| | AUGUST 2023MANAGEHRMAGAZINE.COM9Good programs focus onfacilitating learning for their mentees through a combination of self-driven learning, learning from others, and formal educationyour ability to know when to use each skill set. You get a chance to see different situations and challenges through a new set of eyes. There's renewed energy and passion for the company and the job you're tasked to do. But you must design your program to enable those experiences. Set expectations upfront that this is a learning experience for every participant, mentee or mentor. Make it acceptable for the mentor to reap their own benefits from participation. Encourage your mentors to participate in any or all developmental activities with their mentees. Build it straight into the program that each time a mentee does something for the mentoring program, they talk about it after with their mentor and exchange viewpoints and ask questions. You'd be surprised at how differently two individuals can perceive the same situation or how two people can walk out of the same meeting focused on entirely different takeaways. We've seen a manager (Hey, Ben!) participate in the mentoring program, who certainly thought he may retire in the role he was in, and join the company's Leadership Team as a Vice President two years later. Of course, it doesn't all stem from the mentoring program, but I'm willing to wager that it might have been a catalyst. There have been people we witnessed who start to become disengaged with the company and start to lean in again after discovering their mentoring capabilities and rediscovering the company. We have countless mentors who have made the jump into formal management roles after building up their confidence through mentoring. We've certainly seen our mentees take on new career opportunities afterwards, but so have our mentors.Each time we kick off a session of the mentoring program, just a short twelve weeks later we watch not only our mentees graduate, but our mentors graduate with them. And that's the way it should be ­ the mentors have also developed deeply and prioritized their own professional development throughout their time in the program. When looking at your company's existing mentoring program, or thinking about the program you'd like to implement, don't short-change the mentor's experience. They're every bit as important as your mentees.
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