The document discusses mentoring programs and their benefits for employee retention, succession planning, and skill development. It describes how mentoring allows senior employees to pass on knowledge and expertise to younger employees. The author provides details on the structure of effective mentoring programs, including the five stages of goal setting, initiation, cultivation, separation, and redefinition. The document also gives an example of the mentoring program implemented by Cox Enterprises, where the author participated. The mentoring program helped develop leadership skills and pass on the unique culture of the organization.

1. Running head: MENTORING PROGRAMS 1
Mentoring Programs and their success within Organizations
Tammy Clarke
Saint Leo University

2. MENTORING PROGRAMS 2
Mentoring Programs and their success within Organizations
Mentoring programs in organizations are beneficial to employee retention and
promotions. It is critical for organizations to develop their younger employees due to the baby
boomer employees contemplating retirement. For many years, organizations were complacent in
mentoring employees due to the fact that their top skilled employees were comfortable and well
compensated to stay and continue the work. Now, more than ever, it is critical to utilize
mentoring within a succession plan so that the organization does not lose efficiencies once the
skilled employees retire. Furthermore, it is also critical to use mentoring programs not only for
succession planning, but for development your teams to a higher skill level so that all members
are within a range of skill level instead of having one or two employees that are highly elite in
skill and knowledge. “Mentoring may be for generalized skill development or may also include
succession planning for a designated management position” (Reeves, 2010, p. 63).
Succession Planning and Mentoring Programs
Organizations that support and promote mentoring programs to their employees will have
positive growth and a positive reputation built. Most organizations that are large can sustain
these types of programs yet the hardest area would be for medium to small organizations. Yet, it
is critical to their growth to put in place a program that allows their highly skilled employees to
pass along the knowledge and nuances to the job being performed. The key is to ensure that the
organizational culture, whether the organization has 50 employees or 25,000, supports and
encapsulates the mentorship program. “Organizational culture can hinder or facilitate mentoring
endeavors in powerful ways. Thus, they must be considered in their design, development, and
implementation” (Kochan, 2014, p. 105). Including the culture of the company in the mentoring
program is especially critical when using this method for succession planning. Organizations are

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well aware of the baby boomer generation that are and will be retiring over the next decade and
most organizations realize their core functions as well as their core culture were formed by their
baby boomer employees. A good example is our U.S. Government, which has high tenured
employees that started in the 1960s and 1970s and are now at the age to retire. In order to
capture the essence of the job, department culture, and the feel of the entire agency, the
government is realizing that beyond the function of the job, there must be a passing of
understanding and behavioral tools necessary that are necessary for doing the functions.
“Exactly what are these KSAs that should be passed on to the next generation of
potential civil service leaders? Importantly, it is not simply knowledge alone that
must be learned when assuming a new job; if so, knowledge could be easily
learned by reading standard operating procedures, employee handbooks, or duties,
responsibilities, and tasks to be performed from a job description. Rather, the new
incumbent in a position must also learn the required skills sufficiently well that
they subsequently become reflexive natural abilities as well” (Reeves, 2010, p.
62).
In the mentoring program, the mentor can provide the mentee with how to develop their skills
and abilities to perform the job. In these type programs, which should last approximately six
months, the mentor and mentee have time to develop an understanding of how to communicate
with each other as well as understand each other’s level of knowledge or the job. Attempting to
lengthen the program longer than six months can cause reluctance in mentees and mentors to not
participate again as well as cause stagnation within the partnership (Blanchard, 2012). By
developing this relationship, the knowledge that the mentor has can be passed on to the mentee
in a slower paced, relaxed environment that allows for the natural development of these KSAs.

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Team Building and Mentoring Programs
Cox Enterprises (CEI), the parent company I work for, has provided the Florida CEI
Mentorship Program for many years. I participated in the year long program in 2013. As
mentioned prior, incorporating the organizational culture as well as ensuring the program
supported and developed the mentorship to include and promote CEI’s mission and value
statements was a key initiative when preparing the program and analyzing the mentors and
mentees when partnering them. Being that CEI has several individual organizations under their
corporate umbrella, the mentee’s were fortunate in that their mentor could be within another
division of CEI. In my case, my mentor was a manager in Cox Communications in Pensacola,
Fl. As a group, we met quarterly in different parts of Florida to ensure that all divisions were
able to make it in case proximity to their organization was necessary. When we were paired with
our mentor, each partnership was able to develop a strategy on how to communicate and how
often. My mentor and I spoke weekly on the phone unless work made it impossible. We
emailed several times a week.
The purpose for CEI’s employees within the program was to partner senior members with
emerging or new leaders in order to development the necessary skills to be successful. Further, it
was about passing on the CEI leadership culture, which is unique to the organizations that fall
under CEI. Lois Zachary, author of Creating a Mentoring Culture: The organizations Guide,
captured the key essence of why organizations should use mentoring because, “The relationship
skills learned through mentoring strengthen relationships throughout the organization’ as these
relationships deepen, people feel more connected to the organization” (2005, p. 4). Some
organizations fear mentoring newer employees because they feel the employee will gather
valuable insight and skills and then leave the company. However, when mentoring programs are

5. MENTORING PROGRAMS 5
approached as Zachary mentions, the organization creates employees that have acquired skills
and understanding from their mentors yet they get more by joining into the culture of the
organization and building relationships that are positive for their professional and personal
growth. CEI chose to provide a mentor program to develop their employee within their culture,
not just to develop an employee with a great skillset. “A congruent organizational culture
becomes the placeholder for mentoring by maintain its presence on the organizational agenda”
(Zachary, 2005, p.7).
The Five Stages of Mentoring Programs
While there are many organizations that have informal mentoring programs, it is
important to note that if an organization wants to incorporate a mentoring program that will
develop their employees within their culture, then ensuring that the program is structured to be
successful is important. The following five stages of a mentoring program sets the foundation
for how the program will evolve over time. And, as mentioned prior, utilizing a six-month
program is also beneficial in development the relationships as well as the time needed to pass
along skills and for the mentee to have time to develop the skillset while still being mentored.
As noted by Newby, the five major phases of the mentoring program are goal setting,
initiation, cultivation, separation, and redefinition (2013). In the first phase of goal setting, while
Newby advises that mentors are not directly required to be involved, that many mentors will
participate with their new mentee to assist in focusing on the right goals to set and to provide
expertise (2013). In my mentoring program, the initial CEI mentoring meeting had allotted time
within the daylong conference to set goals. CEI designed it so that mentor and mentee discussed
the goals of the mentoring program between them. This discussion helped the mentor know

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what the mentee was looking to benefit from and grow in. The mentee was able to drill down the
high level goals into more specific areas with the assistance of the tenured mentors.
The second phase is initiation which is, “The commonality between the needs of the
protégé and the experiences of the mentor may naturally bring the two together; however, in
most cases an outside selection process is needed to ensure that all needs and experiences are
optimally matched” (Newby, 2013, p. 142). Often, it is common to have the organizations
program leader review the mentors and mentees and predetermine the matches based on the
information provided on the mentoring program’s application or sheet of interest. In my
experience, the goal setting and initiation period happened immediately once I met my mentor.
In that initiation period, the two discuss objectives, goals, personal and professional information
in order establish a connection. Often, if the pairing is done well at the beginning, then
mentoring partners communicate and connect easily (Newby, 2013). It is critical at this stage
that for the mentee or the mentor, if there is are hindrances in communication or an uneasiness, it
is important to re-establish a new partnership with another mentor or mentee so that the program
can be successful for both in the partnership and the organization itself (Newby, 2013).
The third stage of the program is cultivation. As the word relates, this is the time where
the mentor instills the attitudes, motivation and appropriate skills into the mentee’s exercises and
daily uses in order for the mentee to evolve and become independent in utilizing these new skills
and new attitudes. By midway, the independence of the mentee should be established. As
Blanchard, the author of our textbook states, “it is important to monitor the mentoring process, as
this is critical to its success. At specific checkpoints, both parties can be surveyed about the
progress of the mentee” (2012, p. 234). During cultivation, ensuring that the goals are being

7. MENTORING PROGRAMS 7
accomplished is important due to the fact that the last two phases are more of a separation from
the mentor and at the point, the mentee should have attained the skillsets and attitude.
In the fourth stage, separation, the mentee can now function on his or her own with the
new abilities provided by the mentor. During separation, the mentor should be utilized for
consultation when the mentee struggles in unique situations, etc. (Newby, 2013). Often, the
mentor provides support only when necessary and generally the mentee will initiate this
communication.
The final stage of redefinition will mean something different depending on if the program
is providing succession training or if the organization is providing the program for leadership and
employee enrichment. In the case of succession planning, redefinition can be the redrawing of
the mentor and mentee’s roles and duties (Newby, 2013). The mentee at this point has the
leverage of their own skillsets along with the mentor’s skillsets to determine a more specific
career path or a new approach to department policies. Furthermore, as the mentee experiences
more enriching projects and developments, there may be an opportunity for the mentor to rely on
attributes of the mentee.
In my particular experience, the mentoring program was established to provide leadership
attributes and skillsets to the new leaders with CEI. It was successful in that I continued to rely
on my mentor long after the program ended. Furthermore, as I developed and shared my
experiences with my mentor, he too learned new abilities and the result of our mentoring
program was that two leaders within CEI are sharing knowledge and support across businesses
which means the CEI culture is embedded further.
Conclusion

8. MENTORING PROGRAMS 8
Mentoring programs, formal or informal, may be the most useful program to ensure the
KSAs of the mentor are passed on to the mentees. Some organizations are finding that informal
mentoring within departments are gaining attention and are successful. Furthermore, the cost to
manage this informal mentor program is less and therefore more utilized by organizations
(Newby, 2013). The downside to using informal mentoring is not being able to track the
progress of the mentee within the five stages as well as monitoring the progress of the mentee. It
would benefit those organizations that cannot provide formal mentoring to develop a structure
and progress chart for the department leaders to utilize and monitor their informal mentoring
programs.
In regards to the experienced and aging employees within our population, leaders of
organizations are recognizing the need to capture that knowledge and specific skillsets and instill
them in new employees. The biggest change in capturing that knowledge is also being able to
incorporate the organizational culture into the mentoring process. The finesse and experience of
the seasoned employees should be a representative of the organization itself. Therefore, as
mentioned prior, informal mentoring could miss the opportunity of expressing this and end up
becoming more of a coaching situation on the job functionality. It will be most useful to the
organization to define the program to some capacity and the cost can be small enough to
accommodate a small or medium sized organization. For larger organizations, mentoring
programs are defined and established within the budgets, org charts as well as the Human
Resource department.
Finally, employees that new within the workforce or perhaps new to their organization, it
would benefit them greatly to determine if there are mentoring opportunities in their career path.
Determining a path and then setting goals for areas of growth as well as particular skills sets

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desired, will expedite an employee’s career path as well as provide valued KSAs and tools to
maneuver within an organization. Employees in the position to be a mentee should recognize
that the next decade will be filled with opportunities to fill positions from succession planning as
well as be recognized as an emerging leader within an organization that aligns with the
employee’s career.

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References
Blanchard, P. N., & Thacker, J. W. (2012). Effective training: Systems, strategies, and
practices (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Kochan, F. K., Kent, A. M., & Green, A. M. (2014). Uncovering the Cultural Dynamics in
Mentoring Programs and Relationships : Enhancing Practice and Research. Charlotte,
NC: Information Age Publishing.
Newby, T. J., & Heide, A. (January 01, 2013). The Value of Mentoring. Performance
Improvement Quarterly, 26, 2, 141-158.
Reeves, T. (January 01, 2010). Mentoring Programs in Succession Planning. State and Local
Government Review, 42, 1, 61-66.
Zachary, L. J., & Koestenbaum, P. (2005). Creating a mentoring culture: The organization's
guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.