How important is it to establish a mentoring relationship between the experienced members of your team and new recruits?

Onboarding and pairing new recruits with mentors is extremely important. It welcomes them into the team, gives them an important insight into how the business works as a whole, and demonstrates how they fit into the team. Once we gain a sense of our new recruit’s strengths and weaknesses, we match them with their mentor soon after.

Unfortunately, many companies out there fail to take onboarding seriously, thinking of it as a one-off discussion where new recruits complete a few forms and watch videos; tackling mentoring with a simple, “just ask if you need anything” approach. But mentorship, matched and delivered appropriately, helps new employees gain knowledge and develop their skills.

Our team puts mentorship at the heart of everything we do, because we understand its benefits and the positive impact on mentored employees, mentors, and our organisation. More traditional workplaces tend to place their senior employees in a mentoring role, guiding the professional development of junior colleagues. But we see that age and organisational hierarchies don’t necessarily prove to have the best outcomes within a multigenerational company.

We believe it is more important to have mentors with specific experience which can help others learn. This can sometimes involve our younger employees sharing their knowledge of ever evolving technology and trends with their older colleagues, and vice versa. Team members also learn from each other. We have found that mentoring isn’t one-way; it is a mutually beneficial relationship.

Our mentoring programme encourages goal setting and assigns each new recruit an achievable objective from their very first mentor meeting. This ethos is crucial to work performance, increased job satisfaction, and has led to greater opportunity for promotions and advancement. There is also evidence to suggest that those workers who have a mentor are more satisfied with their roles. But of course, no successful mentoring relationship can run on autopilot. It needs continual input and nurturing from both sides.

The benefits aren’t limited to mentees. We have found that our mentors report higher job satisfaction and higher career success, too. As an employer, we are always looking for ways to improve the outcomes for our employees and our organisation. The benefits of mentoring are seen across the board, both between seasoned professionals and new recruits. And ensures everyone has the tools they need to succeed.