Speakers: Stephanie Bowie, CPA, Owner – B. Empowered, LLC
What should be considered when establishing or revitalizing a corporate mentoring program?
Stephanie Bowie, CPA: When you're looking to either establish a formal mentoring program or revitalize an existing program, I think there are several questions that you and the leadership team at your firm should really ask yourselves. The first one being, what are our strategic goals? Where are we going? What, what would success look like five years from now? Are there pending retirements that we would want to ensure that we have some type of pipeline of future leaders ready to step in? Are there skill sets that we have identified as an organization that are important to us in the future? Five years out? Data analytics. Do we need to intensify our communication skills? What is the vision? Where are we going and how will this mentoring program support us in achievement of that goal? So those are some of those planning type of questions. Number two, you should think about what the firm's level of commitment to the program will and can be as far as structurally. Mentoring programs with any program, like training as well, will have a cost associated with it and it may not be hours that you can bill out to a client. I know that my firm where I work for the Department of Defense, we are allotted or authorized a certain number of hours. It's a very small number of hours, maybe four hours per month, that we're allotted for administrative time specifically for mentoring. Maybe that's not something that your firm could commit to, but could you do an hour lunch? What are the ways that you are prepared as an organization to support your mentoring program? Next, I would think about engaging everyone from director on down. We serve as mentors when we enter leadership and it's not necessarily because we're told, it's not on a performance plan, that hey, you will sign up to be a mentor, but it's so ingrained in our culture, mentorship is, that that's really something that as we start progressing in our organization, we're starting to think, okay, who's coming up behind me? And how can I invest some of my skill, my passion, my experience, and really impart that knowledge and wisdom into someone else? So it is truly a give back. And if everyone is engaged, from your C-suite to your directors, your vice presidents and trickle on down through management, everyone will see that this is going to be a part of our culture. We are a learning and growing organization and we are all committed to your development and your growth.
Stephanie Bowie, CPA: And I think lastly, a consideration of how will you measure success? How will you evaluate your mentoring program? Will you think it's a success if you have, your vacancies are, maybe they were unfilled for 3 to 6 months, and now that time is down to 30–60 days. What will be the the measurements that you use to decide if your mentoring program is providing you the benefit that you were looking for? So those are some of the considerations that you might want to think about as you look to establish your mentoring program.
