The fresher pool is often the group that gets the worst hit because they are mostly treated as easily replaceable, especially when one seems to be confused and uncomfortable with the new work environment. Here is where the idea of getting a mentor, specifically working along with you to help improve and get oriented to the job environment in the shortest possible span of time, comes into place. These days, most successful businesses and firms have an in-built mentorship program as a default set-up. This has been brought into effect to improve the overall work experience of the fresher while getting him ready to work with the best possible efficacy right from the start. There are several benefits of using a mentorship program within a set-up, especially with the freshers. Here is a brief explanation to help you understand a few of them.
Career development
Though this is directly not concerned with the benefit of the business itself, the mentor provides appropriate advice and clarifications based on any queries regarding the individual progress and career decisions pertaining to the mentee. The freshers are mostly straight out of university after completing their courses like masters in management, etc. This makes them absolute rookies to the professional stream who are still doubtful about how their career plan should be made and several other aspects of their future personal plans with respect to their profession and career. The mentor, in this case, is better informed and knowledgeable about the field itself and can help the mentee design his future by the provision of certain corrections and modifications to his plan. This could be either a result of the personal experience of the mentor itself, as he or she definitely has a significant number of years into the job.
Promotes a learning culture
Having an individual guiding a new recruit takes off a lot of pressure from their shoulders. The mentor can assist the mentee at the initial stages until he or she gets familiar with the methods and other learning aspects related to the job. Promoting such a form of learning culture where the individuals constantly collect and share information is helpful in reducing load as well. With the current highly competitive environment, almost every individual is forced to constantly load up on a huge amount of information regarding his or her field with every update being made. This requires a lot of individual effort, hard work, and a meticulous research process. The process of identifying required information and methods of approaching new kinds of situations and problems is something the mentees have to learn when they enter a job. These might be stressful and confusing for them, as they have no prior experience or training.
Personal and professional development
Being in a job, an individual is prone to get stuck under procrastination and stress when left alone. The presence of a mentor with whom they are absolutely comfortable provides a sense of safety to the mentee. Having such a safe space where they understand that it is okay to make mistakes allows for them to learn even better. In order to facilitate self-development, be it personal or professional, an individual must be allowed to make a few mistakes, and the mentor could guide the individual and provide required support during such a crisis. A mentor can also act as an information reservoir when the mentee finds themselves stuck with a problem or issue with their work. Asking for reliable advice from the mentor can help boost their work progression and prevent slumping.
Cut down costs
Usually, businesses spend a significant amount of funds trying to help the newly recruited individuals get used to their work and familiarize themselves with the workplace. They organize several workshops, learning programs, and skill lab training sessions. Moreover, these workshops have to be organized at numerous points in time and whenever required. Assigning each recruit to a specific mentor within the firm or business is obviously way more cost-efficient than having to organize so many programs, and the mentorship programs have also shown better results over time. Hence, the introduction of mentor-mentee training has helped the businesses cut down corners, benefiting the overall profits.
Leadership development
Being able to guide a team of members while working on a project together is something which is expected out of any individual these days due to the rampant increase in the number of group projects. Since this is mostly a skill acquired upon practice rather than material knowledge, directly getting words of advice from the experienced mentor can help the mentee make better progress in his leadership qualities. Nowadays, various online learning platforms and online management courses have started using the assistance of mentorship programs by online modes because of its highly beneficial results. These courses provide added benefits of leadership training as well.
Individual support
The mentor is not always meant for help only regarding issues concerning work. The mentor acts as a personal support system to the mentee, providing necessary advice and appropriate means to approach any personal issues which he or she might face at any point in life. This includes helping with acquiring financial support and loans, individual counseling to manage stress or anxiety, familial crises, and other issues that may arise. This is more important than it seems, because especially as a new recruit, one is prone to get overwhelmed by the sudden implications of so much responsibility and workload, and may lead to severe issues. Having a person to turn back to in such situations provides additional confidence to the individual, thereby boosting morale.
Works both ways
The mentorship program does not necessarily have to remain uni-directional. There are situations that might allow the mentor to learn a few bits of information from the mentee as well, thereby adding to the improvement of both the involved individuals simultaneously. This technique of reverse mentoring is especially useful when there is a pairing of a mentor and mentee separated by a significant number of years. There might be a generation gap regarding several aspects, which thus bridges the space easily and effectively by exchanging information.
Key takeaways
The relationship between the mentor and mentee might be subjective to many factors, and it can take longer to find the mentor that perfectly fits your ideals as a mentee. This wait is absolutely worth it because once you get a mentor that you are absolutely comfortable with, you should be able to notice a drastic improvement in your work and aspects of your career as well.
Bottom line
However one might look at it, the benefits obtained by an effective mentorship program remain significantly huge, which is why the several establishments have started implementing such programs within their system. Check out Great Learning for more information regarding such programs and courses.
