Peer mentoring is one of the best ways to share knowledge and improve the professional development of your team.

In an article on Melcrum's Internal Comms Hub, Judith Germain, managing director of Dynamic Transitions, offers a 5-step guide for embedding a peer-to-peer mentoring program into your internal communication department.

"Peer mentoring takes place when the mentor isn't in a position of authority over the mentee. The mentor will guide their colleague based on the life experience that they have gained and their professional expertise within the communication arena," says Germain.

Read on to learn about mentor recruitment, training and gaining senior management buy-in.

Step 1 – Senior management buy in
Ensure buy-in from senior management and that the peer-to-peer mentoring program is part of the company's talent management program. This ensures that the mentoring program fulfils the company's goals and objectives and isn't an exercise that's seen by management to be time costly, inefficient and unproductive.

Step 2 – Mentor recruitment
The success of the program relies on the ability of the organization to recruit appropriate mentors. Each potential mentor should be interviewed against a criteria of desired competencies and required skills. An essential part of the recruitment should include a self assessment from the potential mentor as this indicates their level of self awareness.

Step 3 – Mentor training
All mentors should be trained before they begin this important role. They should not have to rely solely on trial and error to succeed. They should be trained on, for example, essential skills like coaching techniques, how to transfer their knowledge, the need for confidentiality and how to deal with conflict.

Mentors should also have their own mentor to ensure that they continue to develop and know how to deal with the issues that may arise with their mentee.

Step 4 – Relationship building
There should be a good match between the mentor and the mentee and they should both agree to the relationship. A good match is when the mentor has a complimentary personality, and a good understanding of the behaviors that need to be elicited from the mentee.

For example, if the mentee is known as a talented but troublesome employee the mentor should have experience in working with this type of employee. The mentor shouldn't have an attitude of superiority and should truly be a role model.

Many companies fail when they enforce a particular mentor onto a mentee or when either member of the party doesn't understand the nature of the relationship or the roles that they're supposed to play. There should be activities that allow the 2 individuals to get to know each other so that they can build a trusting relationship.

Ensure that the experiences of the mentor and mentee are captured for the company’s communication succession and training plans.

Step 5 – Ending the relationship
It's very important that the mentoring relationship doesn't fade into inactivity over time but has a formal ending. This allows a period of review between the mentor and the mentee, a time to celebrate successes and to plan for the future. The plan should include the activities that the mentee will do to continue their learning.

The company should ensure that the experiences of the mentor and mentee are captured for the company's communication succession and training plans and the individual's personal development or training plans.

Peer-to-peer mentoring is an extremely valuable tool for organizations looking for ways to continuously develop their teams, however it's vital to ensure the both the mentor and the mentee receive the appropriate support and guidance if the organization is to reap the long-term benefits of this approach.

If you're a member of the Internal Comms Hub, you can read the full article here.

Until next time,

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