Thriving Through Mentorship in a Hybrid Environment

There is no arguing that the world of work has changed.  In this new environment where workers are either on a hybrid schedule and partially working from home or fully remote, we can no longer rely on the water cooler discussions of the past to keep employees engaged and connected and feeling supported.  Because of this new environment, strategies for ensuring access to mentoring relationships are more critical than ever. 

A formalized mentorship program is a strategy that is often overlooked, yet it is a powerful way to ensure employees feel supported, connected, and see a path.  If your organization has not yet adopted a formalized process for mentoring and has workers working in a fully remote or hybrid environment, this is especially critical.

So many organizations shy away from adopting a mentorship program either because it sounds like it might take a significant effort or they aren’t sure how well it would be received.  The perception from senior leaders may be that a formalized program is not needed because they never had trouble accessing these critical relationships and don’t see why a formal program is needed for relationships that can occur organically.

Yet, the world of work today is completely different.  New employees are asking different questions.  They are placing so much value on development opportunities and it is often the employees who are at the greatest risk of attrition who are not being afforded those opportunities.

In the past, it was perceived that mentoring should only occur in person.  This type of thinking is significantly limiting for employers who have a national or global footprint and/or who have a hybrid or fully remote workforce.  Technology has made building relationships so much more accessible and mentoring software has made the training, matching, scheduling and administration of a program of any size so much more accessible.

In addition to being a powerful tool for engaging a hybrid workforce, a formalized mentoring program is a powerful and efficient way to upskill your workforce.  It is perhaps the best way to meet each employee where they are developmentally and allow them to build a powerful relationship in the process.  Having someone at work who cares about you is one of the top drivers for employee engagement as a whole and this is especially critical for a remote workforce.

A technology enabled mentorship program ensures all employees have access to critical mentoring relationships.  A mentoring software is absolutely the foundation for a scalable and impactful program, but it is not the only thing to consider. An impactful mentoring program should start with the end in mind and be measurable and impactful too.

At Engage Mentoring, we take the guesswork out of mentoring programs for our clients.  We are the only mentoring software that is scalable and able to work with clients of all sizes.  We are the only mentoring software with our proprietary mentoring training and certification built in.  We are the only mentoring software with the option for external mentoring.  Finally, we are the only mentoring software that fully administers programs for our clients, which means we handle all of the customer service aspects of executing a mentoring program done well. 

In this new hybrid world of work, companies cannot afford to continue to lose talent to their competitors.  Employees today want to know they are going to have development opportunities, they want to know they will have access to critical relationships, and they want to know they are supported in their learning and to see a path.  If these factors are not present, they will go elsewhere.  As you consider your talent strategies, access to mentoring relationships is no longer just a nice to have, but a need to have.

Alison Martin is the Founder and Managing Director of Engage Mentoring, a software-enabled leadership development program that helps companies attract, retain, and develop their talent through strategic mentoring initiatives. For more information, visit www.engagementoring.com.