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In this issue, we focus on the power of peer mentoring
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Greetings!
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We are in the dog days of summer and the temperatures have been sizzling!
Hot weather, long lazy days and vacation schedules can make summer a difficult time to implement new skill building programs or improvement initiatives. But these months can be a great time to take stock of existing resources that can be efficiently leveraged to help support or drive the professional development of employees.
As human resource professionals, many of us can help to leverage one of these main internal resources, our employees, by engaging them in a peer mentoring program. This issue focuses on some best practices to help your organization consider the implementation of a peer mentoring program or perhaps revitalize an existing program.
In this edition we have two Client Spotlight articles. The first is about an innovative symposium session on Speed Mentoring for the Massachusetts Division of Banks. The second focuses on a
Transformational Management mentoring model
implemented by the Springfield Police Department
known as "Shift".
Our recommended vendor in this issue is
The River,
an innovative firm specifically focused on offering an online mentoring platform. Our Staff Spotlight welcomes the newest member of our team, Jacob Ward. Lastly, we share our ten best practices for peer mentoring.
For information on how we can help your organization with its Organizational Development Consulting, Learning Solutions and Event Management needs, read on and be sure to visit us:
www.donahue.umassp.edu/odls
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Dana L. Henry, ODLS Director
(617) 287-4068
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Dana Henry Presents "Influencing for Impact" at UMass Lowell Women's Leadership Conference
Building skills to increase influence is one of the top skill sets on which employees request mentoring.
In June, Dana Henry led a session on Influencing for Impact to approximately 130 conference attendees. The foundational approach for teaching people to improve their influencing skills is to help individuals increase their flexibility in how they approach influence situations. The model does this by first helping individuals understand the bases of power that are available to them.
Additionally, the power available to you is based on the perspective of the individual you are trying to influence.
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New at ODLS!
Spotlights
Useful Resources
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Client Spotlight #1: The Division of Banks
The Division of Banks (DOB) asked us to provide an engaging session to the entire DOB staff on motivational theories that can drive professional development. The session, which took place during the Annual Training Symposium, focused on peer mentoring using an interactive custom design to meet the following objectives:
- Understand motivational theories and personal motivators
- Learn about the GROW Coaching model
- Identify personal mentoring goals and draft plan
- (potentially) Form mentoring relationship to provide mentoring to a peer(s)
Client Spotlight #2: The Springfield Police Department
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The Springfield Police Department
implemented their unique Transformational Management mentoring model, referred to as "Shift", to focus on improving
the management skills of the civilian side of the organization.
The mentoring model provides the following capabilities:
1. Live group mentoring
2. One-on-one access outside of meetings
The weekly live mentoring time is used to discuss challenges posted by group
members. Each individual is given their own mentoring time including a plan to address specific challenges. One-on-one access is utilized outside of the
group time if a team member comes across an issue requiring additional support. A
video or voice call is scheduled and the immediate issue is addressed.
ODLS Staff Spotlight: Jacob Ward
We would like to introduce our new Project Coordinator who just started in July, Jacob Ward.
Jacob has over 5 years of project management and consulting experience, mainly in the higher education sector. Most recently, Jacob assisted in the development and implementation of change management initiatives and campus-wide innovation projects, as well as retreats and organizational development workshops. In addition, he has supported leaders to orient their teams and develop new habits to coordinate action. Prior to this, he served in an advisory capacity for an international tour operator, branding alumni travel experiences for client institutions. Mr. Jacob Ward holds a bachelors in marketing from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's Charlton College of Business.
Jacob will be working out of our Shrewsbury office primarily supporting ODLS clients by providing coordination; scheduling; event management/enrollments; project/budget management and direct client project work such as the design and administration of surveys and helping to organize and analyze client data/project materials. In addition,
Jacob will be working out of the Boston office approximately once per week to help service our Boston based clients.
We are thrilled to have Jacob join our ODLS team!
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Recommended Vendor: River
River
, founded in 1998 and formerly known as Triple Creek, is an innovative firm providing an online platform for mentoring. It all started with a question: "How can you accelerate workplace learning and development for more people in an organization, without astronomical costs?"
The answer was to leverage peer mentoring. The organization pioneered e-mentoring in the late 1990s and released Open Mentoring®, the first commercially available dedicated web-based mentoring process in the early 2000s.
When they first launched their mentoring software, the primary challenges that needed to be addressed were making it easier for administrators to run a mentoring program, helping companies get more people engaged in mentoring, making it simpler and less time-consuming for administrators (as well as the mentees and mentors) to make matches between people, and positively impacting people's development.
Today, they help companies implement professional mentoring programs to address leadership development; employee engagement; onboarding new hires; supporting recently promoted employees (e.g., new manager development); employee productivity; retention efforts/reducing attrition; diversity and inclusion initiatives; high-potential development; succession planning; extending training efforts through continuous learning and on-the-job support; and retaining knowledge among employees/mitigating the brain drain.
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Top 10 Best Practices for Peer Mentoring
Peer mentoring has always been around, as people have taught fellow friends, acquaintances, and partners how to acquire new skills.
Although this sometimes occurs naturally in the workplace, there is also a real value to helping your organization in establishing a more formal peer mentorship program to benefit the long-term growth of your employees.
Here are our top 10 best practices to help your employees establish effective mentoring relationships:
- The mentoring focus is based upon specific competencies or skills the mentee wants to develop. This will help focus the mentees development goals and make the steps to meet these goals more actionable.
- Specific mentoring goals should be defined. These goals should not be the same as the employees work related performance goals. Instead they should focus on longer term career development goals.
- The mentor and mentee should meet on a regular basis. This should be based on a mutually acceptable schedule. There are no set rules for how often these mentoring sessions should happen.
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Helpful Links
Professional Development Vendors
- Real Cool Productions: Full-service video, animation, and mixed media production company in Boston that services global businesses.
- CommonLook: Rely on CommonLook to achieve compliance with PDF and document accessibility standards through a process called Remediation.
- Tara Hall: Independent graphic and web design consultant.
Professional Development Resources
Professional Learning Associations
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