Thursday, November 14, 2013

How Mentoring Can Attract & Retain IT Talent

With the baby boomer workforce heading into retirement, it’s now urgent to create workplaces that can both lure new IT talent while ensuring employee knowledge is passed along. A good mentoring program can foster this exchange, bring top talent on board, and provide your company with other tangible benefits.
Creates a Team Culture
Mentoring means deeper personal relationships at work, whether it’s via one-on-one dialogues or group mentoring meeting – or, preferably, both. When an employer creates space for and encourages the building of positive exchanges, employees realize the company is truly interested in their professional development.
In a 2010 survey by the Corporate Leadership Council of the Corporate Executive Board, 64% of high-potential employees who identified themselves as dissatisfied with their current employment cited its lack of impact on their career development as one of the reasons they were considering other opportunities.
A company that makes more than a token effort for a healthy mentoring program is investing into an organizational culture where employees feel stronger bonds with their colleagues and their employer.
Creates Tangible Business Benefits
If your organization has been searching for a solid way to better its communication, foster diversity, or align its culture with its mission, mentoring can provide a channel to achieve these valuable business goals. Supporting the connection of worthy advisers to interested employees also increases accountability within a well-structured program, turning potential into performance as talent works with talent to set goals, define responsibilities, clarify expectations, assimilate feedback, and measure results.
When done right, mentoring can also help prevent knowledge loss, as experienced IT professionals advance their career paths or retire by passing along their technology understanding to new or less experienced employees. This gives mentorees insight into their careers, allowing them to give and gain long-term value to the company.
Creates an Enticing Environment for New Recruits
As the candidate pool for IT talent shrinks, companies competing for great recruits will need to demonstrate that they can provide more than just a paycheck and profit sharing possibilities. More than ever, employees want to know where a new position can take them professionally. When recruits see that a company actively invests in a mentoring program, they know they’ve found an employer who will help them along their career path. They will see growth challenges and a bright future.
This realization applies to both ends of the equation. While many employees will recognize the value of having a mentor or mentoring group, others will be excited about the opportunity to become a mentor, raising their industry visibility and increasing their leadership skills.
As you develop a mentoring program, build in recognition and celebration of the future impact mentoring will have on your company and your employees. This requires that you find and collect the success stories that will inevitably arise. These examples will become testimonials for recruiting, raise demand for mentoring, and help you improve the program as best practices are shared. Mentoring can help build an environment of trust and loyalty your IT team will appreciate throughout their career with your business.
If you are looking for IT recruiters in California, contact The Armada Group today.

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