56% of employees believe mentorship initiatives are lacking from their managers, finds Doodle. What is the role of a manager in mentoring? How can managers improve mentorship programs and lay the foundation for employee development?
With a bleak job market, most employees are going to continue with the organizations they work in. The crisis has suddenly shifted all HR resources towards firefighting to acclimatize the workers to remote working quickly. But this is a disaster in the making because employees are missing out on a crucial aspect of growth – Mentoring.
Doodle’s new research study, “Career Development in a PandemicOpens a new window †has shared key findings about the same. As per the results, 50% of the employees said that mentorship from their manager has become more important to them during the pandemic. However, 49% said that they are not getting enough training, coaching, and mentoring to advance their careers during this crisis.
Career development is seemingly getting neglected during this crisis. It is evident that all efforts by HR teams to become strategic business partners, are getting reversed as they are compelled to focus on tactical and operational areas yet again. Talent management of high potential employees is doubly important right now and mentoring is an integral part of it.
Mentoring Is Not High Priority During The Pandemic
56% of the respondents said they do not currently receive any form of mentorship or coaching from their managers. In addition to that, 30% have shared that their managers have become less accessible to them during this pandemic phase. Given the uncertainties regarding their career prospects in the organization, this can have a huge adverse impact.
With a sharp increase in virtual meetings, adapting to this primary method of communication is important. 56% of the respondents said video conferencing did not affect the one-to-one meetings with their boss, when compared to in-person meetings.
This indicates that employees are accepting this way of communication as a part of their work. Even so, the data indicates that the primary method of communicating with the managers is emails. This approach could hamper the process of mentoring and coaching since it does not involve an interactive, two-way approach.
HR Technology News: Rapidly Transforming Learning Roadmap: Cornerstone OnDemand Shares Research and Tools
The Role of Managers and Organizations In Mentoring
Are managers hesitate to use the required digital tools or are companies not providing such supportive solutions to their managers? Virtual Mentoring is a challenge that needs a lot of preparation as well as handholding from the organization.
Managers
Managers need to work on their own skills in virtual mentoring. Apart from familiarizing themselves with the tools or platforms, they also need to sensitize themselves about how to schedule it based on the work-life responsibilities of their employees. It is important to also plan a timetable for frequent discussions and provide their team members with templates to fill out to capture the agenda, expectations as well as steps for improvement. It could be difficult to form connections online, and some employees might be uncomfortable, but managers will need to be patient and proactive. Also, managers have multiple responsibilities and pressures in the current crisis. But they need to be present mentally as well in the virtual mentoring session. Being mindful will allow their mentee to also become comfortable.
Organizations
The role of organizations is to provide their managers with the platforms for virtual mentoring as well as handholding them to get accustomed to these. GuiderOpens a new window is one such platform that helps organizations to focus on mentoring their teams as they work from home. It has an end-to-end process from set up, to mentor and mentee matching, integrated video chat and tracking and reporting. MentorCloud is also another SaaS software that organizations can use to connect their employees with mentors and experts inside their own organization.
In addition to that, the communication to managers should center around how this should be followed rigorously rather than allowing it to fall through the cracks when things are hectic.
HR Technology News: Weekly HR Tech Product Watch: Avature Releases Video Solution for Recruiting and Talent Management, and More
Managers and organizations have different roles to play, and both can get impacted due to the constraints present, due to the crisis. But for long term talent development, they need to balance mentoring priorities with other initiatives.
Note – 1,000 full-time and part-time employees in the United States were surveyed. The surveyed employees were in the following career levels: entry-level, intermediate, and middle management. The survey was fielded in August 2020