Establish positive mentoring relationships: Pick the pair, clarify expectations, then stand back and let the partnership develop - Focus on Training & Development

HR Magazine, Feb, 2002 by Andrea C. Poe

"I wanted to help a young woman get ahead," recalls Nicole Hayden, general manager for a commercial real estate company in Dallas. "What I did was create a gigantic mess that's really turned me--and my company--off mentoring."

Hayden reached out to a young receptionist, a move her company sanctioned. "I saw she had potential but also a lot of problems," she explains. "I knew she needed a break and I thought I could help." Hayden wanted to teach the young woman duties beyond the narrow scope of her job description. "I was grooming her to move up in the organization," she notes.

Then the protege, a single woman, became pregnant. "Everything changed suddenly. She began to feel like the world owed her a living. She came in late, missed work, mouthed off to me," Hayden says, attributing the trainee's bad attitude to stress. "She completely took advantage of the relationship we'd built."

Other employees began to take notice and started asking why Hayden, who had no support from HR, was putting up with the ins ubordination. Finally, she had no choice but to fire the young woman, she says. The experience left a bitter taste. "I have to say I really don't know if I'd be a mentor again," Hayden adds.

"A bad mentoring relationship is worse than no mentoring at all," says Larry Ambrose, managing partner of Perrone-Ambrose Associates, a Chicago-based consulting firm that specializes in mentoring relationships.

If a company sets up a formal mentoring program, HR needs to monitor participants' progress without overstepping any confidentiality boundaries. It's a tough but essential balance to strike because unsuccessful formal programs can drive out your rising stars. A negative experience in formal mentoring relationships can affect turnover rates and stress levels, concludes a recently published study led by Lillian Eby, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Georgia. It also could lower morale, Eby speculates.

When they work, mentoring relationships can be good for the company, the mentor and protege. "Research indicates that mentored individuals perform better on the job, advance more rapidly within the organization, report more job and career satisfaction and express lower turnover intentions than their non-mentored counterparts," according to Eby's study.

There are key HR elements to a successful mentoring program. The HR department needs to set the goals of the program and design it based on those goals. HR also has to take great care in pairing the mentors and proteges, set realistic expectations for both parties and follow up with the pairs to make sure everyone is happy with the arrangement.

There also so has to be strong buy-in from top management "This can't just be something coming out of the HR or training department, or it won't be taken as seriously," Ambrose says.

Bridging the Gap

Mentoring pairs seasoned members of the organization with less-experienced individuals. Mentors show trainees the ropes and serve as sounding boards, cheerleaders, gurus and even confidantes. Perhaps most importantly, mentors open doors into the network that helps people get ahead.

Some organizations design mentoring programs with a specific goal in mind, such as increasing diversity. For example, at Fannie Mae, the company's Corporate Mentor Program is designed to encourage the advancement of high-potential employees, especially women and minorities. The program seems to be working: Women make up 44 percent of Fannie Mae's management workforce, up from 36 percent in 1992; and minorities make up 25 percent of that group, up from 15 percent in 1992.

"For women and people of color, mentoring provides them access to leadership and power that they'd normally be shut out of," says Belle Rose Ragins, professor of human resource management at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who studies mentoring.

"Mentoring relationships can help get people who have been excluded into the pipeline," agrees Rosina Racioppi, chief operating officer of Women United, a Hillsboro, N.J., organization that provides development programs for women in Fortune 1,000 companies.

Other organizations order mentoring programs around different goals, such as grooming high-potential employees or newcomers. "Once an organization has a successful track record with mentoring relationships, there's no reason they can't have multiple tracks of mentoring going at once," says Ambrose. "But I recommend they start with one to get the hang of it."

When considering what type of mentoring program advances the goals of your organization, ask the following questions: Are you looking to groom a trainee for management? Do you want to acquaint new hires with the company? Are you looking to cross-train the sales and IT departments?

Goals are imperative. "The company needs to have a clear understanding of what the mentoring program is intended to do and communicate that to employees," says David A. Thomas, Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.