Suppose you are tackling a challenging new project at work: setting up operations overseas and trying to hire local workers, or analyzing your company’s compensation system. You’d like the opinion and guidance of someone who’s been there before, but there’s no one in your company who has that experience. You need a mentor. Where can you turn?
Members have asked for a mentoring service at nearly every town hall meeting held by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in 2006 and 2007. To answer that demand, SHRM is launching a mentoring service on Nov. 15 at the 2007 SHRM Leadership Conference, said Robert LaGow, volunteer relations manager for SHRM.
The SHRM Mentor Program will help members reach out to more-senior HR professionals for guidance on projects and career development. To get ready for mentees’ needs, SHRM will call on senior members to sign up to be mentors between the Leadership Conference and January, LaGow said.
“We hope to engage senior members to help advance the profession. They can pass on knowledge and help out other HR professionals,” he added.
SHRM is partnering with Triple Creek Associates to offer mentoring, LaGow said. Triple Creek, originally an organizational development company, has set up mentoring programs for Motorola, Dow Chemicals, John Deere, Charles Schwab, Chrysler and Fidelity, among other companies.
During 2007, SHRM invited members to sign up via www.shrm.org to be mentors and protégés, and then SHRM staff matched the pairs. In the new Mentor Program, Triple Creek’s software will guide mentees as they enter information about themselves and the type of guidance and mentor they are seeking. Similarly to eHarmony.com and Match.com, the software will scan its database of available SHRM members who have signed up to be mentors and create the pairs.
Then, like a less meddlesome matchmaker, SHRM and Triple Creek step out of the way and allow the mentor and mentee to develop their relationship. The pair establishes the length of the project—the default time period is six months, LaGow said, though the pair could set parameters for more or less time. They set up goals to accomplish during the mentorship. And they can message back and forth through a private electronic bulletin board system that doesn’t require exchanging personal information such as an e-mail address. Or, if they choose, they can phone, e-mail or meet face-to-face, LaGow said.
Setting up these parameters—and establishing expectations—helps mentor relationships be more successful, said Chris Browning, vice president of operations and client services for Triple Creek.
How Mentoring Works
Mentoring can be a successful learning method because it involves a relationship between two people, instead of reading or studying on one’s own. Triple Creek cites Development Dimensions International research findings that show the most effective activities for learning and development are found in relational and social environments.
“Our focus is to be a facilitator, to help people who have a learning need have access to a database of experts, find the right person to fit their needs and connect them with that person,” Browning said.
Triple Creek provides online support and help with developing the mentor-mentee relationship, Browning said. Users can ask Triple Creek technical and relational questions, such as how to sign up and how to re-establish contact with a mentor who hasn’t responded to queries.
To help participants get off on the right foot, the company advises that the mentor and mentee enter the project with similar expectations, including the following:
The mentee is expected to:
• Initiate and drive the relationship.
• Identify initial learning goals.
• Seek feedback.
• Take an active role in learning.
• Follow through on commitments.
But the mentee is not expected to:
• Know all the questions to ask.
• Be submissive in the relationship.
• Develop a friendship.
The mentor is expected to:
• Have reasonable expectations.
• Be a resource.
• Provide feedback.
• Follow through on commitments.
But the mentor is not expected to:
• Drive the relationship.
• Do most of the talking.
• Be an expert in all areas of development.
• Develop a friendship.
Effective characteristics in mentors are the ability to spot potential in others, be networked and resourceful, display patience and tolerance, and give encouragement. They shouldn’t be too busy to mentor, overly critical or not current with recent trends.
Mentees can be most effective by being goal-oriented, seeking challenges and taking initiative. They shouldn’t be too self-promoting, too busy or overly dependent.
Incentive To Sign Up
There are more rewards to being a mentor than the satisfaction of helping a fellow HR professional advance in his or her career. The region that has the most members sign up as mentors between Nov. 15 and Dec. 30, 2007, will have each of those mentors’ names entered into a drawing for a free registration to the 2008 SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition, to be held June 22-25 in Chicago.
For more information, or to sign up as a mentor, visit https://www.3creekmentoring.com/SHRM.
Beth Mirza is senior editor for HR News . She can be reached at bmirza@shrm.org.