Did you know Mentors feel a sense of organizational commitment more often when they mentor? Consider becoming a Mentor today. A mentor is a guide, a colleague, and sometimes a friend. A resource who paves the way to success, and derives satisfaction from helping others succeed. Your role as a mentor is to inspire, encourage, and support your protege, and to contribute to their professional and personal development.

Mentor Responsibilities:

Group Discussion
  • Work with the protege in developing their Mentoring Action Plan
  • Understand how the organization manages its programs, to create realistic work products and model behavior
  • Study key core competencies needed to sustain a strong leadership environment
  • Ensure protege work projects have start and end dates and do not distract from the mentee's official duties
  • Meet routinely with the protege to discuss and monitor progress
  • Provide feedback and recommendations for program improvement

Mentor DO's

  • Commit at least two-three hours of interaction/support per month.
  • Take responsibility to initiate the relationship.
  • Set aside time for the mentoring process and honor all appointments.
  • Invite the protege to meetings or activities, as appropriate. Schedule meetings with planned topics.
  • Be flexible on meeting times and places.
  • Arrange frequent contacts through telephone, email, fax, face-to-face, etc., as appropriate
  • Respond to emails from your protege within 2 days of receipt.
  • Keep information that your protege has shared with you confidential. If something concerning the protege needs to be discussed with others, it should first be discussed within the mentoring relationship.
  • Establish open and honest communication and a forum for idea exchange.
  • Foster creativity and independence. Help build self-confidence and offer encouragement.
  • Provide honest and timely feedback to your mentee.
  • Provide opportunities for the protege to talk about concerns and ask questions.
  • Above all, listen.

 Mentor DONT's

  • Try to give advice on everything.
  • Encourage the protege to be totally dependent upon you.
  • Provide your personal history, problems, animosities, successes, failures, etc unless they are constructive contributions.
  • Be too busy when the protege needs your friendship or your support. If you do not have time, give the protege a heads up, so that they know when they can reach you.
  • Criticize.

Become a Mentor

Share your expertise with those willing and eager to learn.

Apply Now
 

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Why would I want to be a Mentor? Being a Mentor provides you an opportunity to demonstrate and share your expertise and knowledge.  It increases career networks and organizational awareness.  And remember, mentors, are recognized by the organization more often than those not in the program.
  • What am I expected to do? Mentors are expected to provide their protege with about one to two-three hours of support and interaction per month. Most of this interaction will take place via email and other web-related tools (for example, instant messaging) or face-to-face, as appropriate. Mentors should work with their protege to determine what kind of support will be most useful—Mentoring Support Specialists will specifically provide feedback on general career advice, information on higher studies, technical information, personal encouragement, and so on.
  • How long will the commitment be? We ask our mentors to make commitments of at least one year in order to ensure that the protege is able to fully benefit from the relationship. If a mentor must leave the relationship early, we request at least one month's notice in order to search for a replacement mentor with a similar background.
  • Are there any potential risks to me or my company? No. It is not appropriate for mentors to engage in any business transactions with their protege; instead, the relationship should only involve the flow of general information and advice.
  • The relationship is not going well or I am concerned about mentorship, what to do? We encourage letting the Mentor Support Specialist know about the situation and feel free to contact the Mentor Program Manager immediately as the instance occurs. We will provide our full support to resolve the situation in a positive and satisfactory manner.