Career Mentorship – Five Benefits for Employers

You might assume that the main benefactor in any career mentorship program would be the mentee, right?  Of course, it’s the mentee that has a need to learn.  Well, if you ask the mentors participating in ERIEC’s Career Mentorship program about who benefits from a mentoring relationship, you might be surprised at the answer. It turns out that not only is participation in a career mentorship program advantageous to both the mentee and mentor, but it pays dividends to the mentor’s employer as well.

Here are FIVE of the many employer benefits of career mentorship:

1. Low-cost professional development:  Participation in a mentoring relationship results in enhanced leadership and managerial skills for the mentor as he/she guides the mentee through the prepared program, sets goals and completes assessments, and provides open, honest and supportive feedback
2. Increased self-confidence:  Mentors are held accountable by the Mentorship Coordinator.  As mentorship goals are achieved, and encouragement received, the mentor’s self-confidence increases and will transfer to his/her cross-cultural interactions at work.
3. Strengthened expertise working with a multi-cultural workforce: As a mentor explains Canadian cultural norms in verbal and non-verbal communication, he/she also learns about the workplace culture in the home country of their mentee. When this cross-cultural awareness is shared in the mentor’s workplace, it leads to a deeper corporate understanding of international professionals who are working hard to make the needed adjustments to act and respond as Canadians in the workplace.
4. Promotion of diversity within the employer’s organization:  Cultural understanding leads to cultural acceptance.  As a mentor is exposed to and begins to understand other cultures better, the mentor will be able to embrace diversity within his/her organization more easily, contributing to the acceptance of diversity within the employer’s organization.
5. Link into the global talent pool: Mentorship programs strengthen the business bottom line: Career mentorship connects the mentor’s employer with the new skills and expertise of an internationally-trained mentee in the same field,

So if ERIEC’s Career Mentorship Program provides so many benefits to employers, what’s preventing your organization from participating?

For more information about becoming a mentor or implementing the ERIEC Career Mentorship Program in your organization, go to http://www.eriec.ca/ or call us at (780) 497-8866.