If you want your business to reach the next level while helping others in your community, think about offering a mentoring program. Mentoring helps those starting out in the work environment, providing them with confidence and a better understanding of the workaday world. Mentoring also helps your employees improve their own skills.
Kent Thiry, former DaVita’s executive CEO, believes that employees who participate in a mentoring program are more likely to remain with a company longer than those who don’t participate in one. A mentoring program fosters leadership and encourages a culture of learning. Here are some reasons why your company should have a mentoring program.
1. Improved Productivity
Setting the right priorities is key to increased productivity, and you can learn this when you mentor others. Employees who mentor learn as well. They discover new ways to solve solutions and are better able to share their ideas with others. A mentoring program fosters better communication not only between mentors and mentees but also between the different departments in your company. With newly acquired skills your employees are able to work faster and provide better quality work.
2. Improved Leadership Skills
For your company to succeed, you have to have excellent leaders among your staff. Leadership isn’t something that can be taught in a course, however. It’s a skill that can only be developed through practice when your employees are stretched beyond their comfort zone. Having a mentor gives your employees the confidence they need to try new approaches in their business decisions. An employee who agrees to be a mentor must encourage their mentees to make wise decisions that benefit the company. Instilling such integrity benefits not only the mentee but also the mentor.
Plus, as your employees work as mentors, they get excellent feedback about their leadership skills that helps them improve. It gives your employees a new vision of all the aspects of your company, making them better leaders.
3. Reduced Training Costs
It costs money to train new employees, but when your experienced workers are involved in a mentoring program, they assist with that training. New employees have someone to seek out for advice and feel they have an ally within the company. With a mentoring program, the new employees will stay longer, meaning fewer employees you’ll have to train down the road.
4. Improved Diversity
With a mentoring program, your employees learn to deal with the challenges facing a group of people working together. The people working in your company learn to function together and resolve their personal differences.
5. Improved Culture
By bringing in a mentoring program, you foster friendships within your company. When employees feel like they’re part of a family, they’ll stay longer with that company. A major part of job satisfaction is knowing that others care and that others in the company are cheering you on. With a mentoring program, you can develop those types of relationships.
If you’re looking for ways to cut costs and become profitable, then include a mentoring program to help your business grow closer and stronger.