Millennials are looking for more from their careers, so mentoring them may present more of a challenge. From their employers, they seek insight into their professional development, but they also want to know their career will advance. This means developing approaches that will address a variety of concerns and encourage each to strive for success.
Reverse Mentoring Can Be Mutually Beneficial
This approach puts millennials in the driver seat by compelling them to mentor senior executives. Often, younger and subordinate employees are more educated in the areas of technology and marketing. By enlisting the subordinate to mentor senior executives about new technologies, or online marketing innovations, you’ll be educating your current executives and preparing those younger employees for management.
Group Mentoring Can Save Resources
Instead of providing one mentor for each employee, many business owners and managers are turning to a group mentoring program. In this type of situation, one individual mentors a group of employees, making use of an online portal to provide the personal attention each mentor needs. This reduces the draw on resources that other types of mentoring programs would necessitate while helping employees learn and grow.
Anonymous Mentoring is Another Way to Reach Millennials
The internet provides unlimited resources for employers to use in creating mentoring programs tailored to their business. One way is in building a platform for creating anonymous mentoring relationships. Both the mentor and the mentee remain unknown to one another. They are matched through background evaluations and psychological testing surveys, so mentoring teams are matched according to profession, personality, and experiences. This often creates a situation in which the mentor has had experiences related to common challenges that the mentee faces in his career. The mentee sends a message to the mentor, describing his current challenge, and the mentor responds with his insights.
Developing a mentoring program for your millennial employees won’t just benefit them, as they pursue their careers. It will help you develop a more efficient workforce from your top executives to your newest employees. The process of mentoring develops managerial skills in all involved in the program, helping to ensure your staff will be better equipped for their tasks. The ability to provide feedback, understand different perspectives, and communicate effectively are essential skills in any business, yet so many top-level executives lack in these areas. A mentoring program will help you evolve millennial employees into better-skilled executives.
This article was originally published at AndyBritnell.net
