The Two Sides of the Mentoring Program

by Karen Long and Denise Murillo

The Mentee Perspective, Denise Murillo

Mentoring is a tool that provides great benefits for the organization, the mentors, and the mentees. It is definitely a win-win situation! From an organizational point of view, mentoring increases loyalty, improves recruitment, and disseminates collective wisdom. Loyalty increases because employees feel valued. Recruitment improves because people feel that they will be enthusiastically welcomed and developed if they join the organization. Finally, collective wisdom is disseminated as decades of experiences, insights, stories, traditions, and best practices are passed along.

The mentoring program has provided me with a support mechanism for growth and development. It has also given me an avenue to shorten my learning curve and receive ideas and career advice from an experienced mentor. Not to mention the networking opportunities, improved communication skills, and enhanced diversity awareness that I have enjoyed.

Shortening my learning curve has provided great benefits for the organization as I have become more productive sooner because I have gained knowledge, skills, and attitudes more quickly from my mentor-guided experiences than I would have from longer term, traditional, hit and miss, development methods. I have also benefited because a shortened learning curve has eased my integration into the organization and paved the way for my professional career with Financial Management.

Having mentors is like having friends, allies, or advisors, who can illuminate the path for employees to find how they can better contribute to the organization while taking full advantage of their skills. In summary, my experience as a mentee has been very positive. Of course, for a mentoring program to succeed, you need good mentors and a good match between mentor and mentee. In my personal experience, I can consider myself very lucky in this regard and I want to thank and acknowledge my mentor: Ms. Karen Long. Her advice and guidance has been instrumental in my professional development at Financial Management.

In conclusion, mentoring has great advantages for the organization as well as the mentees and offers a great return on the investment.

The Mentor Perspective, Karen Long

I volunteered to be a mentor in the first year of the new FM program for several reasons, the most important of them being that I have personally benefited from career mentoring provided by FM leaders in my own career. The program developed by the DREAM Team provides an opportunity for staff who do not necessarily have the self-confidence (some would say nerve) to ask an admired FM leader for help - in my case asking V'Ella Warren to be my mentor at a time when I was struggling with various leadership and career issues.

When Denise Murillo and I were matched we were both provided an opportunity to learn about differences in cultural values and inclinations (such as respect for authority, avoidance of conflict, desire to fit with a workgroup) and how these differences affect the ability to develop the key leadership skills required by higher level FM positions. By recognizing the differences and by encouraging some risk-taking, Denise and I developed goals for her skill development and future success.

Mentors can provide career coaching and advice that prevents side-tracking of potential careers, and can also sponsor mentees for opportunities within FM and the University.