Employee Talent Development

Through Mentoring Programs

Session 15
MBA BA
Prof. Sweta Singh
 Mentoring
• Mentoring is defined as an interpersonal exchange between a senior
experienced person (mentor) and a less experienced junior person (protégé)
in which the mentor provides support, direction, and feedback regarding
career plans and personal development (Haggard et al., 2011).
 Formal (versus Informal)
• Access to all mentors

• Expected End results

• Organizationally created
 Dimensions
• These relationships have been investigated from various aspects, including:
• functions of mentors, (Gentry, 2013)

• benefits of mentor relationships (Donner & Wheeler, 2001), and

• negative aspects of mentor relationships (Scandura, 1998).

 Types of Mentoring function
• Career support functions
- developmental behaviours which can have an impact on mentee’s career and professional advancement.
- It requires mentor to provide mentee career options by coaching, exposure, sponsorship, challenging work
assignments, and protection.

• Psychosocial support functions.

- those aspects of a relationship that enhance an individual's sense of competence, identity, and effectiveness
in a professional role
- a mentor can provide to mentee which are counselling, friendship, role modelling, and acceptance &
confirmation.
BENEFITS
 Benefits: Mentee perspective
- Early career socialization, job performance, career advancement (Chao et al.,
1992),
- Increased career mobility, increased job satisfaction, faster promotion rate,
enhanced self-esteem, higher rates of pay (Chao, 1997; Koberg et al., 1994),
and
- Overall sense of well-being (Clutterbuck and Ragins, 2002).
 Career success: The mentor’s perspective

• The objective career outcomes achieved by a mentor includes promotion and

compensation (Allen, Eby and Lentz, 2006; Gentry and Sosik, 2010).

• On the other hand, subjective career outcomes are affective indicators of career
success and less tangible aspect of outcomes like organizational commitment, job
satisfaction, and career satisfaction (Pullins and Fine, 2002; Chun, Sosik and Yun,
2012).
 Mentoring Dyads?
• Personal counselling or friendly relationship to male mentee (by women
mentor) can be perceived as sexual in nature by others (Bowen, 1985) and
often create suspicion and jealousy among colleagues (Fitt and Newton,
1981), and increases the risk of rumours (Ragins, 1989).

• Powell and Graves (2003) also argued that the reflections of negative event
will be higher for women mentors as compared to male mentor.
 In trend…
• Peer mentoring

• Reverse mentoring (new technology information, use of social media)

• Womentoring

• Cross mentoring
• Between organization, anonymous
 Coaching
• Coaching is defined as a process of improving performance by focusing on
correcting problems with the work being done (Fournies, 1987).
• many companies expect their managers to coach their subordinates as a required part of their job
(Richardson, 2009).

• Mentoring is relational (i.e., involving a developmental relationship between parties),

whereas coaching is functional (Richardson, 2009)