Mentoring Program - Research Proposal Example

Running Head: MENTORING PROGRAM PROPOSAL Mentoring Program Mentoring Program Proposal Table of Contents Introduction 3 2. Program Structure 4 2.1. Choosing Participants 4 2.1.1. 360 Degree Evaluation 4 2.1.2. Team Leaders 5 2.1.3. Timetable 6 3. Managing Change 7 4. Motivation 8 5. Conclusion 9 1. Introduction Rouda and Kusy (1995) outline that organizational excellence is based mainly on human resources and only on people themselves depends the productivity of all the other resources such as physical, financial, and informational ones. They continue their thought with the idea that organized by the organization learning and training should be aimed at each person’s development, improvement of personal performance, and, as a result, improvement of organizational performance. A need for personal development is also caused by constantly changing environment in both personal and organizational spheres. Times change, new technologies appear, people’s demands change, while organizations’ purpose is to bring people the very best products and services. Therefore, each person’s abilities and skills should correspond to those needed for efficient work in certain area. Consequently, successful performance in each particular area is impossible without constant development, learning and improvement as the external environment changes, modifies, and moves to another levels. Our organization is not an exception and, evidently, our employees not only need to constantly grow and develop professionally, but also express a great desire toward such a development. A great number of employees are eager to participate in a mentoring program, and they would surely benefit from it since, as we all know, there does exist a need in mastering and enhancing their existing skills, while developing new ones. On the other hand, however, due to recent stuff reductions and some work overload all of us experience, it is difficult to define the best ways we can introduce and implement the mentoring program. So, the purpose of this report is to analyze the current situation in the company, and identify the potential solutions to our existing problems. The report will also outline the basic principles and expected outcomes of the mentoring program to be executed, as well as will define the major criteria for employees and managers’ participation in it. In order to accomplish these tasks I will refer to the existing literature on the subject, as well as will analyze the success of programs implemented within other companies. 2. Program Structure 2.1. Choosing Participants So, first of all, it seems necessary to define what particular outcomes we should expect from implementing an own mentoring program. One of the most significant is, I believe, developing a high performing team of professionals. Since team work is an essential part of our operations, it is important that our employees understand and accept this principle. Especially important it is because we cannot provide each with a mentor. Therefore, the first task to be accomplished while designing our mentoring program is choosing which particular people will be directly participating in the program. 2.1.1. 360 Degree Evaluation For this purpose I suggest to conduct a 360 degree evaluation: The 360 Degree Feedback System has recently experienced a wide spread among the organization wishing to improve and enhance their performance measuring systems. This particular method involves getting a feedback on an employee’s performance not only from a supervisor, as we do now, but also from four to eight peers, reports, colleagues or customers. In most cases the system also requires an employee oneself to assess own performance in an individual assessment (Heatfield, 2008). So, in addition to giving the manager an opportunity to get a wide range perspective on the employee’s performance, this system enables the supervisor to understand how the employee’s performance is viewed by others – that is to base evaluation not only on own perception, but on other’s opinions as well. According to the conclusions of CustomInsight (2008), a company providing survey tools for the 360 Degree Feedback System, such an evaluation of performance is aimed mostly at recognizing an employee’s ‘strengths and weaknesses’ in order to become more effective. Therefore, this would allow us to evaluate which of our employees would benefit from the mentoring programs most. 2.1.2. Team Leaders The second step would be assigning each of the chosen employees a personal mentor. These employees, in their turn, would become team leaders for a group of people they directly work with in order to share the knowledge and skills acquired from the mentoring program with others. In such a way we can provide all the employees, including those not participating in the program directly, with more support and guidance. Surely, the ones participating in the mentoring program should have some leadership skills in order to be able to transfer their knowledge to others. Mullins (1996) takes the stance that leadership has formal position and informal presence by stating that leadership does not necessarily take place within the hierarchical structure of the organization. Therefore, while now our people view leaders as those managing them, we can change this idea providing each with an opportunity to show one’s leadership skills in the company. Leadership is not exclusive at the top of an organizations hierarchy, as it can occur at all levels and outside an organizations structure, formally and informally, and we should take this fact into consideration when choosing our team leaders – employees will listen to those whom they trust, and who is able to transfer own knowledge. Though leadership is claimed to be an essential part of organizational culture, not every professional is a proficient leader. Not every specialist has leadership qualities which would enable him (her) to succeed in the busy and competitive organizational setting. But leadership skills can be learned and improved, and this improvement should be encouraged by the organization as well through the mentoring program. Therefore, the potential and current informal leaders should directly participate in the mentoring program for it to effectively impact each employee of the company. 2.1.3. Timetable Since all of our employees and managers are quite busy people, participation in the mentoring program should not take much of their time and influence the performance in a negative way. Therefore, it is suggested that the chosen for the participation people participate in a workshop where they get the full idea of what is expected of them first of all. This is a generally accepted practice which showed to be successful on practice with Wesfarmers and Citibank, for example (Bannister, 2003). These organizations recommend that the main topics to be covered during further meetings of employees with their mentors to be covered for each to have a clear idea of the goals and objectives of the program. Afterwards the participants (employee and the mentor) meet regularly for one to two hours each two weeks, for example. The content of their meetings is kept confidential, while the results are evaluated by both the employee and the mentor. 3. Managing Change Managing and developing a high-performance team means, first of all, managing change. Change is inevitable in any organizational setting for it is a way to improvement, organizational development, and growth that, in their turn, lead to success if all the strategies were implemented wisely and effectively. From this point of view human resources management is a set of strategies and tools aimed at linking human resources to organizations strategic goals and policies in order to develop an organizational culture, which easily recognizes and accepts all the innovations and changes. Consequently, any reformation and reorganization, introducing a new program in our case, is to lead to improvement and is greatly related to change – change is inevitable in an organizational setting if it is aimed at improvement. Therefore, it can be concluded that bringing up an efficient team to benefit from the mentoring program is also related to change - that is we change the external and internal environment of the team’s functioning in order for it to grow technically and intellectually. There are three ways the manager can use to cope risk and, accordingly, with change that may be caused by it (Clayton & Overdorf, 2000). One of them is creation of new organizational structure within corporate boundaries in which new process can be developed. Therefore, ideally, each company should tailor the team structure and organizational location to the process arid values required by each project (Clayton & Overdorf, 2000). And, in our case, the most suitable and appropriate option is restructuring the company in the manner mentioned above so that each person would be constantly receiving the needed support and training. 4. Motivation In order to improve the organizational culture we must also motivate the topside to listen, take our advice seriously and motivate our employees to take the initiative to communicate with one another, and generate a feeling of one organization. Human resource has outlined the following steps: We must outline visions that encompass the values and beliefs’ of the individuals and the organization. We must define several goals that represent a lifestyle desired by most. At the same time, top managers and supervisors who are to mentor lower level employees should be motivated to participate in the program as well. Both visions and goals of the mentoring program should be clearly outlined to all. Once established, mechanism to promote the common visions and goals must be devised and put into place by human resources. Human resources must present all the innovations to our employees as their vision, thereby motivating them to develop a more exciting organization. Human resources must recognize the barriers and work at removing them. An organizational vision that motivates is the secret to achieving an organization desired by their employees. (Webb 2001) Another important factor to motivate managers to participate in the program is an opportunity to develop own people and leadership skills. While working with the mentored people, a manager gets closer to people, potentially gat an insight onto the problems one might not be aware before, etc. There will be a new organizational culture with employee input, thereby making all employees stakeholders in the new organizational excellence. 5. Conclusion Personal learning and development is a key component of the organization’s development which depends on skills and knowledge of individuals. Therefore, the mentoring program to be implemented within the company is to both enhance the existing skills of our employees, as well as develop new ones. The program is to be implemented in 4 stages: 360 degree evaluation of employees’ abilities, assigning team leaders to participate in the program directly and informally mentor the assigned team, program implementation, and evaluating the results. Change in organizational structure, as well as in the schedule of team leaders and their managers is inevitable and we must embrace it if we are going to be successful (Waring & Glendon, 1998). After the program is introduced, and has run for a certain time, we can analyze how effective it is by evaluating the performance of both individuals directly participating in it, and those lead by the team leaders. The improvements in relations and performance would be the sign of the program’s giving positive and visible results. References Bandura, A. (1997) "Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change." Psychological Review 84: 191-215. Bandura, A. (1997) Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: Freeman. Betz, N. E., and Hackett, G. (1997) "Applications of Self-Efficacy Theory to the Career Assessment of Women." Journal of Career Assessment 5, no. 4: 383-402. Clayton, C. and Overdorf, M. “Meeting the Challenge of Disruptive Change.” Harvard Business Review 78 (2): 67-76, 2000. CustomInsight (2008). ‘What is 360 Degree Feedback?’. Available on-line: Accessed December 7, 2008. Bannister, L. (2003). Welcome, Grasshopper: Corporate mentoring in practice. Human Resources. Reed Business Information. Available online: < http://www.humanresourcesmagazine.com.au/articles/5E/0C019E5E.asp?Type=60&Category=877> Accessed December 6, 2008. Hackett, G., and Betz, N. (1981) "A Self-Efficacy Approach to the Career Development of Women." Journal of Vocational Behavior 18, no. 3: 326-39. Heathfield, S. (2008). 360 Degree Feedback: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The Bad and the Ugly About 360 Degree Feedback. About.com, a part of The New York Times Company. Available on-line: Accessed December 7, 2008. Kusy, M. E., and Rouda, R.H. (1995) “Development of human resources - Part 2” Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry. Available on-line: . Accessed December 7, 2008. Legge, K. (1998). ‘Personnel management in recession and recovery: A comparative analysis of what the surveys say,’ Personnel Review, Vol.17, no. 2 (monograph issue). Mullins, L. J. (1996) Management & Organizational Behaviour. 4th edition. Pitman Publishing: London. Stone, R. (1998). Human Resource Management. 3rd edition. Australia: Wiley. Waring, A. & Glendon, A. (1998) Managing Risk, London, Thomson Learning, p.127 Webb, B. (2001) Elements of Motivation. Available online: Accessed December 5, 2008. Read More