What is mentoring and how it can help...

 Peer to Peer Learning

Mentoring is a reciprocal and collaborative at-will relationship that most often occurs between a senior and junior employee for the purpose of the mentee’s growth, learning, and career development. Often the mentor and mentee are internal to an organization, and there is an emphasis on organizational goals, culture, career goals, advice on professional development, and work-life balance. Effective mentors often act as role models and sounding boards for their mentee and provide guidance to help them reach their goals.

Mentoring can be formal or informal. In an informal environment, mentees set goals, but they are usually not measurable and the relationships are unstructured. For a formal mentoring relationship, there are actionable and measurable goals defined and set with determined requirements.

Mentoring is not coaching and not counseling. Mentoring relationships are based upon advice giving and direction while coaching is not. Counseling is a paid-relationship in which underlying mental or psychological issues are addressed with solutions given by a medical professional.

Why Is Mentoring Important?

A good mentor can help the mentee become more effective at work, learn new skills, develop greater confidence, and make better decisions for their overall career growth.

Mentors report many benefits as well, including satisfaction from seeing others develop; expanded generational and cultural perspectives; strengthening of technical, leadership, and interpersonal skills; and continuing to experience new ideas and insights.

Mentoring Techniques or Models

One-on-One Mentoring: This type of mentoring is the most traditional of all the types of mentoring. Only the mentor and mentee are involved in this type of mentoring, and it is usually a more-experienced individual paired with a less-experienced or much younger mentee.
Group Mentoring: In this model, one or several mentors work with a group of mentees. Schools and youth programs often apply this model because there may not be enough time or resources to have one mentor for each participant.

Peer Mentoring: Participants in this model are from the same role or department or have shared or similar experiences, whether in their professional or personal lives. These peers pair up to offer support for each other. This can be a group or a one-on-one me