Mentoring was an uncommon privilege. Tuning into a higher frequency, the Mentor imparted wisdom to the mentee. Older, majestic and impeccable, the Mentor sat on a hallowed chair and the mentee sat respectfully at his feet. Almost always, a mentee showed allegiance to just one Mentor.
And then, life changed.
Mentoring became a commonplace, market-defined necessity. The Mentor became the mentor. Through acquired knowledge, the mentor shared his insights into workaday problems. The mentor was himself on a quest for answers. Half the time, the mentor was considerably younger than the mentee. The mentee began to have multiple mentors.
The demands of the marketplace have considerably influenced and redefined the concept of mentoring. Besides helping employees acquire knowledge, skills and abilities, they now serve as a tool to motivate, engage and retain them. Arokia Sagayaraj, vice-president — human resources and communication , Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre, believes corporate mentoring has been redefined in the last 20 years.
“It was earlier confined to leadership development. It was not meant for everyone. There was a reason. Twenty years ago, attrition rates were negligible. Now, any company in the non-manufacturing sector faces a minimum attrition rate of 10 per cent every year. In the IT sector, it is a minimum of 16 p.c. to 17 p.c. every year. The reality of attrition has led to an increased focus on mentoring. On the flip side, this development has led to a dilution of the concept. It’s not uncommon to find someone with just three years of experience in an organisation donning a mentor’s role. He may know the lie of the land, I mean he may know where the cafeteria and the other facilities are located. With this knowledge, he may help a new hire understand the workplace. He may also take the new hire through certain basic work processes. However, the mentee needs more, to be an effective employee.”
Due to the various demands he faces within the context of his job, this employee may need more than one mentor. And, more often than not, he gets more than one.
In addition to a regular mentor, who helps him with the basic challenges of the job, an employee may be assigned another mentor just to help him in certain other, more challenging areas of his work. In this context, it is necessary to discuss how technological advances have influenced mentorship.
As corporates struggle to harness the power of new, cutting-edge technologies to carry out regular functions faster and more effectively, a traditional notion about mentors and mentees has been upturned. In other words, this struggle has led to reverse mentoring.
A tech-savvy twenty-something assigned as a mentor to a 40-something, tech-challenged but otherwise efficient employee, with many years of service in the organisation, is a classic case of reverse mentoring. It challenges the traditional view of the mentor as someone advanced in age and knowledge. The question is: Does this work without bad bruises to the older employee’s ego?
“Care has to be taken in how reverse mentoring is presented to the employees. It could be called cross-skills training. It is absolutely necessary to first give it an acceptable name. To create an environment of learning, you have to first create an environment of acceptance. An employee may accept something, if he sees value in it. For instance, it the older employee is enabled to understand that effective use of latest technology can enhance the knowledge-gathering process, he will accept the training and the trainer,” says Sagayaraj.
Another big question: what is the soil in which mentoring thrives? Should an organisation adopt an informal style of mentoring or a formal one? Some organisations choose between the two, as dictated by circumstances and specific requirements.
Donn S. Kabiraj, personal branding expert, believes the blending of two styles works best. Here’s how he puts it: “The organisation should have a strategic formal design for mentoring. But the approach to the actual process of mentoring should be marked by informality. An effective mentor-mentee collaboration is possible only in an atmosphere of informality and friendship. Of what use is a well-crafted mentoring programme if it does not help the mentor and mentee connect and work together?”
