Mentoring Our Way to Success

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, “mentoring is the act of helping and the process of providing guidance to someone who is either younger or less experienced.” This definition just scratches the surface of what the mentorship experience can provide to people at all levels of their careers. If you’ve been thinking of becoming a part of a mentorship program, National Mentoring Month just may be the perfect time to get started. At TTEC, we help our employees Reach for amazing by creating professional development programs, including our own Mentorship Program. We’ll share some of our best practices, how you can be successful in a mentorship program and break down the benefits of bringing mentoring opportunities into your career. We’ll talk about how TTEC weaves mentoring opportunities for early career starters through our Talent Accelerator Program (TAP) and for the TTEC team through our Mentorship Program.  

The foundation of mentoring
First things first, it starts with finding a match for your career goals. Everyone can become a mentor to someone but that does not mean every mentor (or mentee) is the right match for where you want to go in your career. While advice and words of wisdom is a big part of the relationship, an effective mentorship requires self-reflection, trust building, and constant communication between parties.  

While our career mentoring program helps develop skills in a space where it’s safe to learn, experiment, and ask questions, our goal is for our mentees to experience life-changing and inspiring mentorship that will help open their minds and forge healthy, long-term relationships with their mentors.  

Through the TTEC Mentorship Program, the mentorship lasts for at least three months, so the partners get the full benefits from the relationship.  

Be proactive as a mentee

You know what they say...the more effort you put into something, the more you’ll get out of it. This is true on both sides for the mentoring relationship. TTEC’s Mentorship Program guides participants to take a proactive approach by setting goals and sharing those aspirations with their mentor.

Here’s a few steps to get you started:  

• As a mentee, it’s important to set your goals and share them with you mentor to shape the mentorship relationship. 
• During your sessions, be open and transparent with each other to maximize your time together and create an action plan to move forward
• At TTEC, we also provide the Mentee Guidebook, to support both the mentors and mentees in setting the right expectations from each other and with the program.
   

Actively engage as a mentor

Becoming a mentor is the perfect way to help guide and enrich the development of colleagues. And since mentoring is a two-way street, it’s the perfect opportunity to learn from each other.

As you’ve given your commitment to this role, remember:  

• Be prepared for your coaching sessions 
• Stay mindful and in the moment to deliver maximum results for your mentee
• Share thought provoking ideas on how to stretch the mentee’s talents and skills

When asked about the value of mentorship, Rebecca B., Global Talent Acquisition Marketing Consultant, and a mentor herself, shared how rewarding it is it to be able to help someone with their career aspirations and help them gain more visibility in the organization. In return, what she gets is the opportunity to become a better leader by gaining more understanding about how the business works and thinking of innovative ways to creatively solution. 

Part of the TTEC family?
Check out these helpful resources on TTEC University's intranet space:  

• The Importance of Mentoring Your People: Expert Insight by Virginia A. “Ginger” Barnes
• Coaching and Mentoring for Career Development: Expert Insight by Martyn Redgrave
• The Mentor Guidebook
• Coaching and Mentoring Can Be Taught: Expert Insight by Michael Useem  

Mentoring Early Career Starters

We believe in training our future leaders early. Through TTEC’s Talent Accelerator Program (TAP), we guide early career starters to explore their interests, gain wisdom, and unlock their potential faster.  

They are guided by mentors from various levels of the organization where they will gain significant understanding of the business and help to refine their career goals.

When we asked Brooke T., Talent Accelerator Program Supervisor, about the importance mentorship plays in their program, she shared that through the specialized matching processes and guidelines, the team ensures that both the mentors and mentees get the most out of their relationship throughout the three-year journey of the TAP employee.  

Isabella B., a current cohort member of TTEC’s TAP and Business Transformation Associate, shared how valuable mentoring is for her as an early career starter to hit the ground running. “In the traditional work setting, mentorship is a practice (that) an individual facilitate independently. In the TAP program, there is a recognized value for mentorship that it is incorporated in the program.” By working closely with her assigned mentor, her questions are answered personally and professionally, alongside her interest to growth within the company. She adds, “(Our designated mentors) guide us in these areas and assist us in formulating the answers and ideas we have for ourselves and for TTEC. Mentorship in the TAP shows us from day one our development is highly valued.”

Here is Isabella’s advice on how create a valuable mentorship experience:   

• Pinpoint where you and your mentor align and where you may not
• Communicate with your mentor on where you feel you struggle – and be confident in where you think you succeed
• Remember...mentorships are intended to foster meaningful dialogues where the feedback you are given is best applied going forward!  
  A mentorship is intended to become a long-term relationship so being yourself, encouraging transparency, and constantly reflecting on your mentorship is recommended

No matter how formal or informal the setting is, we can all become mentors to someone. One of the wonderful things I discovered as a budding educator, through our mentorship program for youth and out-of-school-youth in the university, was that you cannot teach what you do not know or what you do not feel.

Mentoring is all around us

In 2013, I became a tutor and a recruiter of volunteers for an after-school program that helps kids who were diagnosed as non-readers and slow learners in 2nd and 5th Grade English and Mathematics. This candid photo appeals so much to me when I taught Michael how to tie his shoelaces. He told me that his mum would do it for him but never actually taught him how.

I saw myself in Michael’s place.

Luckily for Michael, he had tutors to help him with his schoolwork through the enrichment program. When I was at his age, I found studying to be difficult – one, I have an attention span of a goldfish and two, both of my parents were working and being the only child did not help, too. But as his mentor, I wanted Michael’s experience to be seamless, if not a best one... something that he will remember as a student and as a kid. By teaching some tricks on how to easily solve fraction numbers and making reading fun and exciting, I know I am making a difference to someone’s life because I tried seeing things from his perspective.

To all mentors wherever you may be in the globe, thank you for taking time to share your knowledge and wisdom to your mentees. And to you, dear mentees, may you continue pursuing your dreams and forge your path to success.

Interested in becoming part of a global organization that supports your development? Click on Career Paths in the navigation and start your search to #ExperienceTTEC.