How to Create an IT Mentoring Program in the Workplace

Executives often say “our people are our best asset!” One reason people are so valuable is that, over time, people develop institutional knowledge that is essential to the organization. When key employees leave an organization, that knowledge is often lost.

Passing this knowledge on to junior staff is an important way to ensure operational continuity, improve professional development, and retain employees. The complex nature of systems and networks makes this sharing even more important for IT staff. You can hope that sharing occurs organically or implement formal mechanisms, such as an IT mentoring program.

Mentoring programs benefit both employees and employers. Employees develop knowledge and skills that enable them to do their jobs better and/or prepare them for advancement. Organizations benefit by retaining institutional knowledge and developing more effective employees who are less likely to job-hop.

Steps to Design a Tech Mentoring Program  

Let’s look at some key steps to set up an effective mentoring program at work, starting with deciding program goals and objectives.

1. Define the Goals of Your Tech Mentorship Program 

First, you need to decide your tech mentorship program goals. For example, your enterprise company might have committed to a cloud architecture, and you need to ensure a ready stream of qualified professionals to design, deploy, and secure your cloud applications. Or perhaps you plan to implement an ERP system across multiple divisions and need a team of project managers to handle the roll-out! In that case, your goal is to ensure your team has the knowledge to complete a specific task. 

Alternatively, your goals might be to ensure more than one person knows how to troubleshoot your legacy VoIP system, increase new employee retention, or lower overall churn. Whatever your goal is, make sure it is SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. 

2. Understand the Mentoring Program Needs of IT Employees

Tech mentoring programs at work differ from regular mentorship programs in companies. That’s because they need to take into account the technical specialization of the mentored professional! As such, they also need to be tied closely to industry technical certifications. 

This means that the mentors must be experienced in the specific tech field you want the mentee to focus on—perhaps even certified. Ideally, mentors will also have supervisory experience. This way, they can provide specific guidance and advice that will help the mentee develop both technical and soft skills. 

When mentoring tech employees, you need to consider their career trajectory.  Are they headed for a supervisory role or one as a senior specialist? For example, the mentee might be an entry-level security specialist with a focus on becoming an IT auditor or cybersecurity analyst.  

These choices will help guide mentor selection, as well as the balance of technical online mentoring programs and soft skills training. Based on your tech mentorship program goals, you can decide how to select participants—both the mentors and the mentees.

3. Design the Structure of Your Mentoring Program

There are a number of decisions to be made in how to structure your tech mentorship program. For example:

• Will mentoring sessions be face-to-face (offline), or will the mentor and mentees meet online? 

• Will there be one-on-one sessions, or will each mentor work with a group of mentored professionals? Maybe it’s a mix of both!

• Will your work mentoring program last only a limited time with a single cohort of graduates, or will it be repeated with multiple classes of mentees? Our cloud professionals tech mentorship program example above might be short-term until a critical mass of expertise has been developed. 

• What training courses – both technical and personal development – will be required? 

You'll also need to define the training content of the tech mentorship program and the resources required. This includes workshops and seminars, as well as online resources such as online technical training. It may be necessary to create a curriculum – especially if preparation for specific vendor and/or industry certifications is anticipated.

If your organization uses a learning management system (LMS), you should use it to deliver and manage your mentoring online training program. The LMS can also be used to track the progress of your tech mentoring program at work.

4. Launch the Tech Mentorship Program

You’ll need to decide how to promote your mentoring program at work to prospective participants and how to select them. You can use regular communication vehicles, such as email, bulletin boards, coffee room posters, etc., to allow candidates to self-nominate. The IT management team is often in the best position to identify and nominate candidates for both mentors and mentees from their own teams.

Once you have selected your mentors and mentees, you’ll need to get them on board for the tech mentorship program, with orientation sessions for each type of participant. In each case, you’ll explain how the mentoring program at work will operate and set individual and program expectations and goals,

5. Monitor and Evaluate Your Tech Mentorship Program

Finally, you must be able to monitor the progress of both individuals and the overall mentoring program. You can turn to the learning management system to report on the completion and success of training modules.  You can also get soft feedback through participant surveys and interviews.  

Management will be investing significant time and money in your tech mentoring program. They’ll be looking for clear feedback on the effectiveness of the mentoring program design, based on specific key performance indicators (KPIs) such as participant satisfaction and engagement, learning and development targets, and retention rates. 

Some of these KPIs can be found in your mentoring software and/or learning management system. As with any program, your mentoring program design can be improved by continuous monitoring, feedback, and adaptation.

Conclusion

The world of IT is complex and ever-changing. A lot can go wrong, and it's not uncommon for only a few people to know how to fix a particular problem. If they leave, what happens? 

Organizations need a plan to develop IT professionals for key positions and protect against the loss of institutional knowledge. Tech mentorship programs are a key tool to aid in the development and longer-term retention of IT staff. Careful selection of the technical mentors and the professionals to be mentored can achieve both goals.

If you’re planning to implement a tech mentoring program at work, an LMS integration is the most effective way for your team to train with CBT Nuggets. Learn more about LMS integration with CBT Nuggets.