The purpose of mentoring graduates is to grow their knowledge and accelerate their career development by tapping into the expertise of a more senior employee.
There are many benefits to mentoring graduates. Besides enabling graduate employees to learn from their more experienced seniors, mentorship programmes also boost their career prospects. Successful career development for graduates requires much more than technical and job-related skills. Developing a successful career requires excellent communication and other soft skills, professional relationships, and fine-tuned career goals. A mentor plays a pivotal role in assisting young graduates in honing these skills and fostering crucial connections.
Mentoring graduates is also beneficial for employers. It helps attract the right candidates, enhances employee engagement and provides an excellent retention strategy.
The benefits of mentoring graduates for employers
1. Promote a diverse and inclusive workplace
Diversity and inclusion bring many benefits to a business, such as higher performance, greater innovation, and a more positive environment for both employees and employers.
By embracing diversity and mentoring graduates, organisations create an inclusive workplace and reap the extensive benefits of hiring graduates.
2. Increased employee retention
According to a 5-year study by Gartner, organisations that participated in mentoring experienced a twenty percent higher employee retention rate than those that did not.
When organisations provide professionally supportive work environments by mentoring graduates, they not only attract innovative talent but also experience greater retention rates.
Research shows that forty percent of employees who don’t receive the necessary job training to carry out their role effectively will leave their positions within their first year at the company.
3. Improved onboarding and productivity
When new graduates begin a new job, they frequently feel overwhelmed by all of their daily responsibilities. Having no one to guide you in the performance of your duties makes things even more difficult.
Having a dedicated mentor to assist will help a new graduate employee overcome all these settling difficulties. Employees pick up their responsibilities more quickly, which speeds up the onboarding process and improves productivity.
4. The opportunity for reverse mentoring
Although mentorship is generally the transfer of knowledge from a senior employee to a graduate employee, there’s a case for reverse mentoring since mentors can also learn from their tech-savvy mentees.
Graduate employees can close the skills gap and assist senior professionals in remaining relevant in the digital era by utilising their understanding of recent technology and developing trends.
5. Enhance employee engagement
Achieving business objectives and success depends on having engaged employees. There are five main areas where mentoring graduates increase employee engagement:
- By tapping into the experience of your more senior staff, it offers additional chances for training and development.
- Mentorship gives young professionals a chance to speak with senior staff, breaking barriers in communication and fostering engagement among staff.
- Graduates are allowed to prove themselves during their mentorship, providing them with the opportunity for career advancement within the organisation.
- Mentoring graduates increases the engagement of staff by cultivating a growth mindset within the organisation.
- Mentorship encourages young employees to make the commitment to their mentor to grow, which makes it harder for these employees to procrastinate on achieving their career goals.
Mentorship enhances employee engagement because it gives graduates personal and professional development. It satisfies their desire for career progression and the development of their knowledge and skills.
Mentoring graduates is a way for them to swiftly gain knowledge by leveraging the experience of more senior employees and expanding their connections beyond their peers. For mentors, it is an opportunity to demonstrate their leadership and knowledge, validate their communication skills, and take pleasure in the benefits of mentoring graduates. By mentoring, they also refine their knowledge.
Employers who set up official mentoring programmes stand to gain from having a strong workplace culture with more engaged, connected employees who want to grow and advance within the company rather than leave.
Need advice on setting up a mentorship programme within your organisation? Or are you looking for top talent for your organisation? Speak to us. RecruitAGraduate is your go-to expert in graduate hiring. Contact us for more information or advice, or load a job.