Millennials and Mentoring

Image from: http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20130620/FREE/130629990

A fellow mentor shared this article the other day entitled "Millennials want mentoring, expert says". (Millennials are people generally born somewhere from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.) That's great for them and probably very true. The article goes on to state three things I'd like to mention. Two things I agree with and one that I absolutely do not:

"The idea of mentoring has changed and does not only mean a face-to-face relationship with an older person, said Jeanne Meister author of "The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow's Employees Today (HarperBusiness 2010). Mentoring today often takes place over the phone or via Skype and occurs whenever the person being mentored needs some feedback or other help learning the ropes at a particular institution or industry..."

Absolutely agree here. The nature of mentoring has expanded to going beyond in person meetings. Just as all of business has evolved to finding cheaper ways to connect people with each other so too mentoring has evolved. I think this is a positive development because as a mentee you are no longer constrained by geography in your search for a great mentor.

"'A lot of companies' structured mentoring programs have failed as they have tried to put structure to something that is basically a relationship,”'

I disagree. Yes, a lot of companies' mentoring programs have failed but not because of the structure of the programs necessarily. In my opinion formal mentoring programs tend to fail when:

1. the executive champion of said program leaves the division or company
2. the company realizes that while mentoring is an inexpensive employee development and retention tool it still requires someone's time to launch, organize and maintain
3. the company is unable to keep up with the demand - usually having many more mentees than mentors. 

While there isn't much that can be done with issue #1 there are however good solutions to #2 and #3 depending on the company.

"Millennials may ask some surprising questions on interviews, such as, “How long will it take to become the next CEO?” or “Do I have to wear shoes at the office?” Ms. Meister said. She recommends that firms try to look past this type of questioning."

Back to agreeing here when applied to your own mentoring conversations. This is good advice for any mentor whether your mentee is a millennial or not. Our job is not to judge every question asked necessarily but to help the mentee understand their own motivation for asking those particular questions in the first place.