Knowledge transfer mentoring—Part 2 Designing and implementing a mentoring program focused on knowledge transfer

Pairing people

After selecting candidates for the mentoring program, the next step is to match each mentee with the right mentor to support learning. APQC’s research suggests that it is critical to give mentees a say in the pairing process since that builds buy-in for the relationships and helps ensure a good fit. For career-focused mentoring, many programs allow mentees to simply pick their preferred mentors from the pool of available candidates. When mentoring focuses on knowledge transfer, however, more oversight is required to ensure that mentors can help mentees with their specific learning needs. But even if managers or mentoring program leaders need to make the final decisions about mentoring matches, they should still seek mentee input and take their preferences into consideration.

For example, Praxair’s HR function makes the final decisions about mentor/mentee pairings for the LTOP program, but program leaders take mentee preferences into account when forming pairs. HR starts with certain set criteria for matches—for example, they look for mentors with the right technical qualifications who work in the same geographical region as the mentee. But before making final selections, HR interviews the mentees about what they want to learn and the qualities they seek in a mentor. That helps HR match mentees with mentors who can help them with their long-term development and career interests.

Although the process is more ad hoc, Boeing’s engineering mentoring program also takes mentee preferences into account when making mentor/mentee matches. In the program, mentees work closely with their managers to identify mentors with the right mix of technical expertise and personal qualities. Managers try to help employees find appropriate mentors within their immediate workgroups; however, if none is available, the employees search for candidate mentors via Boeing’s expertise location and professional networking system. The mentoring program provides tip sheets on how to filter profiles to find mentors that meet specific criteria and how to approach those individuals about potential partnerships. However, it is ultimately up to the mentor, the mentee and the mentee’s manager to decide whether two employees constitute a good match.

Setting objectives and milestones

Once mentees are matched with appropriate mentors, the real work of mentorship begins. Although each organization has its own philosophy and process for mentorship, APQC’s analysis revealed certain common elements across successful knowledge transfer mentoring initiatives.

First, most organizations have mentoring pairs create simple agreements or action plans that articulate the learning objectives they will pursue together. That helps them set priorities and approach the relationships with a shared sense of purpose.

Second, it is usually advisable for pairs to establish a firm timeline for mentorship, instead of becoming drawn into open-ended relationships. The logic is that when learning objectives are paired with an end date, participants have a sense of urgency to set interim milestones and to meet their objectives within the given timeframe.

Finally, most organizations encourage mentoring pairs to lay out some ground rules for interaction, including the specific responsibilities each person will assume and how they will work together to achieve their stated objectives. This ensures that each party knows what is being asked of them and helps prevent misunderstandings along the way.

In Boeing’s engineering mentoring program, for example, engineers work with their managers to identify learning needs that should be addressed through mentoring. Once an employee secures a mentor, he or she meets with that individual to develop a mentoring action plan. That is an opportunity to clarify how often the pair will meet and what they will work on. The plan outlines the scope of the partnership, expectations, goals and up to five learning objectives.

According to Jennifer Roberts, engineering workforce development project manager at Boeing, clear endpoints and incremental progress updates are helpful for participants. “Our engineers are very busy,” she said. “Sometimes they forget to intentionally think about what they’re learning and what skills they’re developing. With a mentoring action plan, they have a record of their progress. And it’s helpful if they have an endpoint, because it gives them an opportunity to think about what else they need to learn.”

In Praxair’s LTOP program, learning objectives for mentorship are based on a detailed analysis of the job tasks that technical employees perform and the skills to which new hires need to be exposed. As part of their introductory meetings, pairs agree on development goals they will pursue over the course of their mentorships; they also discuss expectations around frequency of contact, accessibility, nature of the support and roles to be played. Quarterly review meetings allow pairs to track progress, verify professional growth and set new challenges.

At MD Anderson, mentorships designed to impart job-specific skills typically last three to six months and involve frequent on-the-job interactions. For some relationships, daily meetings are not uncommon during the first 90 days. Progress is evaluated often (e.g., weekly) to ensure that mentees are developing the skills they need for their roles.