tasks that a highly qualified specialist performs as a mentor is the formation in the mind and imagination of the trainee of the result image.
The reality of its achievement for the student depends on how accessible and understandable the goal is conveyed. In addition, the correct wording can inspire an adaptable employee to perform more complex tasks.
The relevance and adequacy of the goals can be estimated by correlating them with the following criteria:
- Specificity.
- Measurability.
- Reachability.
- Significance.
- Binding to a specific date.
Specific goals
For any leader or mentor, work with staff is primarily based on the principle of specificity in the formulation of tasks, responsibilities and required results.
At the same time, along with specificity, the goal is posed from a positive position. For example, a request to make a cover page layout without using red and black colors would be wrong.
In contrast, the task of making several layout options according to a template that is familiar to the employee will be more correct.
Mentoring, as a method of staff training, should be based on positive statements without a “no” particle. It is proved that it is not perceived by the subconscious, so there is a serious risk of getting exactly the result that you really wanted to avoid (the layout is in red and black).
Instead of talking about how not to act, a good mentor gives the trainee the right and clear course.
What does the concept of “measurable goal” mean?
A characteristic of a correctly set goal is the possibility of its quantitative or qualitative measurement. To do this, use a variety of parameters and measures: pieces, sheets, percent, rubles, meters.
An example of an incorrectly formulated task is the well-known joke, the salt of which is in the final phrase of the army ensign: "Dig from here until dawn."
An adequate goal can be called daily ten cold calls or negotiations with three people.
Achievement of the goal: is it so important
The formation of a student’s self-confidence and competence is one of the functions that a mentor performs. Mentoring should not be for experienced employees a way to assert themselves at the expense of beginners.
That is why, giving the trainee a task, a good manager compares its complexity with the capabilities of the student. There is no place for the hope of luck or miracle
The peculiarity of setting an adequate goal is that it should motivate the trainee to further activities, and therefore, be more difficult than he used to. However, excessive complexity scares insecure learners.
The best description of goals that fall into the middle ground between complex and simple is the phrase “difficult, but doable.” Over time, the level of difficulty of the goals for the trainee will increase, because he receives new knowledge and must be able to apply it.
Setting a deadline for completing a task
Uncertain wording when setting goals is one of the main factors that provoke the failure of the task or its unsatisfactory performance.
The new work should first of all have a deadline, as well as a time for delivery or verification of intermediate results.
It is extremely unprofessional to set an approximate definition of the deadline, for example, “by the end of the month” or “next week”. Much clearer and more specific is the task of completing the layout by September 15th.
Significance of the Goal
A new job becomes a challenge for the trainee, and not a burdensome duty only when it is interesting to him. Knowing that he needs to motivate the student, a qualified specialist-mentor will formulate the goal in such a way that it becomes important for the performer himself.
At the disposal of the mentor is only intangible motivation, he is not available monetary incentives or penalties from interns. Therefore, the art of a good manager is to firmly and permanently interest the student in the labor process.
Example of incorrect goal setting: "I need you to make this layout." The student does not understand why he should do this task, he resists internally.
The request to make this layout has a radically opposite effect and, in case of a good result, the whole team will learn about the merits of the trainee.
Feedback as a Mentoring Tool
In the learning process, the role of the instructor is not only to mechanically transmit the necessary information to the trainee, but also to control its correct and complete assimilation.
Using feedback methods, the manager can analyze the level of perception of the student, his mistakes, shortcomings and errors. Correction of the fulfillment of the labor function is carried out through discussion and delicately prompting the right direction, that is, through constructive criticism.
Any comment should be structured as follows:
- The mentor describes the situation that is the subject of discussion (task, project, team behavior, corporate ethics).
- Then he expresses his attitude towards her and its consequences.
- The manager voices his wishes regarding the future results of the student’s actions in the same (similar) circumstances. He can also offer a simpler behavior to achieve maximum workflow efficiency.
In any case, the mentor’s behavior towards adaptive employees should be based on tact, patience and diplomacy.