Introduction
Manager mentorship is important for every company in order to be an attractive place to work. Every company should look at its employees and consider whether they might benefit from some type of manager mentor.
Approach
In our company, we offer manager mentorship programs to help managers learn how to manage and lead their teams. Our goal is to help them grow in their roles so that they can continue to be successful in their managerial positions. Our program consists of a series of workshops and training that managers are required to attend. In these workshops, they learn about different topics, such as how to give feedback, how to deal with difficult employees, and how to motivate their team. Within the framework of our STEM Program for business-ready students, we collaborate with schools at all levels and train students and teachers on how to understand, cultivate, and implement mentoring and leadership programs.
Results
The program is open to all department managers, and it pairs recently promoted or first-time managers with more experienced mentors. Benefits of the program include (but are not limited to) formal and informal learning opportunities, guidance on career growth, feedback on managerial skills, problem-solving support, and networking. The majority of participants in our manager mentorship program report feeling more confident after completing the program. The implementation of the program in schools, along with its recent pilot integration in university departments, has shown that micro-entrepreneurship and leadership and decision-making models have greatly helped teachers redefine their role and teaching, and students perceive their relationship with the market and the “real” world more directly and meaningfully.