Each One Teach One

Smart organizations have mentoring programs to help transfer knowledge and skills to new employees. These programs produce psychological satisfaction in mentors and create strong bonds between experienced and newer workers.

As I researched various organizations, of the five exceptional programs I found, four are from IBM. There are other good mentoring programs out there — perhaps in your organization — but this is an area where IBM excels.

1. Veterans Benefits Administration’s Training and Performance Support System: The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has developed a program for its education benefits clerks that allows them to develop relationships with virtual mentors. The learning portion also includes simulations, videos and practice or assessment exercises.

The clerk’s role is to process documents received by the Department of Veterans Affairs from individual claimants, schools and other sources and to move them forward through the system. The program’s purpose is to mentor and train staff to better enable members of the armed forces to obtain their education benefits.

2. IBM’s Global Immersion Mentoring: As IBM grows in emerging markets such as India, China and Latin America, many new hires lack the necessary experience to excel. The company’s global mentoring program develops capabilities among new staff members in these countries.

Previous programs used technology to link mentors and mentees. IBM extended that idea with an immersion program where mentors travel to the mentees’ locations to meet daily one-on-one.

Some of the company’s sales leader mentors have said mentees are not the only ones learning in this program, and mentors have seen other significant differences in the growth markets versus the major markets. For this reason, the program is being extended, and the methodologies used are being retained as best practices. According to IBM, the program produced new skills among mentees as well as increased revenue, winning back old customers and new customers in growth markets.

3. IBM’s System z Mini-Boot Camp: The products supported on IBM’s mainframes, System z, continue to grow, which makes it difficult for employees to maintain expertise. The company designed a mini-boot camp so participants can reach expert level within three to five years, instead of the previous 10 to 15 years. Mentoring is critical because IBM leaders believe taking formal courses alone will not enable employees to achieve an expert level.