What is mentoring and what are the mentoring types?

different mentoring types

What is mentoring?

Before what is mentoring and what are the mentoring types? Turn back your first day at your work. As a junior employee, you probably had a hard time not only adapting to the corporate culture but also doing your work duties, right? Don’t pass the mentoring!

And in that time, surely an experienced person or “guru” who can get you off the challenges you face would be perfect, right?

Everyone experiences these challenges at the beginning of their career, and it affects workers’ productivity negatively when companies overlook these challenges. For companies who want more productive and loyal employees, the solution to get rid of these problems is mentoring. But what is mentoring in the business world?

Mentoring is the employee learning system that builds an ongoing relationship between a senior or a more experienced person(mentor) and junior. 

The aim of mentoring is to tap into the existing knowledge, skills, and experience of high performing people and transfer the capabilities of such a person to younger employees.

Mentoring provides guidance and a clear understanding of how the company goes to achieve its vision and mission to the junior employee. A successful mentoring program will not only help retain employees but also it will assist companies’ training efforts and help boost employee morale.

So, mentoring is an excellent way for companies who want to gain a loyal and talented workforce for their organization.

What are the Mentoring Types?

There are different types of mentoring for companies that want to boost their worker’s performance. Let’s look at them together.

1) One-to-one mentoring

One-to-one mentoring model is the most common model of mentoring types. It matches one mentor with one mentee and allows both mentor and mentee to build a personal relationship. Also, it provides individual support for mentee.

2) Group mentoring

Group mentoring or mentoring circles typically consists of a group of several individuals being mentored by one mentor, usually with the ratio of one mentor for every two to three mentees, but no individual mentor being allocated to a mentee.

Group mentoring consists of the group of junior employees/peers and a mentor. The mentor and the mentees are gathering and helping each other to learn and develop their skills and knowledge. It is more structured rather than one-to-one mentoring, as scheduling is necessary to accommodate everyone.

3) Formal mentoring (Structured mentoring)

Formal mentoring is a type where mentoring relationship is designed and structured according to some guidelines and targets. Mentors and mentees are matched according to certain criteria. They are informed about the boundaries, trained about the targets and program expectations. Then mentors and mentees follow these guidelines and engage in the direction of the mentoring program target. This type is one of the most utilized corporate mentoring programs in the workplace.

4) Informal mentoring (Unstructured mentoring)

On the other hand informal mentoring has an unstructured charachteristics. Sometimes organizations want to apply informal mentoring just to increase the engagement and improve personal relationships and networking rather than a learning and development target. Informal mentoring does not have strict guidelines about mentor mentee pairs. Mentors and mentees define their own pace and their own targets.

5) Remote mentoring (Virtual mentoring)

Remote mentoring is preferred when the mentor and the mentee do not work in the same location, or they are working as a remote worker. Mentors and mentees communicate through phone, video conferencing, email, or social networking. It is similar to one-to-one mentoring except for face-to-face communication, and it is as effective as one-to-one mentoring too.

6) Skill-based mentoring

Skill-based mentoring consists directly of a specific training program. A mentor is assigned to a mentee to improve his particular skills via training program courses. However, it is limited because it focuses only on a subject rather than the overall development of the mentee.

7) Executive Mentoring

Executive mentoring model is a very effective way for companies who want to create a mentoring culture, develop skills and knowledge within the organization. Because executives already have an understanding of how to be successful, have an experience of sharing and teaching their expertise and knowledge, it will be a great learning process for mentees. This mentoring type also prevents losing the accumulation of knowledge when executives leave or retire from the company.

Contact us for further details how we can apply different mentoring types in your organization.

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