Mentoring in the workplace can motivate individual contributors to learn and grow, expose them to new perspectives and best practices from more experienced employees, and build a culture of learning and growth.
Surveys have reported that mentorship is critical to employee retention and satisfaction — especially for people of color and women. In fact, about 70% of Fortune 500 companies have an established mentoring program.
There’s even a National Mentoring Day, which focuses on sharing experiences and paying tribute to mentoring received or given. Celebrating this day is a reminder and encouragement for everyone to show their appreciation for mentoring and to recognize mentors who have made a difference.
55% of businesses felt that mentoring had a positive impact on their PROFITS. Source: mentorsme
Traditionally, mentorship and coaching have been in-person activities. You meet your mentor for coffee or stop by a colleague's desk and practice your sales pitch on them.
But then… (you know what I’m about to say…) The pandemic happened.
At first, it was easy to think that was the end of mentorship and workplace coaching programs. Two years later, we know it wasn’t the end. It was simply a shift to asynchronous, online options, like video coaching and practice technology.
"Coming together online doesn’t need to be the watered-down version of being together in-person; some things are actually better because of — not in spite of — being remote. Remote mentoring can promote equity and build relationships free from the biases we face in person, when we know another’s height, physical ability, or pregnancy status, to name a few examples,” say Marianna Tu and Michael Li in an article for the Harvard Business Review.
Using Technology to Create a Mentoring or Coaching Program
The first step toward creating a successful mentoring or coaching program is to define your purpose. Are your goals focused on specific skills application or long-term leadership development? Clarity of purpose goes a long way during your initial planning stages. Define clear benchmarks and goals.
Look for a technology solution that can provide consistency and structure, as well as detailed reporting if your focus is on skills acquisition.
Rehearsal, a video-based practice and coaching platform by ELB Learning, enables asynchronous coaching and guided learning for workers in many industries.
Companies like Paychex, 3M, and Honeywell use Rehearsal for Sales Enablement and Soft Skills Development.
Learners submit videos based on prompts given to them by trainers or mentors. Then, they’re given feedback on their responses by peers, mentors, or by artificial intelligence. They can also be prompted to respond/try again. Mentors or trainers can even create programs that adjust the learner’s path based on their performance.
Because Rehearsal works in the browser or a mobile app, learners and mentors don’t need to be in the same location or even the same time zone to benefit from each others’ knowledge.
Rehearsal is mentorship and coaching for a modern, digital world. Schedule a live demo today.
