Don’t Have Time to Mentor? You Might Want to Rethink That

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“I have talked more people off a ledge from leaving our company,” said Cheryl* CEO to her leadership team. I watched her in awe. She is a true leader who gets the power of people, the power of a pay-it-forward culture. After all, she was part of a strong chain of leaders who championed her and she respectfully claims that honor and wants to see the legacy continue. With the cost of losing an employee at 100–300% salary (SHRM), I cannot help but start putting dollars on a virtual excel spreadsheet for all the casualties that did not happen as a result of her interventions. The value of those authentic talks. The value of taking the time to see and share with the people who work with you, for you, your peeps, your companies future.

Cheryl put a much stronger stake in the ground when she announced that she was connecting bonuses to “how we invest in our people,” with mentoring being one key strategy. She understands that an investment in people = a stronger workplace culture = retention = engagement + productivity = =revenue and ROI= more smiles.

As I took the stage at Cheryl’s conference, Bob’s conference, Darren’s corporate conference and dozens more through my work @Twomentor I always ask the question “How many of you have a mentor and/or someone you go to for professional advice?” The answer, please take this in, is under 40% even in the highest levels of our rockstar companies. I ask what the impact has been of having a mentor (or sponsor)? I “wouldn’t be where I am today”, “my mentor challenged me,” “he believed in me, changed my life” “kicked my a — and showed me where I needed to grow,” and so much more.

My next question is “How many of you currently mentor other people?” Always under 20% stand up. WHAT@!#! Most companies err in believing mentoring should just happen holistically. I believe more and more we need to engineer it in a dynamic fun way with creative flexibility. I believe people are afraid to look weak in asking for help or intrusive in offering help. But the helping of each other is the bridge where the magic occurs.

We also are confronting a loneliness epidemic in our country and it’s hitting our youngest the hardest. It’s not just “lonely at the top” anymore. In fact, recent overall studies that show that 54% of American’s feeling lonely and isolated.

Darren* stood up at the conference after a flash mentoring session. He had a management problem that was nagging him for weeks related to his new promotion. “I was concerned about it every waking moment,” he shared. He found his answer and began action planning following a speed mentoring conversation with a seasoned leader. “When he was talking, chills just went over my body,” said Darren at the conference. “I knew he was right and I had gone to my manager and others, but he was the one who made me see a solution I hadn’t seen.”

Mentoring. Is it nice to have or have to have? I have the time or I don’t have time is the question you will have to answer for yourself and your company. … and having a leader like Cheryl at the top quadruples the chance of systemic success.

For your own time, if you go with “Yes” I would carve out 10–20 hours a year to mentor others or ask for help, get started. Schedule that walk and talk or that drive to Peet’s Coffee.

“Mentoring is a muscle you flex, it grows stronger the more you use it,” says Cheryl. Time to hit the gym.

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Julie Kantor and her team at Twomentor are here to help you build or boost a sustainable mentoring initiative to retain your best talent. She can be reached at julie@twomentor.com

Going Through Big Corporate Changes? Time to Start Mentoring Initiative at Your Company

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What happens when the leaders leave (or are replaced)? When the revenues are not resembling hockey stick performance? When a big company gobbles up a smaller company? When there is an 8% layoff of the workforce? People start feeling like their jobs might be on the line. They feel a new leader might not understand their contributions. They might feel someone is trying to steal their lunch. Culture changes. Isolation increases along with Indeed.com searches. Linkedin resumes get brushed up. Mistrust or toxicity coupled with insomnia can seep in.

I’ve heard it many times in my five years of building mentoring initiatives. “Julie, with all the change, shouldn’t we wait until after things calm down to get started with our mentoring initiative?” a top HR executive asked me.

In running both mentor and mentee training, often the rising-star mentee is looking for someone who can help them navigate the new environment. Someone who will sit down with an iced coffee (or Ben & Jerry’s pint) for a chat, a safe haven to reflect on, ‘How do I best position myself in the midst of change?’ ‘How do I get off to the right start with my new boss?’ ‘How can I be part of the solution, when I am worried about how things are going financially?’

The mentor, often with more experience, might not have all the answers, but likely has experienced more change in their tenure and will have new perspectives to offer up.

The mentor serves as a role model. They care about their mentees goals and objectives and can be instrumental in talking someone ‘off a ledge’ who is nervous. Encourager and challenger, the mentor often will help the mentee understand their role in better ‘owning’ their career trajectory and not being the victim in a who-moved-my-cheese environment that we are seeing more and more. Change = Today’s Reality.

I was watching Good Morning America a month ago and the words ‘America’s Loneliness Epidemic’ crawled across the bottom of the screen. Curious, I Googled the UCLA research and it was eye-opening. Almost 1:2 Americans (20,000 in the study) stated that they sometimes or always feel alone, lonely or left out. Particularly hard hit are our youngest generations. How does that manifest in a workplace which is often a key pillar in our lives and psychological/financial stability? Read more HERE on the study’s findings.

In building a pilot-to-sustainable and scalable mentoring initiative, we create an opportunity for our workforce to not isolate. A world where people are recognized for helping-each-other. We engineer and hold the space for people to connect with morale-boosting support from the top. Employees have the learning conversations with structure in place.

When I ask hundreds of mentors in trainings what do people most come to them for advice on, the response is usually:

1] To help them advance their career,

2] To learn how to network better,

3] To be better at people management, leadership and

4] To help them prioritize

With the fast-paced corporate growth and more predictable flux ahead, do you want to wait for another season or reason to show your people you are a stand for them as they take a stand for each other?

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Julie Kantor is CEO of Twomentor, LLC a high impact company that provides mentor strategy, training and execution for large companies and organizations. She can be reached at julie@twomentor.com

Diversity + Mentoring = Increased Inclusion in the Workplace

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Twomentor.com and Pixabay

I’ve been reflecting a lot on the Venn diagram between Diversity and Inclusion (D & I) and what we like to call Mentoring 2.0 (Mentoring + Sponsorship). For some reason, they seem to be siloed “movements.”

A sponsor is a leader championing another executive behind closed doors for career advancement and opportunity. A mentor shares his/her skills, knowledge, and experience with another in a mutual collaboration or partnership.

“Should mentoring fall under HR or Diversity?” executives ask me often. That’s one of the big issues. Who in a corporation “owns'” the work to build a mentoring initiative or culture?

“Mentoring is a four-letter word around here,” said another executive. “We had a failed initiative a few years ago and …”

The more I work with leaders on the challenges they are solving for, the more I see they are interdependent movements that need to join each other at the strategy table from now on. Employee engagement, Millennial retention, advancement of women and minorities, workplace isolation with a 32% engagement rate (Gallup), the more I see inclusion is actually the heart of the Venn handshake between mentoring and diversity (see image above).

Let’s look at some of the data out there:

According to the Association for Talent Development, 44% of CEOs list mentorship programs as one of the three most valuable strategies to advance women into Senior Management. At Goldman Sachs, 70% of women who were mentored by senior leaders (1 leader mentoring 5 women) were promoted to Managing Director roles within five years.

Additionally, a relatively new study by Kaitlyn Conboy and Chris Kelly at Cornell University illustrate some powerful findings:

Mentoring is more effective than other diversity initiatives. “Large companies implement a variety of diversity initiatives, including voluntary training, targeted recruitment, cross-training as well as mentorship. Mentorship programs can boost the representation of Black, Hispanic, and Asian American women, and Hispanic and Asian-American men at manager levels by 9% to 24%, as compared to the other initiatives which have lower results ranging from -2% to 18%,” the study states.

It is reminiscent of my conversations a few years ago with Harvard professor Frank Dobbins who researched 800 major companies over 30 years :

“In analyzing three decades’ worth of data from more than 800 U.S. firms and interviewing hundreds of line managers and executives at length, we’ve seen that companies get better results when they ease up on the control tactics. It’s more effective to engage managers in solving the problem, increase their on-the-job contact with female and minority workers, and promote social accountability—the desire to look fair-minded. That’s why interventions such as targeted college recruitment, mentoring programs, self-managed teams, and task forces have boosted diversity in businesses. Some of the most effective solutions aren’t even designed with diversity in mind,” states Dobbins.

The Cornell study also found that “Mentoring improves both the promotion and retention of diverse groups. In fact, they help increase promotion and retention rates of minority men and women by 15%-38% compared to non-mentored minorities. It has been inferred that this is due to innate biases that influence people to help those who are similar to themselves; therefore, the lower number of minorities in upper management means that those who do not have a mentor, either organic or assigned, will not benefit due to a lack of access.”

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Part of that access is that mentees often choose mentors in their own likeness and mentors often choose mentees in their own likeness. Golf course- manicure buddies! So where and how does our workforce get that access that will drive more diverse mentoring and yield more inclusion?

“Ladies and gentlemen, we want you to find someone who does not remind you of yourself,” I said at a conference from the podium midway during one of our Mentor Road Trip™ Flash Mentoring sessions.

Leaders and executives look at me with mild surprise and then go about the task of finding someone who they believe is different then themselves.

“You can go beyond race, religion, and gender,” just find someone who for whatever reason does not remind you of yourself, I restate.

They do and big smiles come out. The interaction desire is strong.

Earlier I asked ” How many of you have a mentor, someone you can go to for professional advice?” Less than 30% raise their hands (every time and less than 15% share they are mentoring others).

“Whoever traveled the furthest to be here at the conference (or training session), you will take on the role of the mentor this segment”

“Mentors share your first three months on the job at the company [be it Verizon Wireless, Marriott, NextEra, University of XYZ etc.]. What is the best mentoring advice anyone gave you there?” I ask. “Mentees, this is for your learning so don’t hesitate to ask questions. You have 6-minutes team, GO.”

Before people leave the session, they set up a coffee date with someone that they choose to continue a mentoring conversation with. The next month, its time to formalize these or new pairings with official mentor training 1.0 and a six to nine-month gameplan.

It is a simple exercise but boy does it break down the barriers or the ‘elevator pause’ we see out there! That feeling you have when you are on an elevator of strangers. Does anyone say hi? Do we break the ice and human meets human, or do we pause, look down at our Samsungs and iPhones, step off on floor six and go about our days?

When we mentor more diversely we get more diversity in our companies. When mentoring meets diversity hand in hand we get more inclusion. When our younger generation mentors our older generations (reverse mentoring) we get more engagement and inclusion.

When we engineer mentoring in a fun, user-friendly way we get more mentor-mentee and diverse mentor matches. Human sees human. Phone goes into the jacket pocket. Human helps human.

We are happy to share our new Mentoring Imperative E-Book with you to look at the compelling data and start a new dialogue internally.

You will learn how mentoring is a vehicle to drive:

Diversity, multigenerational employee retention, engagement, knowledge transfer, and build leadership legacies.

YOUR COPY: Just email info@twomentor.com with your name, company, and best contact information.

HERE TO HELP YOU BUILD THE RIGHT WAY: Let’s discuss your unique needs and our outsourced mentoring offerings, training, conference keynotes, flash mentoring sessions and more. Contact, Sophia@twomentor.com or 18006071605.

High Turnover Costs Way More Than You Think

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Written with A. Crosser

I remember almost leaving my company in 2006. I was lying in bed, dejected and upset. My corporate mentor called me and talked me off the ledge. He told me I was highly valued at a time I was feeling undervalued. Over the course of our deep conversation, I realized that I had likely misinterpreted a situation and I needed to get out of bed, stand back up and not be corporate roadkill…

It’s well-known that employee turnover rates come as a high cost to companies, however very few discuss the true extended costs and the multiple ways that it impacts the business. It’s important that successful business not only find the best employees, but keep them engaged as well. In one of my most recent articles, we discussed losing a Millennial employee can costs the company $15,000 to $25,000, but it’s actually a lot more when you weigh in a few additional variables.

First, let’s take a look at the hard costs of high turnover. What is a company going to spend in order to compensate for low retention rates? According to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management, employers will need to spend the equivalent of six to nine months of an employee’s salary in order to find and train their replacement. Doing the math, that means that for an employee salaried at $60,000 will cost the company anywhere from $30,000 to $45,000 to hire and train a replacement. Other research show that the average costs could be even higher. In a study conducted by the Center for America Progress, the cost of losing an employee can cost anywhere from 16% of their salary for hourly, unsalaried employees, to 213% of the salary for a highly trained position! So if a high trained executive is making $120,000 a year, the true loss could be up to $255,600 to the company!

Perhaps getting rid of Thursday Happy Hour, flex-time, or reducing paid maternity leave was not such a good idea after all.

The question then becomes, why does losing an employee cost so much, and in what other ways do high turnover rates impact a company? From there we look to what can be done to keep strong employees engaged and happy at the company. Not just surviving but thriving at work.

  1. The Cost of Training and On-Boarding

Training an employee is not free, and is often relatively expensive. Training seminars and classes can cost a business thousands of dollars, and they can also result in the understaffing of other departments, as training sessions will often need to be led and monitored by other employees of the company. This can result in lowered productivity, and as Zane Benefits, points out the overworking of other employees making up for those who need to conduct training.

  1. Interview Expenses

Conducting interviews is a long and tedious process. Many expensive mistakes can be made here in picking the wrong candidate. In order to lower turnover rates, it’s important for businesses to ensure that they are hiring the best candidates for the job, individuals who will be more likely to stay and grow with the company for an extended period. The interview process can include travel expenses if candidates from out-of-town are being considered, which add up quickly. Outside of monetary expenses, the interview process takes immense amounts of time, with company leaders needing to take hours out of their day to conduct the meetings. Much like training, time spent on interviews costs the business by way of lost productivity.

  1. Advertising Costs

Posting ads promoting the vacant positon can cost a company a significant amount of money, with most job boards charging a hefty fee to employers looking to advertise. These costs add up over time, meaning that the company could be looking at serious expenses to advertise new positions. Hiring a good external recruiter is a great way to decrease time on task, but the recruiter will often charge 25-33% of one year salary for senior positions.

  1. Lowered Engagement

I can’t tell you how many calls I receive from people distraught when they see good people and friends leaving their companies. High turnover rates will most definitely be noticed by staff who remain employed by a business, and this can often result in lost engagement on part of these employees. They will often feel that the ship is taking too much water if too many people leave, overworked, and thus less satisfied and less motivated at work.

  1. Productivity of New Hires

When a company is faced with the need to hire new employees, they also face a severe decrease in productivity. As discussed before, remaining employees may lose focus due to high turnover, however the productivity of the new hires is also an issue. According to business expert Josh Bersin, of Bersin by Deloitte, a new employee can take up to two full years to reach the same level of productivity as an existing staff member. Lately, I have been thinking of the workplace like a blended family. Having new stepbrothers and sisters, uncles and cousins come into the ‘work’ family can be a lot of fun, but also can be riddled with new and unexpected challenges, turf wars, feelings of displacement and hurt feelings if not integrated and on-boarded right.

  1. Impact on Morale & The Gossip Machine

When other employees leave, the remaining staff will wonder why and the gossip machine commences. If an employee leaves for a higher salary, other employees may interview for other higher-paying positions elsewhere. According to Forbes, employees expecting a raise can expect to see an average of 3 percent, however being recruited for or finding a new position often results in a 10-20 percent raise, meaning that the company has to further compensate for lost staff members. Additionally, if employees left unhappily based on workplace culture issues, they will often communicate with their friends sharing a brighter life/ opportunities available on the other side. I don’t want to diminish in any way the psychological impact that an employee goes through in transition regardless of who’s decision it was to part ways. Transitions are tough but sometimes employees know they can’t get to second base with their foot still on first/

  1. Less Effective Service

When hiring for a customer service position specifically, new hires generally do not know the answers to typical questions they will face on the job. For example, if a company needs to hire several new employees to fill IT Help Desk positions, they will take longer to resolve common issues, and it could potentially result in the loss of customers, should they be unhappy with the changes.

So what is a company to do? After all transitions are a given in any company.

Perhaps we can learn something from youth in the New York City schools.

Professor Jonah Rockoff researcher out of Columbia University illustrates that mentoring not only reduces employee turnover, but also improves the skills of new employees, increasing the amount of productivity that you will see in the newly on-boarded staff members. After studying the habits of students in New York City schools and how they perform with and without mentors, Rockoff found that students who received mentoring had the best performances out of all of the students observed, and that they had a lesser chance of dropping out than students who were not mentored. These observations can be applied to business as well, with the concepts of mentoring remaining the same. Rockoff states that when an employee receives specialized attention and training from a mentor, they will perform better on the job, and will be much more likely to stay in the workplace. These concepts have been proven in corporate giants like Google, who have one of the lowest employee turnover rates in the world, and also implement one of the most effective mentoring programs.

There are many costs associated with high turnover, but there are a multitude of ways to reduce it. Mentoring is one of the most effective, cost efficient ways of increasing employee tenure benefitting the mentor, the mentee and driving significant retention.

So when my mentor called me that day from his business trip in Hong Kong, we had a deep and honest discussion. I deleted the resignation letter I had been drafting, dusted myself off, worked through the issue and continued loving my two decade career for many more years.

Julie Kantor is Founder & CEO of Twomentor, LLC a management consulting firm focused on building mentoring cultures and retaining a diverse STEM workforce.

Have You Tried Flash (Speed) Mentoring Yet?

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When I started Twomentor a year and several months ago, my intention was (and is) to go in and help companies build mentoring cultures for so many reasons. I had already spoken with 500- 600 companies and institutions that were struggling with hiring and retaining diverse talent, especially in the Science, Tech, Engineering and Math (STEM) arena. Not one company would disagree that culture and employee engagement needed focus + leaders understood that the economics of loss are troubling, especially when you factor in that it can cost @ one year salary to replace an executive, over 200% for a key Sales executive, and that Millennials — well, 21% left their jobs last year costing companies billions.

Did you know- Over 75% of Millennials view being mentored as crucial to their professional success? Did you know most women leave their jobs because they do not have a Sponsor (advocate, inner champion).

So I landed at a Leadership Conference in Chennai, India last February at an NGO Leadership Conference through the Center for Social Leadership & Sevalaya, and decided to take concepts such as reverse mentoring, peer mentoring, diverse mentoring, and integrate them into what has now become The Twomentor – Mentor Road Trip™ Experience. I didn’t realize at the time, how powerful this would be for participants and the places it would take me personally as a new CEO.

So what does it look like? Well, let’s hit the gas…

Mile Seven: So you are driving in your car with your awesome new mentor. (or mentee)… clear blue skies ahead… Starbucks double espresso warms your hand (or perhaps you prefer Dunkin Donuts). You have an updated Spotify playlist for background music, a GPS and a full tank of gas. Then … Uh-ho! Flat tire.

Twomentor: “Flat tires happen in our professional lives. Sometimes, it is our batteries that need to be recharged. I now want you to share a professional challenge big or small that you are having right now with your mentor. Take 10 minutes on this leg of our journey together…”

At Leadership Greater Washington, at the World Bank Group, at Women in Technology and a huge packed ballroom in Vegas for InfoComm International and Watermark Executive Women’s Conference in San Jose, we have run these customized experiences. The proverbial conference spotlight moves from the stage to shine a light within the audience. We transform and we become each other’s mentors, consultants, we light up realizing others in this multi-cultural, multi-generational environment have insights, perspective and solutions. No longer are we passively staring at the stage, we are now engaged, playing our part and creating meaningful interactions. We find commonalities and wish we could continue the conversation for another 30 minutes… but… the bell rings… we now need to switch partners.

Mile Eleven: “For this next segment, friends we want you to find someone in the room that DOES NOT remind you of yourself. Does not look like you (diverse mentoring). Please share with your mentee what drives your passion to do the work you do in tech, engineering, sales… each day.” Let’s Go.

They are listening to each other, heads nodding up and down, understanding, animated. Amazing that no one really knew each other twelve minutes ago. At the Gannett Building in McClean, VA I walk around observing over 60 women through Women of Technology and Women of AT&T going the extra mile for each other. Sparkling, smiling, intent at our post-dinner evening session. I see mentors wear the hat for the first time in years of the mentee. Asking for help from others. So many women I met shared after these sessions that they are always helping and mentoring others, but they were burning out because they were no longer asking others for help… It was a revelation. Senior male and female leaders always want to discuss Sponsorship offline.

“As an over 40 career professional, I was mentored by a Millennial in Twomentor’s workshop. While it was great to learn about my mentor’s passion and hear her advice, what was even more important than the learning was the feeling we experienced. This pairing put me in a position of vulnerability and my mentor in a place of courage. And coming away from this, I realized these emotional states were exactly what each of us needed to grow who we are as career professionals. I needed a beginner’s mind, and she needed a stronger voice. Brilliant!”- Sarita Vasa, Participant

“Shake your partners hand, thank them for the great mentoring and we are ready for the next leg of the journey. Mile Seventeen: We live in a Global economy where new skills are required… Lifelong learning is required. Please share a technology… “

Attendees moved on and then moved on again to Mile 84. The business cards were exchanged, the new connections made, dozens of follow-up coffee dates planned and then we pulled into our rest stop to refuel and say our goodbyes for now… continuing our learning for the day.

Reflecting in the rear-view mirror, Flash mentoring is an effective jump-start to the culture of mentoring at organizations. It does not replace a strong, metrics-based high performing mentoring initiative, it simply revs the engine and can ignite the value-proposition + clarity for groups to get started. A lot of companies are trying a low-touch solution for a high-touch problem. Well, that’s where we come in. Flash mentoring is dynamic, it’s inclusive, and it’s fun whether 40 people are in the room or 1400.

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Julie Kantor is the Founder & CEO of Twomentor LLC and passionate about elevating women in STEM and driving mentoring cultures. You can reach her directly at info@twomentor.com Learn about Twomentor including webinars, peer to peer world cafe learning and much more.

 

They Got Fired! Would Mentoring Have Saved Them?

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Written by Julie Kantor and Delia Borbone

Today our team sat in the ‘war room’ of Twomentor’s global headquarters (that means, a single office in Bethesda with three summer associates, a consultant and a very fatigued White Havanese pup named Naomi). One of our team members brought to our attention a Inc. magazine article by Alison Green of an unusual and saddening summer internship circumstance. A group of interns did not understand the strict dress code of the company they were working for and decided to submit a proposal asking for minor modifications in the dress code. The company responded by holding a meeting, where all the interns who signed the proposal were terminated.

We scoured through the comments and there were interesting debates on corporate culture, etiquette, and who was the party to blame. But we realized that bottom line, our Millennial and Generation Z workforce are coming to us to learn and be mentored so we want to equip you with 8 recommendations on being an effective mentor:

1] Listen- To be a successful mentor, you must be an attentive listener. This shows that you are genuinely interested in what is going on in your mentee’s life. Listen closely to gain a better understanding of where he/she is coming from, and to help you advise them appropriately. Find out what your mentee knows and what her/his blindspots might be as a newcomer in the working world.

2] Balanced- A mentee comes to you to share news, to ask for advice and opinions, and sometimes to let out their frustrations. Your job is not to agree with everything your mentee says, but to help him/her think rationally about situations and approach them from a level headed perspective. Perhaps an internal mentor would have advised the interns not to develop a signed petition with a greater enlightenment of the corporate culture (we write as we stand here in flip flops and jeans- just kidding!)

3] Trust- Your mentee is going to come to you with all sorts of things, some of which may be personal or things they don’t want shared with others. He/she is telling you this because they trust you and value your advice. This is a great honor. It is imperative to keep conversations confidential and not break your mentee’s trust, unless it is a violation of HR policies or could cause real harm to the individual/company.

4] Be Open and Try Not to Judge- Mentoring requires a willingness to share about your own experiences that relate to your mentee’s queries, and be able to give thoughtful advice. Better yet, if you can lead your mentee to finding his/her own conclusions through your stories. The more open and authentic you are, the more open to sharing your mentee will be as well. You also must be open-minded. Unexpected conversations and situations are very likely, however you are here to help and advise, not judge.

5] Availability- Mentoring is a time commitment, and regular meetings are crucial in developing a good relationship. No matter how much you like your mentee, if you don’t have the time for them it is best to let them know and help them find a different mentor who can devote more time. We move into an era of skills-based mentoring as older generations are learning to pass the baton and embrace reverse mentoring in the workplace.

6] Model- You are being watched. “Just while observing you, mentees pick up many things: ethics, values and standards; style, beliefs and attitudes; methods and procedures. They are likely to follow your lead, adapt your approach to their own style, and build confidence through their affiliation with you. As a mentor, you need to be keenly aware of your own behavior.” (E. Wayne Hart, Forbes.com)

7] Honesty- “If you’re brave enough to ask your mentor for advice, he or she needs to be brave enough to give you a straight answer. If you’re contemplating taking a new job, for instance, and you explain the situation and ask for your mentor’s point of view – he or she should give it to you, unvarnished.” (Erika Andersen, Forbes.com)

8] Goal Oriented- “A good mentor continually sets a good example by showing how his/her personal habits are reflected by personal and professional goals and overall personal success.” (Franchise Growth Partners)

Both the interns and the managers of the company might have approached this situation differently, and ideally with a mentoring lens. Anyone who brings on an intern is onboarding our future workforce and taking the extra steps is often the difference between success and failure (see articles ‘Ready to Go the Extra Mile for Your Interns and ‘Interning With Your Best Foot Forward’). Despite the unfortunate outcome for the interns and company, we know this is a learning opportunity for all involved and all readers. We sincerely hope that they will land well next summer if not sooner with a new viable opportunity.

Twomentor, LLC, is a management consulting firm that provides mentor training, strategy, flash mentoring sessions and global speaking to elevate women and better retain Millennials in the workforce. We believe in mentoring cultures.

Don’t Have Time to Mentor? You Might Want to Rethink That

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“I have talked more people off a ledge from leaving our company,” said Cheryl* CEO to her leadership team. I watched her in awe. She is a true leader who gets the power of people, the power of a pay-it-forward culture. After all, she was part of a strong chain of leaders who championed her and she respectfully claims that honor and wants to see the legacy continue. With the cost of losing an employee is 100–300% salary (SHRM), I cannot help but start putting dollars on a virtual excel spreadsheet for all the casualties that did not happen as a result of her interventions. The value of those authentic talks. The value of taking the time to see the people who work with you, for you, your peeps, your companies future.

Cheryl put a much stronger stake in the ground when she announced that she was connecting bonuses to “how we invest in our people,” with mentoring being one key strategy. She understands that an investment in people = a stronger workplace culture = retention = engagement + productivity = =revenue and ROI= more smiles.

As I took the stage at Cheryl’s conference, Bob’s conference, Darren’s corporate conference and dozens more through my work @Twomentor I always ask the question “How many of you have a mentor and/or someone you go to for professional advice?” The answer, please take this in, is under 40% even in the highest levels of our rockstar companies. I ask what the impact has been of having a mentor (or sponsor)? I “wouldn’t be where I am today”, “my mentor challenged me,” “he believed in me, changed my life” “kicked my a — and showed me where I needed to grow,” and so much more).

My next question is “How many of you currently mentor other people?” Always under 20% stand up. WHAT@!#! Most companies err in believing mentoring should just happen holistically. I believe more and more we need to engineer it in a dynamic fun way with creative flexibility. I believe people are afraid to look weak in asking for help or intrusive in offering help. But the help of each other is the bridge where magic occurs.

We also are confronting a loneliness epidemic in our country and it’s hitting our youngest the hardest. It’s not just “lonely at the top” anymore. In fact, recent overall studies that show that 54% of American’s feeling lonely and isolated.

Darren stood up at the conference after a flash mentoring session. He had a management problem that was nagging him for weeks related to his new promotion. “I was concerned about it every waking moment,” he shared. He found his answer and began action planning following a speed mentoring conversation with a seasoned leader. “When he was talking, chills just went over my body,” said Darren at the conference. “I knew he was right and I had gone to my manager and others, but he was the one who made me see a solution I hadn’t seen.”

Nice to have or have to have? I have the time or I don’t have time is the question you will have to answer for yourself and your company. … and having a leader like Cheryl at the top quadruples the chance of systemic success.

For your own time, if you go with “Yes” I will carve out 10–20 hours a year to mentor others or ask for help, get started. Schedule that walk and talk or that drive to Peet’s Coffee.

“Mentoring is a muscle you flex, it grows stronger the more you use it,” says Cheryl.

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Julie Kantor and her team at Twomentor are here to help you build or boost a sustainable mentoring initiative to retain your best talent. She can be reached at julie@twomentor.com 

Want to Keep Your Millennials — Mentor Them

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Written with Bridget McKeogh

There seems to be a profound disconnect in the workforce between Millennials (1984 – 2012), Generation Xers (1965 – 1983), Baby Boomers (1946 – 1964) and Greatest Generation/Traditionalists (1930 – 1946). The complaints are rampant.

But there is also something pretty clear across the board that we can all own. Every Gallup study shows that the overall workforce is disengaged to some extent. Yes, that means you or someone who works in close proximity to you is likely counting the minutes to five pm. Last week Gallup reported that the U.S employee engagement average for November was 32.1%. That’s one out of every three people! And the number ticks up higher the older you are. In 2014 Gallup reported Traditionalists have 42.2% engagement, 32.7% for Baby boomers, 32.2% for Generation X, and just 28.9% of Millennials report that they are engaged at work.

By 2020, Millennials will become the largest generation in the workforce.

Millennials tend to frustrate corporate America with a sense of ‘entitlement.’ It is widely viewed that they are ‘coddled’ by their Baby Boomer parents, told they could be anything, not willing to pay their dues. One friend, an entrepreneur Julie Beck, shared how she had been so ‘Millennialed’ this year, she even coined the phrase. Two Millennials transitioned in unprofessional manners, one by a text message! Don’t they care about having a positive reference? Millennials tend to stay in jobs for under two years and don’t seem as motivated by the career track, raises and other incentives that are the mainstay of corporate America.

Over the past few years, I have seen and worked with a great number of Millennials and observed the lack of mentoring the ‘older’ generations are offering them. Why are we not investing? Are we threatened by their confidence, desire to lead? Given our own low engagement scores in the workplace, have we become too cranky?

But let’s go deeper into the issues, the problems, and millennial mentoring as part of the solution to train and retain our newer and high-potential talent:

According to a key study by Intelligence Group (a division of the Creative Artist Agency), we get some keen insight:

72% of Millennials would like to be their own boss, but if they have to work for a boss, 79% would want that boss to serve more as a coach or a mentor. The study also shows that 88% of Millennials prefer a collaborative culture over a competitive culture and they are looking to make a difference in their professional lives. I think of Millennials often as the ‘purpose generation’.

As the workforce shifts, our society is challenged in finding enough STEM talent. STEM talent refers to the skills needed for almost every job (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). For example, there are millions of unfilled jobs that require STEM skills and STEM jobs tend to pay better (@40% so it’s a much clearer pathway to the middle class and arguably, the American Dream).

Goldman Sachs is among the first to publically put some big cards on the table publicly. On the front page of the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, they asked their Millennials to stay and promised that things will improve by offering clearer paths to promotions, experiences in different banking environments and mandating “No Work Saturdays”.

Another solution: creating Millennial Mentoring Cultures. This is what we focus on around the clock at Twomentor, LLC. Aligning mentoring to the whole fabric of the company, and part of people’s performance reviews. PGi released a study that dove into the millennial mindset. Of those millennials surveyed, 71% stated that they wanted meaningful connections at work and hope to find a “second family” in their coworkers. Additionally, 75% not only want millennial mentoring but deem it crucial for success. In the same survey, 70% of non-millennials say they are open to reverse mentoring. They acknowledge that 20-somethings have first-hand knowledge of social media and other technical practices and older employees want to learn! A majority of Millennials sited “not a good cultural fit” as a reason they left their job in the first three years. To retain the new majority in the workforce, companies need to align culture more to Millennial needs, and perhaps all of our needs to have more meaningful support and connection at work.

AN ECONOMIC BURDEN

Each time you lose someone good, you lose time and money. Forbes reported that the average cost to replace a millennial is 15k-25k. Goldman Sachs isn’t trying to retain Millennials solely out of the goodness of their hearts, retention is a significant economic issue. It’s good for business. Companies pour significant money into recruitment but programming around development and retention is given less attention and some of the behavior patterns of Millennials reflects that.

So bottom line, It’s time to get the human back in human capital.

Companies are made up of human beings not human doings, and an engaged workforce = ROI for the company and the people who make up the company.

The business case for millennial mentoring is so strong that in a Wharton study, people who mentor got promoted 6x more than people who didn’t and mentees were promoted 5x more. …And retention was 20% higher in both groups five years later- YEAH, that’s what we are talking about! Most companies have informal mentoring programs or aspirations, if you want to capture ROI, look at metrics that can be captured- after all, you get what you measure.

The way we see it, there is no downside to millennial mentoring. Mentors and mentees are more engaged and better positioned for advancement. Engagement equals retention and retention saves time and money. Put in a little time and effort now, to save big headaches later. What is there to lose?

Four Key Benefits of Workplace Mentoring Initiatives

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Co-written with A. Crosser

Q: What increases employees’ education and learning; saves company high turnover costs; develops leadership and management skills; and saves people time and money to focus on the big priorities?

A: Workplace Mentoring

When examining companies and how they became remarkably successful, one trait which stands above many others: successful companies have excellent leaders, and with excellent leaders come excellent employees. Leadership and guidance is very important to success in nearly every field, and workplace mentoring is one way to provide personalized leadership for both new and tenured employees. Skills-based Mentoring is part of on boarding to teach new executives the company ropes and to help them excel and grow as they continue their position.

Mentoring programs are becoming increasingly popular in workplaces, as they help in reducing turnover, promoting growth, and overall help employees adjust to new positions as well as become prepared to move up in the company. We shared earlier that over 79% of Millennials see mentoring as crucial to their career success. According to Chronus Corporation, over 71 percent of Fortune 500 companies offer mentoring programs, showing that mentoring programs are becoming a standard in many workplaces. This begs the question, why are so many successful businesses incorporating mentoring programs, and what benefits do mentoring programs offer?

  1. Education and Learning

There is no debate that educated, well-trained employees produce better results in the workplace than employees who lack knowledge and training. Nearly 80 percent of all learning is considered to be informal, meaning that it is not done by reading or taking classes, but rather by learning on the job and from others. By introducing mentoring programs, businesses can ensure that their employees are able to complete their work with knowledge of the field and their position. Mentors will elevate and escalate “knowledge transfer,” which is useful in shortening a learning curve in the workplace, meaning that companies can have highly-productive employees in a much shorter period of time then they would have had mentors not been implemented.

  1. Reducing Turnover Rates

One of the main benefits of mentoring programs is that mentors can play a major role in reducing the turnover of employees, meaning that the company will not have to invest in training new employees as often as they would with a higher turnover. Diversity & Inclusion leader Dresdene Flynn-White shared with us that the loss of one good employee costs on average a years salary. By providing personalized advice to a mentee, a mentor can help to ensure that employees will work through any frustrations or concerns they may have, help them build the skills they need for success, encouraging them to stay with the company and grow there for a longer period of time. By keeping employee turnover rates low, companies will continually have experienced personnel, rather than the burden of constantly training new employees to replace those who left.

 

  1. Development of Leadership and Management Skills

Having employees who are ready to step into management positions in the business with minimal training is highly valuable, as it reduces the need for external hiring, ultimately saving the company time and money. By implementing a mentoring initiative, mentors can assist in teaching leadership skills to employees showing potential for future leadership positions. In addition, mentors reduce turnover rates, meaning that providing mentors for high potential employees will improve the chances of them staying with the company long enough to progress into a leadership position, reducing the need for outside hires.

  1. Time Savings and Focus

Implementing mentorship strategies is an excellent way to save time in the workplace. By implementing mentors, employees with questions or concerns can often work with the mentor on a resolution or answer, reducing the time needed to get tasks finished, which overall improves productivity. Mentors also reduce the formal training necessary for new employees; by providing new employees with a ‘project-based’ mentor, they can learn on the job, rather than in a training room. Managers and bosses will can therefore spend more time working on tasks more imperative to the success of the company, making mentoring a win-win for the employees and the company leaders alike.

So bottom line, mentoring can be a WIN/WIN/WIN (for the company, the mentor, and the mentee) but it has to be imbedded formally into the culture of the company. A need to have, not a nice to have. Additionally, recognizing & valuing employees who take time to mentor and those who lead the initiatives needs to be on every HR and team leader’s priority list.

References:

http://chronus.com/resources/daimler-trucks-reinvents-corporate-mentoring-program

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/04/19/peer-mentoring

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1736

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefit-company-gain-mentoring-programs-20665.html#

https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/the-importance-of-having-a-mentor-in-business

Julie Kantor is the CEO of Twomentor, LLC a management consulting firm that provides mentor training, strategy and global speaking to elevate women and millennials in STEM.