Mentoring: Key to Knowledge Mangement
Issue: After retirements of skilled, senior scientists and engineers resulted in the organization losing more than “100,000 years of wisdom” during the first quarter, this large, high profile defense laboratory determined that something needed to be done to ensure that newer professionals had access to on-going learning and guidance from their more senior counterparts.
Solution: As part of a comprehensive development system, mentoring was introduced as a way of building developmental relationships across the entire technical organization. This flexible system, with both formal and informal components, included training on mentoring skills and development planning to help focus the relationship between mentor and mentee.
Result: Over the 5 years after first initiating this mentoring opportunity, more than 500 employees participated in the process. New engineers were assimilated into their work more quickly and thus became more productive earlier in their careers. Development came to be recognized as part of every leader’s job. Participants reported increased motivation and satisfaction with work, as well as having access to this “non-codifiable wisdom” through relationships with long-term employees who would mentor them.