When it comes to employee development, it's essential to understand the distinction between coaching and mentoring. Coaching is more performance-oriented and is designed to enhance the professional's performance at work. On the other hand, mentoring is more development-focused, taking a holistic approach to professional growth. It concentrates on the transfer of skills and knowledge, allowing unique mentoring relationships to take place. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore the differences between coaching and mentoring, how they are complementary functions, and how they can be used in an employee development program.
We'll also discuss how modern mentoring software can help organizations reach their desired outcomes and measure their success. At its core, coaching is a formal commitment between a specially trained coach and a client. It is performance-based and intended to improve the professional's performance at work. Mentoring, on the other hand, is an informal relationship focused on development. The mentor shares specific knowledge, experiences, and skills to help the learner acquire ideas, achieve development goals, and overcome obstacles to their professional and personal growth. In her book Mentoring Programs That Work, Jenn Labin explains that it's incredibly important to make sure that programs are designed with the desired results in mind.
This outcome will influence whether a “training” or “mentoring” framework is used and what terminology is ultimately used to describe the nature of the relationships between your development program. It's important to note that you can train without mentoring and you can mentor without training. However, for the best results, a business employee development program may need to have both. Once again, this depends on how your organization's talent development program is structured. To differentiate between coaching and mentoring, mentors rely heavily on their professional or life experiences and make those past experiences a central part of the engagement. Mentors often incorporate transferable experiences and skills but may not have developed a career around teaching others those experiences or skills. Don't be surprised if you're trying to launch a mentoring program and are having trouble attracting mentors.
Many people who would be excellent mentors for a mentoring program don't realize the positive influence they can have because they are rarely recognized for the transferable talent they bring. If you want to find and cultivate mentors, create a culture in which your people are actively recognized for the positive and impactful value they bring to your organization. Ultimately, coaching and mentoring are student-centered training methods that can be included in a broader employee development framework. Organizations can benefit from both business coaching and business mentoring when they create learning relationships that most benefit their organizational objectives. Organizations such as The Clorox Company, Nielsen, and Bacardi have chosen to take advantage of modern mentoring software such as MentorCliq for their mentoring and training programs. By implementing this software, organizations have found that they can more easily achieve the measurable objectives of their programs while dramatically reducing tension when starting programs. Connect with MentorCliq to see how mentoring programs powered by mentoring software can impact and improve the mentoring and training needs of your employees.
Sam Cook is the content strategist at MentorCliq who has seen first-hand the transformative impact that comes from mentoring for both mentors and learners. Providing a new leader with a coach or mentor during succession planning shows them that you are committed to their success. In this article we've explored the differences between coaching and mentoring in detail. Coaching is more performance-based while mentoring takes a holistic approach to professional growth. It's important for organizations to understand these differences in order to create effective employee development programs. Modern mentoring software such as MentorCliq can help organizations achieve their desired results while measuring their success.
Ultimately, both coaching and mentoring are student-centered training methods that can be included in a broader employee development framework.
