Mentoring Tips for Getting Through the Pandemic
2020 brought tremendous change to Americans. There isn’t anyone who didn’t feel the impacts of social unrest, pandemic and political theatre this year. While these various spheres of life influence us all differently and there are many different opinions on highly charged issues, one thing everyone can agree on is that work-life was dramatically impacted.
Mentoring has taken on a new role in 2020. We have witnessed first hand form out customers turning to their mentoring tools and relationships to find support during the dark times. 2020 brought anxiety about career choices and job security. Mentoring evolved into a support system, source of positivity and open communication throughout the year.
Here are some tips to get the most out of our mentoring relationship as the nation moves through this tumultuous time.
Start the conversation.
Whether virtual or in-person, mentoring falls down if there is no accountability. Mentoring software, HR supervisors, mentors and mentees themselves all play an active role enforcing accountability in a mentoring program.
With the world gone virtual, accountability becomes more important than ever. As a mentee, if there is something you want to address with your mentor don’t sit and wait for them to bring it up. Take action and addi it to the agenda. If you want a change in the relationship or there is an area of work or life you want to address bring it up.
Take an active rather than a passive role when it comes to mentorship. You will only get from the relationship what you put into it so speak up and be vocal. Most mentors will appreciate this as it makes their job easier to do. It’s much easier to help a mentee who has openly expressed what they need assistance with.
Through formality out the window.
Mentoring doesn’t have to be all business all the time. There is no rigid formula for success when it comes to how mentoring needs to be done.
Don’t be afraid to laugh, be goofy, blow off steam or leave your comfort zone. One of the reasons formal mentoring programs are being injected into the workplace is to give employees a chance to communicate and grow with someone who isn’t on their chain of command. This takes a ton of stress out of the relationship. This setting should be leveraged!
Experiment with new tools and ways of communicating. Talk about life and family and hobbies and beliefs. Talking about deadlines and spreadsheets and work projects for too long can make even the most passionate employee feel like quitting.
Review your goals.
Review the goals you set for yourself last New Years. Did you make progress? Are your goals completely different now? It’s possible they are because you might be a different person now.
When it comes to mentoring, re-orient yourself as to why you got into your mentoring relationship in the first place. If this goal still stands great! If it needs to be adjusted then fix it and write it down somewhere. Then, adjust your future milestones to meet your new expectations.
Setting new goals or revisiting old ones can be reinvigorating. Goe over these goals within your mentorship relationship and make them a topic of constant conversation.
Mentoring, like any relationship can be tough. 2020 didn’t make it any easier, so if there have been setbacks give yourself a little slack. Figure out how to best use mentoring to achieve your goals in 2021 and make tremendous strides towards where you want to go!
Mentor Resources can help any company to leverage technology to create tailored career development programs that are cost-effective. Our mentoring software - Wisdom Share is a cloud-based program that is simple and comes with guided workflows. Included are tools for administrators to attract, enroll, connect, and guide participants. We also provide analytics to ensure you can monitor your employee development program and easily see ROI metrics.
Reach out to us today for a Free Demonstration of our software.