Talent Management

Types of Mentoring

There are 7 types of mentoring programs. Mentor Resources, the leader in software for the adminstration of Mentoring Progams in large organizations.


There are seven types of formal mentoring programs. Mentor Resources is a leader in software for the adminstration of Mentoring Progams in large organizations.  Talk to us about your firm’s mentoring experience and needs and let us demonstrate our solutions.

  • New Hires – This is sometimes referred to as on-boarding.  A newMentor Resources employee is assigned a Mentor who is a peer.  The Mentor is there to explain the unwritten rules of the workplace and to shorten the learning curve of the new employee.
  • Skill Transfer – This is frequently used by corporations with a commitment to cross training or trying to build “hives” of expertise.
  • Employee Resource Groups – Employee Affinity Groups often have desire for a formal mentoring program to enhance their employee’s career advancement.  Often these diversity groups want their members to be able to connect and share information about how to succeed in the organization and handling stressful situations.
  • Career Development – The mentoring programs are generally set up by Human Resources under the name Talent Management.  Their goal is to make sure High Potential employees and “Emerging” High Potential employees acquire the right set of experiences and visibility to move up the organization.
  • Reverse Mentoring – Is one of the newer areas of mentoring.  One of the side effects of a well matched Mentor-Mentee pair, is a broadening of perspective on both sides.  This has become an important part of the development of Senior Managers.
  • Communities of Practice – Similar to Skill Transfer Mentoring, but longer-term programs for participants in Tech Clubs and other matrix management type organizational structures.  These mentoring programs are geared towards encouraging the development of advanced professional skills.
  • Succession Planning – Mentoring for the transition into the “C-suite” is, but definition, done with very small numbers of hand-selected people.  This is the only type of Mentoring where WisdomShareTM and Mentor Resources’ software tools are inapplicable.

The next several blogs will discuss each of these in greater detail. 

But the bottom line, each of these types of Mentoring Programs improves employee retention and engagement, if there is a good match and the Mentor-Mentee “click”.  

Most of our clients have become clients because of  WisdomShareTM, our matching algorithm.  Other products in the marketplace have matching algorithms  that are likened to Match.com.  Our clients describe matches made by WisdomShareTM  as “eHarmony for the workplace.”   

We look forward to speaking to you directly.

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