The word “mentor” comes from the character Mentor in Homer’s Odyssey. With time, the word mentor has been used to refer to someone who is a guide and educator and the notion of mentorship has always been used in positive connotations. The definition of a mentoring relation has been expanded to a “professional, working alliance in which individuals work together over time to support the personal and professional growth, development, and success of the relational partners through the provision of career and psychosocial support.”
Empirical and theoretical studies have showcased the positive effects of mentoring on employee and professional development. As per research done by Association of Talent Development, organizations that have mentoring programs tend to have 57% higher employee engagement and retention. 70% of businesses have reported an increase in productivity and 55% of businesses feeling that mentoring has a positive impact on their profits.
In current times, recent college graduates belong to the Gen Z population and have been taking the corporate world by storm. Unlike their predecessors, Gen Z don’t know a world without computers, telephones, Internet etc. This access to technology makes them adept at functioning parallelly in the real and virtual world. Empirical and non empirical survey reports have denoted Gen Z’s inclination towards having external mentoring and leadership support with their loyalty towards the company being dependent on their rate of achievement in the organisation. It has also been suggested that despite Gen Z’s inclination towards a fast paced, dynamic career they are focused towards having external guidance and support from their supervisors and mentors. Survey reports suggest that 83% of Gen Zers say a workplace mentor is a crucial aspect for their career.
Access to mentorship is an attractive benefit for early talent to upskill them, increase engagement among students and provide the supportive employee experience they are looking for. Gen Z employees view development of advanced skills in their field as a feature of early career success and are hungry to not just work but learn and develop. Hands on support and personalised guidance is not only beneficial to the employees personally but also looks toward improving employee retention. Mentorship also acts as a helpful supplement in recent times to diversity, inclusion and belonging initiatives in the organization with mentorship programs aimed towards women and underrepresented groups helps them grow and be championed within the organization. Study done by the Association of Talent Development showcases an improvement in employee engagement and retention by 50% due to mentoring initiatives. Mentoring also helps with building a strong employer brand by showcasing to early talent that organizations are interested in investing towards learning and development through tangible ways.
Despite these positive sentiments towards mentoring, there has been a noticeable gap in the availability of mentoring programs for early career professionals. Guider Al’s 2024 report showcases that 84% of Fortune 500 companies and 100% of Fortune 50 companies have mentoring programs; however only 37% of professionals have a mentor.
To proactively address this gap in organizations mentoring can be infused into existing early talent programs and recruitment efforts by offering panel discussions, skill building experiences and learning centred events aimed towards college students. Alongside that, building on internship programs by partnering interns with more established and experienced interns and team members would work as a key strategy in enforcing a learning culture throughout the organization. Implementation of buddy systems during the onboarding process provides new employees with hands-on support and guidance. It provides them with a friendly resource which helps employees learn their job role, company culture and norms better which fuels a sense of belonging to the organization and improves performance. Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are another important resource in modern organizations towards building a sense of camaraderie and belonging. By infusing mentorship opportunities with ERGs leads to not just employee community building but also helps with career advancement throughout the organization.
To conclude, mentoring opportunities for young aspiring professionals and graduates not only aims that focused personal and professional development on part of the graduates but provides lucrative dividends to the organization as well by increasing their intellectual and human capital, and having a positive impact on employee retention, performance and profits.
About the Author
