THE POWER OF MENTORSHIP: CULTIVATING THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS

When I first entered the PEO industry, I had absolutely no idea what it was about. I was a relatively new lawyer that inadvertently found his way into the business that, at that time, was called employee leasing. I didn’t know anything about payroll, payroll taxes, insurance or even human resources. To say that the learning curve was steep is an understatement.

I remember sitting in Mike Miller’s office, an attorney that was going to assist me in the Florida licensing process. Mike told me that he would represent me, but only if I promised to get involved with the industry association which, at that time, was NAPEO and the local chapter, FAPEO.

I followed Mike’s guidance and quickly got involved in the industry association because I knew it was imperative to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could and I could not think of a better place to do that. I was not disappointed; my participation surrounded me with the founders of the industry along with the people that would shape its future. I saw all of the things that good operators should do and many of the things that would lead to problems. Along the way, I made great friends, as well. I had found my mentors and I attribute much of my learning and success to them.

CREATING A MENTOR PROGRAM

There are a lot of definitions of mentorship, but they all seem to have some common elements. One source states that, “Mentorship is a protected relationship in which a more knowledgeable or experienced person guides and nurtures the professional development or growth of another, outside the normal manager / subordinate line management.

What is much more important is that mentorship transcends mere supervision and training. A mentor / mentee relationship is one in which the mentor becomes invested in the personal and professional development and outcome of the mentee. Said another way, mentorship is important because it is “having someone in your corner who can provide feedback, encouragement and support to help you grow both professionally and personally.

The benefits of creating an environment in which an organization values the growth of its team seems obvious. However, the culture of growth requires much more than just a friendly and cohesive environment. It must passionately propagate the environment that allows for the personal and professional development of every person on the team. It must be a part of the DNA of the organization. Mentorship is a key component of that growth and can provide many benefits, including knowledge, setting goals, connections, feedback and growth.

If an organization wants to create a mentorship program, it should focus on what the ultimate goal of the program will be. For example, will it be to reduce employee turnover? To increase the engagement of employees? To develop an employee succession program? Articulating the objectives is a great first step to developing a program.

While SHRM created guidance for mentorship programs for students and professionals within the HR profession, much of their program could apply to any organization. According to SHRM, to create a formal mentorship program, an organization must create some basic guidelines. For example, they must first define who can participate in the program. How long will the mentorship last? How will people be matched up? What are the specific activities? In order to develop these guidelines, the organization needs to select someone to organize and coordinate the program.

Just like everything else in business, it doesn’t matter how good you are if no one knows about it! Therefore, it is important to promote the benefits of the program to all prospective participants and continuously reinforce the benefits and success of the program.

Once the program identifies its participants, all participants should be trained in the appropriate role of a mentor and mentee, the structure of the program and the expectations for each participant. In a formal mentorship program, it is important to have specific criteria and processes laid out so that everyone gets value out of the experience.

Then, the process of matching mentors to mentees becomes the critical step to success. The program can allow the mentors and mentees to select one another or the individual running the program can select the appropriate connection based upon the goals and objectives of the mentee and comparing those to the experience and knowledge of the prospective mentors.

Just like any other aspect of business process, the program should create a feedback loop so that the coordinator and senior management can determine whether the program is working to achieve the goals set or whether changes to the program need to be made.

THE VALUE OF MENTORSHIP

While there are certainly formal mentorship programs as discussed above, most mentorships are created organically. As the old saying goes, a mentorship is created when a mentee chooses their mentor.

In my almost thirty years in business, I never participated as a mentee in a formal program but I always had at least one mentor to learn from. My mentors have run the entire spectrum from older, experienced members of the legal community or the PEO industry to young newcomers that allowed me to see a new way to view things and a unique perspective to solving problems. Some were running large companies, while others were involved in smaller boutique companies. Each brought a unique way of looking at our industry and a wealth of knowledge and experience in how to manage problems.

At all times in my career, whenever I ran into a situation that was new to me or a problem that seemed too big for me to solve, I would pick up the phone and call someone that I respected and admired and ask them if they had ever encountered the same issue and how they managed it. I was always comforted by the fact that almost every time, the issue I experienced was a common problem and there was plenty of experience to share about how to resolve the matter. Those phone calls were the building blocks to my education and became the bricks upon which I built my business.

I also served as a mentor in an entrepreneur group that was designed to assist business owners that had achieved some level of success and helping them to scale their business. That scenario was a bit different because it was group mentorship rather than one on one mentorship. Over the course of two years, I was mentor to about ten different business owners. We met in groups of five every month and we ran through a very specific agenda that is designed to efficiently get key points of discussion to work through. This program had a very specific format and very specific metrics about each business that each person would be responsible to know and discuss. From there, we could discuss the goals and objectives of each individual and share our collective experience with one another.

It was extremely rewarding for me because I viewed every single person as a success. Some of them grew their businesses to the next level, some realized that they were happy with the level that they had achieved, some exited the business and some people decided that the business was just not the right fit for them, so they found something that made them happier.

The thing that enabled my growth as a PEO owner and executive is the mentors that I identified over time and who were gracious enough to take me under their wings. My involvement in the PEO industry associations helped facilitate that because where else can you go and get access to so many people who are all engaged in the same business, who all contend with the same types of problems, and who are all working in cooperation to try and solve problems? There is no other place that you can get the entire spectrum of business operators than the industry association.

As I look back at my personal growth in the industry and all of the people that contributed to my development and success, I recognize how important it is for the industry and company leaders today to take responsibility for shaping the leaders of the next generation. We are all potential mentors to someone who is craving growth, either in our industry or in our businesses. We have incredible institutional knowledge that we can impart upon the newcomers and while doing so, there is no doubt in my mind that we will learn from them, as well.