Mentoring Goes Online

CU360
November 4, 2009 | COMMENTS

Web-based mentoring can boost employee performance, regardless of the mentored employee's position within a company. Mentoring is often considered special treatment reserved for high-potential talent, but making it more accessible to any employee at the company could dramatically improve overall workforce engagement and performance.

About 88% of respondents agree that their productivity and effectiveness at work increased due to e-mentoring experiences, according to a report by mentoring consultant Triple Creek Associates. And 88% of respondents were also satisfied with their mentoring relationships, reports the American Society for Training and Development's T&D magazine. Among participants who spent at least an hour a month on mentoring, 97% were satisfied with their relationships.

Web-based Open Mentoring—the system used in the study—is a pairing technique similar to eHarmony or Match.com for large enterprises that helps facilitate knowledge transfer through relationships. These relationships can take the form of peer-to-peer, superior-to-subordinate, or even reverse mentoring, whereby an older employee connects with a younger employee to learn new technologies.

“The study reinforced the fact that people prefer to learn from other people,” says Randy Emelo, CEO and president of Triple Creek Associates. “Making more information available to people is not what they're looking for. What people are looking for is access to other people who can help them.”

The study found three specific areas of improvement for employees who participated in the program:

1. Expanding their professional network.
2. Interpersonal effectiveness.
3. Confidence in their roles.

Participants believe mentoring allowed them to provide and receive encouragement, transfer knowledge within the organization, and understand a different point of view.

“Training and development professionals know that with the rise of the ‘creative class,' every employee needs to be more self-directed and autonomous,” says Emelo. “The work environment is shifting away from employees merely taking orders and performing functions, to making their own decisions and creating their own paths.”

Some telling results were that participants experienced these gains regardless of whether they participated in the program face-to-face or distance-style, and regardless of whether the participant was a mentor or a person being mentored.

Though Emelo says there are pros and cons to both face-to-face and distance mentoring, he notes that, “When you're mentoring someone and relating to someone from a distance, you really can't take anything for granted, and you have to ask clarifying questions. You become more intently focused on the learning and less focused on the relational aspects that dominate face-to-face relationships.”