An IT mentoring program pairs a more senior IT staff member, like an IT manager, with a less experienced one. It gives IT professionals on-the-job continuing education, technical training and support and guidance for professional growth. Mentoring ultimately pays off for the organization, too. An IT staffer who first worked alongside a senior staff member typically makes better decisions and is more productive than one who hasn't. And he or she is more likely to be in sync with the organization's objectives and vision and less likely to become disillusioned and jump ship.
Big U.S. firms such as AT&T, DuPont, Federal Express, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, JC Penney, Merrill Lynch, NationsBank and PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PWC) have overall companywide mentoring initiatives underway that include IT mentoring. Some have taken unique approaches to their mentoring programs. HP built an online mentor database, for instance, where IT and non-IT employees can view available mentors and select one who best matches their needs and goals. At PWC, several senior executives serve as mentors, which has lured managers at different levels to participate in the prestigious program.
NationsBank offers a group-mentoring program -- two mentors for four protégés. That arrangement accommodates the IT staffs' different schedules and travel commitments, so if one mentor is traveling, the other is typically around to field any questions or to provide guidance. It also gives protégés a team learning experience. Meanwhile, at General Motors, senior executives are the protégés - they are assigned mentors from the staff level who help them both develop their technical skills and better work with both technical and nontechnical people.
Banking on Mentors
Mentoring can reduce mistakes on the job, too. One large New York area bank with an in-house IT mentoring program has found it no longer faces many of the "learning curve" problems associated with new staffers. The bank pairs a new networking employee with a seasoned staff member so he or she immediately starts learning technical skills, such as integrating different vendors' routing and switching equipment. That can help avoid bigger disasters when new IT employees make those unavoidable newcomer mistakes.
Network security is a prime area for mentoring. Many network administrators typically are unofficially tasked with handling the security needs for their networks even though they don't necessarily possess the security skills and know-how -- a frightening thought in today's world. One large high-tech manufacturing company has tried to fill this vacuum by pairing savvy network administrators with a network security mentor to teach them security skills. Turnover in network administration at the manufacturer, which had been high at 12%, has dropped to half of that since the network mentoring program started a year ago.
It's not just the protégé who benefits from a mentoring relationship. While protégés receive motivation and guidance and a chance to move up the career ladder, mentors can gain a different perspective on their jobs and the IT department as a whole. And that can lead to fresh ideas and present more opportunities to make a contribution to the organization.
One interesting avenue for mentoring is succession planning, where internal employees are groomed for leadership positions. Mentoring reduces the learning curve for new and potential managers and offers career development for underrepresented groups, such as help desk staff or network technicians. A junior-level network technician can learn a new skill, such as integrating switches.
Mentoring doesn't need to be formal, but it works best if specific roles and responsibilities for both the mentor and the protégé are clear. If the goal of the mentoring relationship is to build senior management skills, for example, it makes sense to institute a more formal mentoring process with a framework for who will do what and how much guidance can be expected.
An Outline for Getting Started
To be successful, these programs require specific guidelines, expectations, criteria, evaluation and measurement. The mentor and protégé should be able to provide input into the program, deciding such things as which skills or knowledge to focus on. One way to evaluate the success of the program is to compare the performance of mentored employees against those who didn't go through the program. Another indicator is whether employees in the program get promotions or rise through the corporate ranks.
There is no average cost for setting up a mentoring program. But it's usually inexpensive because most organizations just leverage existing relationships or connections between employees. Some companies offer financial or other incentives to mentors to compensate them for their time. The good news is that the ROI for mentoring is practically immediate: When mentoring leverages the organization's skills, the ROI in productivity and morale increases by more than 25 percent, according to the Meta Group.
The mentoring program must have the support and commitment from senior management for it to be effective and have long-term benefits. It helps to have senior managers serve as mentors themselves, like in PWC's mentoring program.
Mentoring programs run most effectively when both the human resources (HR) and IT departments work together to structure and manage them. HR is typically responsible for all companywide communication on the program, coordinating partners and tracking performance and developmental activities. IT managers are responsible for making sure mentoring participants actually develop the relevant skills and necessary knowledge, and that mentoring time does not interfere with their day-to-day work responsibilities. Some organizations hire outside consultants to help roll out and maintain their mentoring programs, but internal management of the program ensures it stays on target with the company's objectives and culture.
Mentors are either selected by the protégés themselves, volunteer to participate, or are selected by a program committee. When pairing mentors with protégés, there should be a natural fit - the pairs don't have to be the same gender or have similar backgrounds, but they need to feel comfortable with one another. They can meet on-site or off-site, and they should compare their schedules and agree on the logistics of their mentoring time. The program should not interfere with either the mentor or protégé's job duties. If meetings take too much time away from the partners' jobs, then the program will be counterproductive.
Continuous learning is key. Even if you have top-notch IT people, they can end up ineffective and unhappy if you don't capitalize on their strengths and supplement their weaknesses with on-the-job learning. Offering a mentoring program instills commitment and respect and lets IT professionals feel like real contributors to the organization. Those who participate in mentoring programs are more likely to continue their career growth within the organization, improve their working relationships with others, and ultimately feel more connected with the organization. Those who don't might not stick around.
Carrie Picardi is a research analyst for Executive Services at META Group, in Stamford, Conn., who specializes in human capital management. Send your comments on this article to her at careers@nwc.com.
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