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Mentoring can be a buzzword in the business world, but it is not always implemented effectively. All too often, mentoring becomes glorified networking or infrequent meetings for a quick coffee. Recently, the idea of sponsorship – targeted advocacy for mentees – has been brought into the discussion to help companies focus on developing and supporting employees to build strong, diverse teams.
Sponsorship and mentoring are different from each other, but should not be done in isolation. Within a company, the only truly effective way to implement these processes is to view them as two parts of a cycle that should repeat constantly. To achieve this, leaders must take a conscious approach aimed at continuous development.
Related: How mentoring programs can empower underrepresented employees in the workplace
Mentoring aimed at sponsorship
To effectively mentor their employees, mentors must develop specific goals for their employees’ professional development. To achieve these goals, they must look for two key areas of development: strengths and gaps.
- Identify strengths: To recognize your mentees’ strengths, you must work closely with them to discover their experiences, skills, and passions. These strengths are not just limited to knowledge of their field, but can also include personality traits such as leadership skills, the ability to learn quickly, or an interest in a specific role or area.
- Identify gaps: To ensure mentoring is an ongoing and effective process, consider what your mentees still need to learn to move forward. They may have knowledge gaps that require further training, or perhaps they have the knowledge for new roles but not the skills to lead a team or communicate effectively with customers. Consider how you can assign challenging projects that provide them with an environment where they can ask questions, discover new skills, and feel supported in a new environment.
- What it isn’t: Mentoring is not just about making contacts or turning an employee into an assistant. Effective mentoring looks forward to sponsorship and enables employees to develop further within your company.
Related: How mentoring programs can create a culture of continuous learning in the workplace
Strategic sponsorship
Internal sponsorship of employees means that the knowledge gained through the mentoring process is used specifically to inspire employees for new roles and responsibilities. This requires flexibility and a willingness to continually repeat the cycle.
- Flexibility: As a mentee’s knowledge and skills grow, their role and recognition should also grow. If you are willing to change or evolve a person’s role within the company, you can place employees in roles where they will contribute most effectively to your company and achieve the greatest satisfaction.
- Continuous support: Employees should never be promoted and then left alone. Once a mentee is sponsored into a new role, they will present new strengths and gaps that require development and training. This may even mean equipping them as mentors in turn.
- What it isn’t: Sponsorship does not mean placing more responsibility on an employee without appropriately encouraging or redefining their role. To create a healthy team atmosphere, employees who grow up to take on new roles need to feel like their growth is officially recognized and celebrated.
Repeat the cycle
While mentoring and sponsorship may sound like personal experiences, when combined, these processes can drive the growth of an entire team at once. We regularly observe this growth at Outpace. A while ago we hired a new SEO specialist; Let’s call him John. I soon recognized two of John’s main strengths: his ability to learn extremely quickly and his previous experience. I began mentoring him and training him on our internal processes, how to run our SEO meetings, and more. I alerted our executives to his potential and within six months we promoted him to head of the SEO team. I will continue to support him as a manager in his new position.
Our process does not end here. John quickly recognized that Jane, a member of his SEO team, had a contribution beyond her current role. He now mentors her as an SEO QA mentor in a role that recognizes the full potential of her contributions to Outpace. These are just two examples of how mentoring and sponsorship can have a trickle-down effect and empower team leaders to become mentors and sponsors themselves.
Related: How expert mentoring promotes startup success
Individual relationships: benefits for the team
Mentoring and sponsorship clearly impact the entire workplace, not just individual employees. When employees see potential for professional development in their current company, their job satisfaction increases. Instead of making employees feel overloaded, this cycle offers them opportunities and recognition. This helps increase employee retention because employees don’t have to look elsewhere to feel like they’re making progress. One of the main benefits of mentoring and sponsoring employees is that they also become strong leaders and mentors. This means the process can be repeated with new employees. Over time, mentoring and sponsorship create strong companies in which networked teams continually grow and advocate for their colleagues.