As an entrepreneur or founder, you may have already discovered the benefits of mentorship, like access to a professional network, valuable feedback, and helpful advice. But have you considered the impact that mentorship can have on your entire team?
Your vision is the foundation of your business, but the team around you brings that vision to life. It’s important to build an inclusive and engaging company culture that gives them the motivation, skills, and confidence to do just that. This is where multi-tiered mentorship comes in. Mentorship can benefit everyone within your business, regardless of their experience or seniority level.
Below, we’ll explore how you can develop a multi-tiered mentorship program that benefits your team members and drives positive results within your business.
The Perfect Solution for a Small Business
Chances are, if you’re building a startup, you’re working at a fast and furious pace. Putting a formal training and development program in place can be challenging when you’re getting a new business off the ground, particularly if you only have a few employees. The beauty of multi-tiered mentorship is that it allows everyone to develop their career, even in the earliest stages of a startup.
It’s also a great opportunity for people to grow within their role, benefitting mentors as much as their mentees. For example, for an executive keen to gain management experience, mentoring a colleague could be a first step towards managing their own team further down the track.
The Benefits of a Multi-tiered Mentorship Approach
Implementing a multi-tiered mentorship program can help you:
Increase Employee Satisfaction
Widening your mentorship program to every employee can dramatically impact how they see their role and career. In 2019, the CNBC/SurveyMonkey Workplace Happiness Survey found that 91 percent of workers with a mentor are satisfied with their jobs. They’re also more likely to believe that they’re well paid and that their colleagues value their contributions.
Build a Culture of Development
Developing a company-wide mentorship program sends a powerful signal that you’re committed to investing in your team’s development and career growth – a foundation that will stand you in good stead as your business expands and you start to introduce more formal structures and training programs.
Create an Inclusive Culture
Whether it’s through traditional top-down mentoring, peer-to-peer mentoring, group mentoring, reverse mentoring, or even a mixture, a multi-tiered mentorship program gives you the opportunity to break down silos. This brings employees from different levels and skill sets closer together and encourages them to learn from each other, ultimately creating an inclusive culture where everyone feels like they belong.
Build a Knowledge Base
Multi-tiered mentorship isn’t just a great way to retain your employees; it also keeps institutional knowledge within the business. And don’t forget about external mentorship. As a founder, you might well have sought the guidance of an experienced mentor from outside the business, and it’s something that can also benefit your employees. A specialist within a small team won’t necessarily have a senior colleague to learn from, but an industry mentorship program can match them with an expert in their field to help sharpen their skills and keep them up to date with industry best practices.
Create a Multi-tiered Mentorship Program for Your Business
Ready to extend the benefits of mentorship to everyone on your team and drive business growth? The Henry Bernick Entrepreneurship Centre (HBEC) at Georgian College offers academic and business expertise through programs designed to help new business leaders make the most informed decisions.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you develop a multi-tiered mentorship program for your business.
