According to research parsed by Forbes®, Millennials planning to stay with their employer for more than 5 years are twice as likely to have a mentor (68%), compared to those who aren’t planning to stay (32%). And 81% of them are happy with their mentor. But among Millennials planning to leave their employer within 2 years, only 61% were happy with the mentoring they received.
So, it’s becoming important for employers to offer high-quality mentorship opportunities if they want to retain employees. And they should also consider offering employees different types of mentorship to keep them engaged for the duration of their careers. Traditional mentor-mentee relationships don’t always work for every single employee across an organization all the time.
There are five major types of mentors your employees will need to succeed at any organization, although they might need them at different times throughout their careers. Here, we’ll cover just two and in a follow-up post, we’ll cover the remaining three.
Master Mentor
Employees should have a manager or director who can teach them new tricks of their trade and continually challenge them to hone their craft or expertise. This mentor will always push them to do their best and achieve more and will hold them accountable. These mentors will also give them new projects to do on a regular basis that present challenges to overcome but are still attainable.
If necessary, you can attempt to look for master mentors who are external to your organization. For instance, a director in training might want to seek out a well-known and successful retired CEO.
This type of mentor will allow your employees to continually fine-tune their skills so that they can become experts inside your organization, as well as their chosen industry.
Advocate Mentor
Every employee should have a mentor who advocates for him or her and his or her abilities. This type of mentor takes a deeper personal interest in the professional success of his or her mentees and will advocate for them in front of others, as well as support his or her mentees’ different causes, ambitions, etc.
Whether their mentees are promoting a new company policy or applying for a new role within your organization, advocate mentors will recommend their mentees to others and try to foster valuable connections on behalf of their mentees.
Mentors who are advocates for their mentees often have a close personal relationship with them and genuinely care for the well-being of their mentees and like to touch base with them often.
Most often, they will work behind the scenes to connect their mentees with appropriate opportunities and projects and will gladly and confidently endorse their mentees’ achievements to others.
If your employees have mentors who are genuinely invested in their professional success and who believe in them, they will achieve more and work harder.
Tomorrow’s post will highlight the other three types of mentors your employees need to succeed.