When I was a young woman entering the corporate world (decades ago!), I was fortunate to have a mentor, a woman who was CEO of a construction company. The term “glass ceiling” was new,  and having transitioned from the non-profit world to be the first professional woman in a Fortune 500 holding company, the guidance I received from my mentor provided a valuable foundation for my career development plan far into the future.  The male CFO to whom I reported offered me stretch assignments, saying he wished that had been done for his daughter when she entered the workforce years earlier.  So I had the best of both worlds, with an external female mentor and an internal male coach.  I was lucky. Today, mentoring is offered by companies as part of their strategic talent management.   Presenters in our webcast today,    Jennifer Allyn , Managing Director, Office of Diversity , PricewaterhouseCoopers,
Heather Kleis , Human Resources Advisor , ING North America Insurance Corporation , and
Julie Nugent , Director, Research Dept. , Catalyst, Inc.  make the case that effective mentoring is not a “stand-alone” effort, and has the most impact when it is integrated into other talent development processes.

HCI members, we’d love you to weigh in on these questions:

1. What can organizations do to provide formal and targeted mentoring opportunities for women, men, diverse groups?
2. What can organizations do to encourage and train strategic mentoring behaviors?
3. What can organizations do to ensure that mentoring is part of a career development portfolio?

  HCI members want to discuss:

HCI member asks: For those that are federal contractors, advancement of females and visible minorities are important.  What partnering, if any, is done with the EEO/AA and/or Diversity teams to ensure it is being addressed?

HCI member asks: How are mentor strenghts identified and are they catalogued somewhere in a knowledge database?

HCI member asks: How was the formal mentoring for accelerated talent communicated in 2004 and were there any questions/concerns from other employees that were not identified as accelerated talent.

HCI member asks: How do you encourage mentors to apply?

HCI member asks: What evaluation tools are utilized to ensure that the program is working?  How many re-entries from people on family leave re-enter the organization and attribute it to the coaching they received on how to juggle work and family life? 

HCI member asks: I manage a program addressing the aging workforce challenge. We are striving to partner staff that may be retiring soon with entry level staff - have you had any success or experience in addressing a similar challenge in a Mentor Program? What has worked/ some success tips?

HCI member asks: How often do you check in with the mentors/mentees to determine how the pairing is progressing?

As a view from 30,000 feet provides big picture insight, organizations are recognizing that shifting to an enterprise view of executive coaching provides line of sight from individual coaching agendas and the larger talent management plan.  

A press release on research done by DBM and HCI of leading organizations’ executive coaching practices suggests there is more to be gained from common business themes that run across coaching assignments.  Certainly this also helps to adjust the focus from the traditional “remedial” aura coaching once had to a pro-active high impact enterprise-relevant focus. The positive impact on leadership team effectiveness no doubt benefits as well.  I hope you’ll tune in to the related webcast where this new research was recently presented and add your thoughts below…