Mentoring schemes objectives

The objectives of mentoring schemes set up to develop high flyers are likely to involve one or more of the following ... 

So far, this book has explored the foundations of mentoring. This has included an exploration of its definition and history, its advantages and disadvantages, and the distinction between mentoring and other developmental approaches. In Chapter 3 we also took a close-up look at a variety of mentoring schemes. We identified their differing objectives, the characteristics of their mentors, and the benefits associated with each scheme for mentees and organization. 

By virtue of being facilitated and regulated, formal mentoring schemes promote the attainment of objectives much better than informal programs can. Formal programs can also help to avoid many of the pitfalls associated with informal mentoring relationships, such as the exclusion of employees who find it difficult to network. 

Another point to remember in mentor selection is that the mentors you want to recruit might be very different from each other, requiring distinct job descriptions and selection criteria. This is due to the fact that the mentor target groups (and their associated criteria) are determined by the organization s and the mentees needs and objectives, as well as by the mentoring schemes that were selected. 

Supporting mentees in setting career-related development goals and creating development plans in line with the objectives of the mentoring scheme. 

If line managers become mentors, this can also reduce the clarity of roles. In fact, most mentoring schemes that tried this approach to providing mentors had to pull back because the line boss was imable to cope with the ambiguity of roles. Being an objective coididante on the one hand and having to appraise the employee on the other proves too difficult to reconcile. 

Chapter 3 explores the different objectives of business mentoring schemes such as graduate and diversity programs. These variations of schemes are illustrated with case studies from a number of companies. 

In general, the evaluation results were highly encouraging in the sense that all of the schemes have been successful. They seem to have achieved their initially set objectives and reaped benefits beyond that. Leaving aside the specific objectives of each scheme, the benefits reported most frequently by mentors included ... 

The scheme intends to match a person with relevant experience (the mentor) with a member of staff who can benefit from this experience (the mentee). The objective is to state the objective of the scheme. If the objective requires the mentee to acquire specific types of knowledge, skill and/or experiences, you might want to list these here too). 

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