The Management Bible

Chapter 6. Mentoring Employees

IT'S A NEW WORLD OUT THERE ...

Developing and mentoring employees and ...

• Helping them improve their performance.

• The purpose of developing and mentoring employees.

• Creating career development plans.

• The best career development strategies.

• Becoming a mentor yourself.

BUILDING BETTER EMPLOYEES

Why is it that so many employees are hired with the best of intentions and then—a few days or weeks after they arrive—they are promptly forgotten? It's easy to take the orientation and training needs of employees—both new and veteran—for granted. Managers are busy people and so long as there's no crisis, then there are more important things to attend to. Right?

Wrong.

In every organization, employees have so much to figure out: formal and informal chains of command, the ins and outs of office politics, the right and wrong ways to get the support and resources you need to get your job done, which people are "in"—and which are "out." And this is just the beginning; employees also have to learn new skills and techniques to improve the way they do their jobs. All of this requires training, and it requires the attention of the managers who are responsible for ensuring their employees have the opportunity to develop their talents.

But here's the rub: Employee development doesn't just happen. For employees to learn new skills and develop their expertise and knowledge, both managers and employees must make a concerted effort to ensure employment development stays at or near the ...