Workplace Mentoring: How to Build Talent and Engagement

Workplace mentoring is one of the most effective ways organizations can build internal talent, strengthen employee engagement, and improve long-term productivity.

The Talent Dilemma Is a Management Dilemma

Building talent and upskilling employees is one of today’s greatest management challenges. Channeling Wisdom shows that organizations can address this talent dilemma by looking inside their own ranks…identifying and utilizing internal staff to serve as workplace mentors.

A mentor is one who intentionally shares knowledge, experience, and wisdom with others to produce desired and beneficial results. When mentoring is done well, those results include an engaged, thriving workforce whose skills and contributions are well-matched to company needs and aligned with both organizational and personal goals.

Why Mentoring Often Falls Short

Most employees understand what mentoring is, yet many mentoring experiences in the workplace have been unsatisfying. Too often, mentees are left to identify their own mentors, even in organizations with otherwise well-defined business processes. What is missing from workplace mentoring is the “how” – how to do it right.

A Practitioner’s Guide to Workplace Mentoring

Channeling Wisdom is a practitioner’s guide to mentoring written:

• For mentors and aspiring mentors
• By a mentor with frontline experience throughout the entire span of her career across large and small companies, established organizations over 100 years old, and fresh start-ups

Based on this cumulative experience, Mildred Hastbacka shows that mentoring done right is a management activity that leads to higher levels of management and employee satisfaction, engagement, contribution, and productivity.

How to Do Mentoring Right

Using case examples and vignettes, the book demonstrates how to do mentoring right across the entire workplace arc – from the interview and new hire experience to moving up and moving on. It also addresses common workplace challenges, including expectations, confidence, acceptance, feedback, and criticism.

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