Why You NEED a Workplace Mentoring Program in 2023

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For many organisations across the globe, the notion of a mentoring program isn’t a new thing. Mentoring has been around for years, evolving and adapting as the year's pass. Over the last decade, we’ve seen a huge spike in the number of organisations implementing a mentoring program, due to not only the impressive benefits associated but also the growing demand from employees to have one in place.

Great leaders recognise the value of helping their employees develop both personally and professionally, and mentoring is a highly effective way to help employees succeed in their roles. Whether you're developing your learning and development strategy for 2023, or already have a mentoring program in place and want to learn more about it, mentoring is a great opportunity that many organisations can’t afford to miss out on.

This article will explore the benefits of mentoring and why you should consider implementing a mentoring program in 2023 to combat upcoming challenges faced by Human Resource (HR) and Learning and Development (L&D) managers.

The Benefits of Mentoring Programs

As mentioned above, when it comes to workplace mentoring programs, the benefits are impressive, not only for your mentors and mentees but the overall organisation, with each type of mentoring program having a direct impact on the outcome and objectives you and your employees achieve. When it comes to mentoring, some of the benefits include:

Benefits of mentoring for employees:

• Career guidance and support: Whether your employees are facing specific limitations, looking to progress within their career or want to switch roles entirely, mentoring is a great approach to supplying them with the guidance and support they need to move forward .

• Upskilling: An organisational mentoring program, is perfect for helping upskill and evolve your employees. With mentoring, both the mentor and mentee can enhance their existing skillset, whilst acquiring new ones to help boost their performance within their role.

• Networking: One of the main benefits of mentoring is its ability to open further networking possibilities for participants. The constant growth of a professional network is a favourable and practical thing to do, allowing your employees to connect with other professionals, find new opportunities and form trusting relationships.

• New perspectives: All your employees have unique perspectives on how they not only view certain problems but also the world. Gaining new perspectives is incredibly important for all members of your team to help them develop within their careers. Fresh outlooks provide participants with knowledge that can help them understand situations better and make better deacons going forward.

• Improved well-being and mental health: Mentoring is highly impactful in improving the mental health and well-being of your employees. Being able to connect with someone to discuss work issues and learn from in a trusting environment without fear, is essential to keep a happy workforce. Mentoring has also been linked to reducing stress and anxiety, due to the possibility to combat the problems they face with the support of another individual.

• Increased job satisfaction: A massive 9 in 10 workers with a mentor say they feel more satisfied within their career. When your employees feel satisfied within their role besides feeling happier, it also has a direct impact on the organisation, being linked to boosted productivity, motivation and improved retention rates.

• Better decision-making: Providing your employees with the opportunity to connect with their mentor to gain an outside opinion, is priceless. The ability to seek advice from someone allows them to make better decisions and truly prosper in their careers.

Benefits of mentoring for organisations:

• Reduced training costs: Mentoring programs mean your organisation can significantly decrease the cost of training for your employees. External training courses are a costly part of learning and development, but when you have mentors in place, they can act as part of the onboarding or employee training process. Mentoring also promotes learning across all departments, allowing participants to progress faster.

• It creates a learning culture: When you have a mentoring program in the workplace, you're creating an organisational culture that not only values the learning and progression of employees but encourages it. When your employees feel like they're being invested in and their development is being taken seriously, it inspires them to continue learning. Mentoring also promotes collaborative learning within the working environment and improves knowledge sharing.

• Improved diversity, equity and inclusion: Mentoring provides the opportunity for improved DE&I within the workplace, allowing minority employees to get the support and guidance they need to progress, whilst sharing their perspectives and insight into differences that could be used to support the organisation as a whole.

• Attract and retain top talent: Mentoring is now becoming an incredibly popular tool used by organisations as a way to help attract and retain talent. Mentoring helps entice talent by showcasing to potential employees that your organisation is willing to invest in their careers, whilst also retaining staff by providing them with the encouragement and support they need to develop both personally and professionally.

• Better leaders: A workplace mentoring program is a proven way to help create powerful internal leaders and develop the managers of the future. Mentoring programs allow participants to gain the leadership skills they need and can also be used to team less experienced leaders with seniors so they can learn how leadership already operates in the organisation.

If you want to learn more about the benefits of mentoring, check out our in-depth article here.

Challenges Organisations Will Face in 2023

Now you know more about the amazing benefits of mentoring for both your employees and the organisation itself, this section will focus on five challenges/trends expected to impact both Human Resource (HR) and Learning and Development (L&D) Managers in 2023, further exploring how mentoring can be a useful tool to resolve these hurdles.

1. Effective leaders and managers: A study by Gartner revealed that making sure leaders and managers are effective is going to be a big focus in 2023 for 60% of HR leaders, with a further 24% stating that their current leadership development approach is currently not preparing leaders for the future of work. With the workforce continually evolving and the priorities of employees, there are now more expectations than ever for the leaders of an organisation, increasing their workload and list of obligations. Mentoring is a great way to develop the leaders of tomorrow, different types of mentoring programs such as reverse mentoring allow the leaders and managers within your organisation to gain a deeper understanding of employees and further extend their knowledge.

2. Digital transformation: Digital transformation can be defined as the act of replacing conventional methods and technology and incorporating digital technology and software into the organisation, completely changing the way organisations function daily. Whilst technology is something that is always evolving and changing, over the last few years we’ve seen a spike in the number of innovative technologies coming to light. Digital transformation is a huge change for any organisation and its employees. That’s why it’s more necessary than ever to try and stay ahead of the game to stay in the competition. These changes can prove challenging for L&D managers and more senior employees, as seen with any organisational change. Reverse mentoring programs are a tool that can be used to combat these challenges, helping your employees adapt to the transformations.

3. Talent attraction and retainment: One of the most concerning challenges impacting HR managers, is the ability to attract and retain top talent. Since 2020, we’ve seen an increase in the number of individuals not only switching job roles but changing industries completely. Whilst this has always been a problem faced, the increase has meant that more organisations are now needing to change their strategies to meet the demands and wants of the workforce. With more individuals now than ever desiring more from their employers, HR managers are now making sure employee engagement and experience are of top priority, with a study from Gartner showing that employee experience is now the main objective for 47% of HR leaders in 2023. Mentoring programs are now being used by organisations to combat these issues, not only helping attract employees but also retraining them by providing them with the development they need to keep them engaged and satisfied in the workplace.

4. Hybrid working: Hybrid and flexible working is here to stay. In 3 years, we’ve seen a huge shift in the way organisations work and how employees want to manage their workload. With nearly half of UK employees (47%) stating that they would consider leaving their role, if they were not offered flexibility in when and where they work, organisations can no longer afford to ignore the needs of the workforce. With the introduction of hybrid and flexible working, have come many benefits such as increased employee satisfaction, employees being able to have a better work-life balance and reduce expenses. However, there have also been some hardships that come with it. Onboarding, loneliness and development have been some of the main problems faced by organisations since the population of hybrid working. Mentoring programs are an effective way of onboarding employees, because who better to learn from, than someone who has already done it? Not only is it an increasingly popular tool used to help improve the onboarding process, but can be used to combat loneliness by allowing individuals to connect and develop together.

5. Company culture: A common issue shared by L&D and HR leaders is the ability to create a thriving workplace culture. Traditionally, organisations invested resources trying to create a productive and fun organisational culture in the office, but with the rise of hybrid working which also meant organisations we’re now able to operate globally and attract talent from all over, creating a thriving organisational culture has become a difficult task for leaders, who are trying to discover new ways to nurture an organisational culture virtually. A good workplace culture comes with many benefits such as improved productivity, increased innovative ideas and fostered collaboration, that’s why it’s paramount that HR and L&D teams regularly adapt and build an effective culture for the workforce. Mentoring programs enable employees to connect, develop and share knowledge across the organisation, helping enhance an organisation's company culture and creating one that values the learning and development of all employees.

Final Thoughts

Mentorship programs aren't something you can just throw into place and expect to work overnight, they take hard work and dedication to ensure they are successful, however, they are completely worth it. Now that you know more about the benefits of mentoring and the upcoming challenges faced by HR and L&D in 2023, you can truly understand why more organisations are implementing workplace mentoring programs to create a thriving and successful workforce.

If you want to know more about how mentoring can be used within your organisation, then book a free demonstration with PushFar today. We’re the world’s leading mentoring platform, helping thousands of organisations across the globe fulfil their mentoring needs and help their employees go further.