Structured Mentoring: A Critical Component of a Global Talent Management Strategy

Abstract

Talent & Technology Competing for market share in a dynamic international marketplace, the front-runners are those who are able to build a skilled, global workforce through multifaceted strategies that enable them to align training, mentoring, and coaching initiatives and implement cutting-edge practices such as social and mobile learning. Structured mentoring forms the foundation of a well-designed talent management strategy. Well-designed mentoring programs enable organizations to align and seamlessly integrate training, coaching, and mentoring initiatives into holistic, personalized offerings. It is through successful structured mentoring programs that organizations are able to sustain a uniquely skilled and internally motivated workforce that sets them apart from their competition. Before looking at structured mentoring as a key learning strategy and overarching component of a comprehensive talent management strategy, briefly consider the components that form part of the typical organization’s talent management strategy. Structured mentoring affects each in a slightly different way. 1. Talent Acquisition. A good mentoring program is a powerful recruiting tool. Candidates tend to associate the quality of an organization’s professional development programs with future career opportunities. 2. Performance Management. Mentoring allows for the development of professional and personal relationships that facilitate internal motivation, effective teamwork and the timely and successful completion of performance objectives and realization of business goals. 3. Training and Development. Mentoring programs do not replace but complement training initiatives and allow for the development of tacit knowledge and complex skills that cannot be honed in any other way. 4. Talent Retention. Employee surveys and research studies suggest that employees who are involved in mentoring programs are more likely to report job satisfaction and less likely to seek other opportunities. Mentoring programs that span international boundaries also aid global mobility and increase the availability of attractive career opportunities. 5. Succession Planning. Mentoring programs seek and are supported by vibrant communities of practice that provide talent managers with the ability to identify talent pools from which positions could be effectively filled. While mentoring adds value to the overall talent management program, its effect is most visible in professional development. When we look at mentoring as a professional development or learning strategy, we need to consider the mentoring in relationship with training and clarify similarities and differences. Four simple definitions as shown in Table 1 may be helpful.