Mentor Women Employees to Improve Business Performance

Businesses can improve performance by providing a mentoring scheme for their female employees.

Research for Marie Claire revealed that almost half of women said they experience sexism in the workplace and this has resulted in low levels of employee morale which ultimately damaged business performance through a lack of productivity.

The sexism study discovered that the majority of female employees believed that a mentoring scheme at work would help them perform better and this would benefit the whole of the organisation.

There is great scope for mentoring schemes as 72 per cent of female workers stated that they do not have such an initiative in their workplace, while the same number have never experienced the benefits of being mentored.

It was reported that mentoring could improve business performance as the survey found that 60 per cent of those who had been through a mentoring scheme claimed that the initiative a positive impact on their productivity.

Performance improvement consulting professionals can inform a business whether a mentoring scheme is appropriate for their organisation as there are a number of pitfalls to avoid when considering the initiative.

Failing to communicate the benefits of mentoring to an employee before entering them into a scheme may lead to a worker feeling devalued as they could feel that the initiative has been introduced because they are underperforming.

Any potential mentor should have received training about how to fulfil their role and they will also need to be matched to a suitable mentee as the scheme will only work if a strong working relationship can be cultivated.

When matching people it is important to consider skills, personalities, goals and relationships as only then will each person gain the most from the scheme because ill matched employees can damage productivity.

If a business has more than one mentor then they should meet and discuss their work because sharing best practises and techniques will improve the quality of your initiative.

Every mentoring relationship should have a goal, or a set of goals, which can be assessed and reviewed and as soon as it stops being beneficial then the scheme must be terminated in order to save business resources.

A central contact point for the scheme is essential as the mentoring programme will require someone who is able to co-ordinate the employees in order to ensure that the relationship is working effectively and efficiently.

While mentoring schemes may benefit female employees the most, there is no reason not to enable all employees to join such an initiative.


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