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Globalization. Dispersed companies. Economic difficulties. Retiring baby boomers. Multi-generational workforces.
These are some of the realities facing organizations today. It’s hard enough for businesses to stay competitive, but now they also have to worry about retaining key employees, engaging their workforce, capturing strategic knowledge before it walks out the door, and building cohesive organizations across various borders and barriers. Mentoring offers a way for organizations to accomplish these goals.
Excellence in practice
Aon Corporation, a leading financial and insurance services firm, employs 36,000 people at 500 offices in 120 countries. Built mainly through the acquisition of more than 400 companies, Aon needed a process to invigorate knowledge-sharing and encourage networking across business units and geographies.
Their solution: Offer mentoring to everyone in the organization and make it a part of the knowledge-sharing framework that is key to organizational unity and success. To accomplish this, they chose a web-based mentoring program that could be offered to all employees as a way to promote learning, break down silos, connect people across all parts of the organization, and encourage diversity across job titles, business units and locations.
After implementing the pilot program in 2006 and a phased rollout to the entire firm in 2008, Aon succeeded in achieving all of their objectives. The results of surveys of participating Aon employees showed that 81 percent of mentees and 73 percent of mentors felt that mentoring enhances job skills and is a valuable learning experience. Results also showed that 88 percent of mentees and 73 percent of mentors felt that the program demonstrates senior management’s commitment to employee development. This highlights the value of mentoring as an effective tool for engaging employees. In fact, one participant noted that the mentoring program was the reason he came to work at Aon.
The mentoring program also helps people advance in their careers and even move to different business units within the organization. One mentee worked in a back-office customer support position, but her career goal was to advance to a client-facing position that would allow her to interact with and provide services to global clients. Her mentor, an employee in an international practice group, included her on client conference calls, invited her to attend client meetings, and suggested seminars to hone her presentation and communication skills. As a result of this mentorship, the mentee gained experience and knowledge that ultimately helped her secure a position in a practice group with global clients.
Aon’s program success also extends to cost savings. During a pilot phase, the shift to web-based mentoring technology alone saved the firm in excess of US$175,000 in travel and meals, training, materials and time spent manually administering a mentoring program for multiple groups of 30 people (the typical number involved in a paper-based program the organization formerly used for high-potential programs and senior-level development).
The mentoring program also prevents Aon from losing valuable organizational knowledge. For example, early on in the mentoring initiative, one mentee chose his mentor and began the relationship, only to find out that the mentor planned to retire in the next year. This mentee not only had the advantage of his mentor’s many years of experience, but Aon benefited by retaining some of the wealth of knowledge walking out the door with a retiring employee. The mentor has since retired but is still in contact with the mentee, still offering the benefit of his experience and knowledge to his mentee and to Aon; thus having a lasting impact that benefits the entire firm.
Learning from the masters
Organizations can learn many lessons from Aon about how to achieve success with a mentoring program. Here are three best practices that will help any organization ensure the success of its mentoring program.
- Secure key stakeholder support.
Without support from key influencers, all types of programs have difficulty surviving. Aon overcame this by building a coalition of mentoring champions at all levels of the organization through coordinated efforts and strategic planning—from the Chief Diversity Officer and CEO to business unit managers and respected group leaders. By securing key stakeholder support, Aon was able to smoothly bring mentoring into various parts of the organization. These partnerships proved critical to the program’s success and helped the organization achieve its goals.
- Tie mentoring programs to key organizational initiatives.
Development programs stand a better chance of flourishing when they are tied directly to organizational goals, drivers and initiatives. For Aon, the mentoring program directly affects all areas of their corporate leadership model, which the firm ties to all processes, goals and performance objectives. They also designed the mentoring program to support such strategic initiatives as knowledge management, diversity, talent development, performance management, and orientation of new employees, showing how versatile mentoring can be as a development strategy when it is incorporated into core processes, used to address critical business issues, and designed to support organizational strategy.
- Make it available to all.
Mentoring should not be a restricted program for the few but an inclusive development opportunity for all. Aon’s use of web-based mentoring technology exposed their entire workforce to a knowledge-sharing process that helps individuals find the expertise and resources they need, and helps the organization tap into deep wells of knowledge and intellectual capital. Web-based mentoring paved the way for Aon to build a unified learning culture where employees at all levels and locations can participate to share their skills, expand their knowledge and learn from colleagues. From one-on-one relationships and peer mentoring to reverse and group mentoring, the program meets individual needs. By offering mentoring to all employees and expanding the concept of what mentoring is and who can be a mentor, Aon is better able to retain their talented employees and provide them with opportunities to advance and prosper.
Randy Emelo, president and CEO of Triple Creek Associates, has devoted much of his life to helping others learn and develop, and has more than 20 years of experience in management, training and leadership development. |
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