Tehcnology in modern mentoring

The last blog post from Sodexo´s 2013 Workplace Trends called: Modern Mentoring, some of the big thing was modern technology brought to mentoring. In this blog post I will talk more about the technology.

Technology plays a large role in enabling this to happen because it allows organizations to view mentoring as a “for the masses” practice that harnesses the collective knowledge, skills, abilities and passions of an

organization’s entire workforce. Employees can create their own personal learning and advising networks that grow and flex as their individual needs and strengths change. This adaptability means insights are shared and applied on the job in a just-in-time manner, with people seeing real work results from their mentoring activities.

Adults want to drive their own learning, and as they address their own personal real-time learning needs by connecting with colleagues from anywhere in the organization, they are in control of their learning. These

knowledge-sharing connections help break down silos and spread expertise and innovation quickly across the enterprise, which can spark new solutions and creative ideas among employees that they can then bring to the job.

An ideal mentoring and knowledge-sharing network is:

• 5-15 people

• Learners and advisors come from across functions, locations, generations, etc.

• People shift in and out of the network and of the roles themselves, as learning needs and knowledge strengths evolve, creating a diverse, fluid and dynamic network

 

The diverse networks that people form can help them generate creative solutions, novel ideas, and unique approaches to organizational problems or issues they are facing. In fact, researchers Christoph Lechner, Karolin Frankenberger, and Steven W. Floyd found that among colleagues who are collaborating for work, the more diverse the networks were in terms of values and viewpoints, the more they increased their performance

Tips:

In light of this result, organizations looking to foster and encourage major creative solutions and thinking among workers, as well as innovative improvements in current processes throughout the business, would do well to encourage more diversity in individual learning networks. This type of inclusive knowledge sharing thrives at Sodexo, where they actively support learning connections across generational, geographical and organizational boundaries.