1

S.P. MANDALIS
R. A PODAR COLLEGE OF COMMERCE AND ECONOMICS
MATUNGA, MUMBAI-400 019.

A PROJECT REPORT ON
Mentoring programs in succession planning
SUBMITTED BY
Hitesh Lalji Solanki
M.COM (SEM. II): Human resource management
Roll No-150
SUBMITTED TO
UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI
2013-2014
PROJECT GUIDE
Prof. Dr (Mrs.) Vinita Pimpale


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S.P. MANDALIS
R. A PODAR COLLEGE OF COMMERCE AND ECONOMICS
MATUNGA, MUMBAI-400 019.
CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Mr. /Ms. Hitesh Lalji Solanki of M.Com (Business Management/ Accountancy)
Semester II (2013-2014) has successfully completed the project on Mentoring programs in succession
planning under the guidance of Prof. Dr. (Mrs.) Vinita Pimpale


Project Guide/Internal Examiner External Examiner
Prof. Dr. (Mrs.) Vinita Pimpale Prof. ________________________


Dr. (Mrs.) Vinita Pimpale Dr. (Mrs.) Shobana Vasudevan
Course Co-ordinator Principal

Date-7
th
march 2014 Seal of the College


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I acknowledge the valuable assistance provided by S. P Mandalis R. A. Podar College of
Commerce & Economics, for two year degree course in M.Com.
I specially thank the Principal Dr.(Mrs.) Shobana Vasudevan for allowing us to use the
facilities such as Library, Computer Laboratory, internet etc.
I sincerely thank the M.Com Co-ordinator for guiding us in the right direction to prepare
the project.
I thank my guide Prof. Dr. (Mrs.) Vinita Pimpale who has given his/her valuable time,
knowledge and guidance to complete the project successfully in time.
My family and peers were great source of inspiration throughout my project, their support is
deeply acknowledged.



Signature of the Student


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DECLARATION
I, Hitesh Lalji Solanki of R. A. PODAR COLLEGE OF COMMERCE &
ECONOMICS of M.Com SEMESTER II, hereby declare that I have completed
the project Mentoring programs in succession planning in the academic year 2013-
2014 for the subject Human resource Management
The information submitted is true and original to the best of my knowledge.



Signature of the Student



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INDEX
Sr.no. PARTICULARS
PAGE
1. Mentoring 6
2 Mentoring Models In A Structured Program 8
3. Succession planning 9
4. Mentoring Benefits: Succession Planning 16
5. The Role of Mentoring in Effective Succession
Planning
18
6. mentorship program for LnT power

25
7. Conclusion 35
8. Bibliography 35
9.
10.


11.

12.

13.


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Mentoring
Mentoring is most often defined as a professional relationship in which an experienced person(the mentor)
assists another (the mentoree) in developing specific skills and knowledge that will enhance the less-
experienced persons professional and personal growth.
The following are among the mentors functions:
Teaches the mentoree about a specific issue
Coaches the mentoree on a particular skill
Facilitates the mentorees growth by sharing resources and networks
Challenges the mentoree to move beyond his or her comfort zone
Creates a safe learning environment for taking risks
Focuses on the mentorees total development
Mentoring characteristics:
Takes place outside of a line manager-employee relationship, at the mutual consent of a mentor and the
person being mentored
Is career-focused or focuses on professional development that may be outside a mentorees area of work
Relationship is personal - a mentor provides both professional and personal support
Relationship may be initiated by a mentor or created through a match initiated by the organization
Relationship crosses job boundaries
Relationship may last for a specific period of time (nine months to a year) in a formal program, at which
point the pair may continue in an informal mentoring relationship
It usually exists because of the mentors lengthy experience and wisdom in a


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particular role in the cultural community, and their track record of success.
There are two types of mentors:
1. Role Model
The Role Model in a cultural organization is usually a senior person who has been there, seen it, and
done it. They may have been in senior positions in two or three cultural organizations or even different
cultural sub-sectors. They pass on the benefit of their lengthy experience of what works and what
doesnt. They need good listening skills and the ability to withhold judgment and advice, until its
needed. This can be very frustrating for the mentor who is itching to pass on their accumulated wisdom
and many of these mentors spoil the role by trying to give more than is wanted. In doing so, they risk
taking the ownership of the relationship totally away from their employee. Employees can end up
feeling that something is being done to them, that they are being mentored. Good role models tend to be
very well connected in the cultural community and able to introduce the person to new sources of
information and specific learning resources, often outside their organization. If the relationship works
well, it often leads to an enduring friendship.
2. Facilitative Mentors
operate at a more focused level than the role model. They help people explore their own issues, build
their own insights and self awareness and develop their own unique ways of handling how they interact
with key colleagues and the organization. They use current issues to look at recurrent patterns of
thinking and behavior, asking penetrating questions and stimulating the person to take control of issues
they have avoided. They build the employees confidence through greater self-understanding. In short,
their strength and contribution is in facilitating the employees growth



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Mentoring Models In A Structured Program
1. One-On-One Mentoring
The most common mentoring model, one-on-one mentoring matchs one mentor with one mentoree. Most
people prefer this model because it allows both mentor and mentoree to develop a personal relationship and
provides individual support for the mentoree. Availability of mentors is the only limitation.
2. Resource-Base mentoring
Resource-based mentoring offers some of the same features as one-on-one mentoring. The main difference is
that mentors and mentorees are not interviewed and matched by a Mentoring Program Manager. Instead,
mentors agree to add their names to a list of available mentors from which a mentoree can choose. It is up to the
mentoree to initiate the process by asking one of the volunteer mentors for assistance. This model typically has
limited support within the organization and may result in mismatched mentor-mentoree pairing.
3. Group Mentoring
Group mentoring requires a mentor to work with 4-6 mentorees at one time. The group meets once or twice a
month to discuss various topics. Combining senior and peer mentoring, the mentor and the peers help one
another learn and develop appropriate skills and knowledge. Group mentoring is limited by the difficulty of
regularly scheduling meetings for the entire group. It also lacks the personal relationship that most people prefer
in mentoring. For this reason, it is often combined with the one-on-one model. For example, some organizations
provide each mentoree with a specific mentor. In addition, the organization offers periodic meetings in which a
senior executive meets with all of the mentors and mentorees, who then share their knowledge and expertise.
4. Training-Based Mentoring
This model is tied directly to a training program. A mentor is assigned to a mentoree to help that person develop
the specific skills being taught in the program. Training-based mentoring is limited, because it focuses on the
subject at hand and doesnt help the mentoree develop a broader skill set.


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5. Executive Mentoring
This top-down model may be the most effective way to create a mentoring culture and cultivate skills and
knowledge throughout an organization. It is also an effective succession-planning tool, because it prevents the
knowledge "brain drain" that would otherwise take place when senior management retires.
Succession planning
Introduction
Succession planning is the process of ensuring availability of competent personnel to take over a key position
with critical responsibilities when the incumbent leaves. Succession planning is also aimed at ensuring that the
business operations continue without disruption in the event of a loss of critical personnel for any reason. A
succession plan is the outcome of a process that examines critical responsibilities within an organization and
identifies successors. Mentoring is an opportunity to improve the skills of a successor. A mentor is a person
with significant experience in a particular role who engages with a protg to pass on knowledge, many times in
order to prepare the protg for success in their next position.
Succession planning is not an issue that many organizations address in any systematic way. Because many
nonprofits are small (with fewer than 10 employees) and because they may be facing other organizational
challenges, thinking about who the next executive director might be or what would happen if the director of
finance suddenly left is not high on their priority list.
There are many reasons why organizations need to be thinking about succession planning. The most important
reason, of course, is that we rely on staff to carry out our missions, provide services and meet our organization's

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goals. We need to think about what would happen to those services or our ability to fulfill our mission if a key
staff member left.
Another reason to focus on succession planning is the changing realities of workplaces. The impending
retirement of the baby boomers is expected to have a major impact on workforce capacity. Teresa Howe in
"Succession Planning and Management" identified other emerging realities about the workforce in Canada:
Vacancies in senior or key positions are occurring in numerous organizations simultaneously and demographics
indicate there are statistically fewer people available to fill them
Baby boomer retirements are on the rise just at the time when the economy is growing and increasing the
demand for senior management expertise
There is no emerging group of potential employees on the horizon as in past generations (i.e. baby boomers,
women entering the workforce, large waves of immigration)
Many organizations eliminated middle manager positions during restructuring in the 1980s and 90s and no
longer have this group as a source to fill senior level vacancies
Younger managers interested in moving up do not have the skills and experience required because they have not
been adequately mentored. This is because middle managers, who would normally perform this type of
coaching role, were eliminated
With careful planning and preparation, organizations can manage the changes that result from a generational
transfer of leadership as well as the ongoing changes that occur regularly when key employees leave an
organization.



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Although the type and extent of planning will be different, organizations both large and small need to have
some sort of succession plan. Effective succession planning supports organizational stability and sustainability
by ensuring there is an established process to meet staffing requirements. Boards and executive directors can
demonstrate leadership by having the strategies and processes in place to ensure that these transitions occur
smoothly, with little disruption to the organization.
What is succession planning??
A succession plan, simply put, is a component of good HR planning and management. Succession planning
acknowledges that staff will not be with an organization indefinitely and it provides a plan and process for
addressing the changes that will occur when they leave. Most succession planning focuses on the most senior
manager - the executive director, however, all key positions should be included in the plan. Key positions can
be defined as those positions that are crucial for the operations of your organization and, because of skill,
seniority and/or experience, will be hard to replace.
Whenever size and resources permit, a succession plan should involve nurturing and developing employees
from within an organization. Employees who are perceived to have the skills, knowledge, qualities, experience
and the desire can be groomed to move up to fill specific, key positions. Organizations should:
Assess their current and future needs based on either their strategic plan, goals and objectives, or priority
programs and projects
Match these to the capabilities of the existing workforce
Develop a plan to manage the gaps that will arise when individuals in key positions leave or are
promoted
The plan will generally include a combination of training and developing existing staff, and external
recruitment.

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The benefits of good succession planning include:
A means of ensuring the organization is prepared with a plan to support service continuity when the
executive director, senior managers or key people leave
A continuing supply of qualified, motivated people (or a process to identify them), who are prepared to
take over when current senior staff and other key employees leave the organization
An alignment between your organization's vision and your human resources that demonstrates an
understanding of the need to have appropriate staffing to achieve strategic plans
A commitment to developing career paths for employees which will facilitate your organization's ability
to recruit and retain top-performing employees and volunteers
An external reputation as an employer that invests in its people and provides opportunities and support
for advancement
A message to your employees that they are valuable
The absence of a succession plan can undermine an organization's effectiveness and its sustainability. Without a
succession planning process, an organization may not have a means of ensuring that the programs and services
that are crucial to its operation are sustained beyond the tenure of the individual currently responsible for them.
A succession plan ensures that there are qualified and motivated employees (or a means of recruiting them) who
are able to take over when the executive director or other key people leave an organization. It also demonstrates
to stakeholders such as clients, funders, employees and volunteers that the organization is committed to and able
to provide excellent programs and services at all times, including during times of transition.




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Who is responsible for succession planning?
Both the board and the executive director have pivotal roles to play in succession planning.
The board is responsible for succession planning for the executive director position. The board hires the
executive director to ensure it has a skilled manager at the helm to implement the organization's mission and
vision. It is therefore very important for boards to spend some time reflecting on what they would do if, or
when, the executive director leaves. All too often, boards find that they are unprepared for such an occurrence
and are left scrambling to quickly replace that person. There are many examples of an executive director leaving
only to have the organization fall into disarray: funders withdraw resources, and other key staff members leave
due to lack of effective leadership. Even when provided with adequate notice, boards sometimes find
themselves in the position of having to scramble to find an interim solution.
The executive director is responsible for ensuring a succession plan is in place for other key positions in the
organization. These will likely be developed with help from the management team with input from implicated
employees.
What are some challenges to effective succession planning?
Some challenges to succession planning are:
Size of the organization: some nonprofits have so few positions that they may not have the ability to offer
opportunities for advancement; employees with the potential and the desire to advance their careers may move
to larger organizations as a result
Lack of financial resources: employees may leave for better salaries and benefits offered in other workplaces

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The nature of funding: as more and more organizations depend on project funding as opposed to core funding,
there are fewer core staff members available to take up positions in the organizations
Project staff come and go and may not be seen to be part of the talent pool available to organizations
In some cases, senior leaders are staying on in their positions, despite the fact that the skills needed for
the job may have changed or they are no longer making a meaningful and productive contribution to the
organization
Indiscriminate inclusion of employees in the succession plan including those who are disinterested,
unmotivated or lack capacity to advance
Inadequate training and development resulting in an employee who is not prepared for a promotion
A plan that does not promote people in a timely fashion, leading potential successors to leave the
organization to seek new opportunities
Poor communication resulting in confusion and turmoil within the organization as staff speculate about
what the succession plan really is
Potential candidates for promotion cannot be guaranteed that they will be promoted; a lot depends on
timing and need of the organization
Succession planning in small and mid-sized organizations
In many smaller organizations, succession planning may be viewed as a luxury, but it isn't. At the very least,
boards of directors have a responsibility to consider and plan for the departure of the executive director, who is
often critical to the existence and sustainability of the organization.
When faced with the loss or impending loss of an executive director, these kinds of questions quickly surface:
Should we hire from within or look for an external candidate?
Do we have anyone internally who is qualified?


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Whether we hire internally or externally; does anyone really know the specifics of what that person was
doing?
What kind of impact will this change have on our capacity to deliver on our mandate and on our
relationships with our clients, donors and volunteers?
What do we tell our stakeholders?

Developing a succession plan for the executive director
In some instances, the board may decide that there needs to be a "second in command" who has the capacity to
replace the executive director in the future. This means:
Identifying that person in collaboration with the executive director
Ensuring that the person is motivated to take on the top job
Developing a plan to ensure that the eventual successor gains the requisite skills and knowledge to take
the job on
Ensuring that the second in command is exposed to a broad range of experiences so that he or she has a
wider understanding of the operations of the organization
The plan could include a formalized process of mentoring or coaching and training in more specific aspects of
the job. When the size of the organization permits, it would be preferable to have more than one person
identified as a potential successor to the executive director.
In a small nonprofit, it may not be possible to groom a successor from within the ranks of existing staff. To
ensure continuity and stability when an executive director leaves, employees may be paired to cross-train each
other to ensure there are two people on staff who know each job.

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The board chair should have a conversation with the executive director on an annual basis regarding his or her
career aspirations. While the executive director is not required to share any career goals, the conversation can
allow for a frank discussion about future plans.
Mentoring Benefits: Succession Planning
Critical Success Factors
Mentor Characteristics
The most obvious mentor for a candidate identified as the successor is the incumbent. The incumbent already
being in a senior position would have much of the general characteristics expected from a mentor, such as good
listening and communication skills, social skills, and people skills. A mentor also needs to possess a strong
coaching ability, and needs to have a knack of explaining complex topics simply. The mentor also needs to be
approachable and have a genuine interest in committing time and energy to help others. These traits need not
necessarily be characteristics of all people in senior positions.
Mentoring has grown out of the traditional one-on-one relationship approach to mentoring networks. If the
incumbent does not have the required qualities to become a facilitative mentor, professional external trainers,
preferably senior external consultants familiar with the business and the company and commanding respect, can
provide valued assistance to the mentorship program.
Protg Characteristics
Mentoring and succession planning depend on the protg inculcating certain characteristics that make him or
her receptive to the mentoring process. Some of such characteristics include:


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Commitment toward self-development and a desire to learn.
Openness to change and experimentation, and willingness to accept constructive feedback.
The ability to set goals and willingness to achieve such goals.
Ability to take initiative and be a self-starter.
Willingness to commit time and energy for the mentoring program as well as patience while learning
Mentoring is the process by which the mentor work together to discover and develop the knowledge, skills, and
abilities in a particular area. The mentor offers knowledge, wisdom, insight, and perspective for the protgs
benefit, and acts as the protgs teacher, coach, and advisor
Mentoring is an ideal strategy for enriching your succession planning program. In succession planning, you're
targeting individual talent to take on increasingly more responsible positions and eventually assume a major
position within your organization.
Todays workforce is evolving, and the best companies are responding to it by offering and fostering diversity
initiatives to expand understanding and encourage collaboration across different demographics. Thats good
news, but theres still a big problem most diversity initiatives dont go far enough. And companies that offer
insufficient programs are wasting time and money.

This requires solid experience and solid advice from seasoned employees. Adding mentoring as a method of
pairing such individuals with your talent pool ensures that the right expertise will complement your succession
planning goals.


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It also ensures that the companys expertise from experienced employees will not be lost once they retire or
leave the company but will be retained by having been shared by those who are poised to take their place.
The Role of Mentoring in Effective Succession Planning
Mentoring and succession planning help preserve the companys intellectual capital by ensuring that key
experienced employees transmit their knowledge, skills, and competencies to others before they leave. Read on
to find out the linkage.
Succession planning is the process of ensuring availability of competent personnel to take over a key position
with critical responsibilities when the incumbent leaves. Succession planning is also aimed at ensuring that the
business operations continue without disruption in the event of a loss of critical personnel for any reason.
Mentoring is the process by which the mentor and protg work together to discover and develop the protg's
knowledge, skills, and abilities in a particular area. The mentor offers knowledge, wisdom, insight, and
perspective for the protgs benefit, and acts as the protgs teacher, coach, and advisor.
Mentoring figures prominently in many dead-end succession scenarios because corporations default to
mechanistic talent approaches for a developmental process that is human in nature
Its no surprise more than 80 percent of senior executive recruits change employers within two years of hire. It
takes a lot to make todays knowledge worker happy. Once top talent is recruited into an organization,
significant efforts must be made to develop, promote and ultimately to retain them. Yet, many succession
management initiatives go down a dead-end path because traditional program efforts create an environment that
works against the goals their designers had in mind.
There is also a widespread misunderstanding of how adults actually learn and develop, combined with an
overreliance on technological solutions to the human challenges involved in creating, filling and maintaining a
consistently reliable talent pipeline. The water gets even muddier because corporations continue to rely on
unscientific assessment tools in their efforts to fill holes in their organizational charts.


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Mentoring figures prominently in many of these dead-end succession scenarios because corporations default to
mechanistic talent approaches to a developmental process that at its core is nonlinear, non analytical and
unambiguously human in nature. As one of several facets of a robust succession management platform,
mentoring cannot be delivered in assembly-line fashion.
Mentoring is talked about a great deal, but few people understand the high bar an effective mentor must clear. It
requires a very personal and even intimate relationship. Its much more about EQ (emotional intelligence) than
it is about IQ it requires a high level of interpersonal finesse, particularly on the mentors part. Mentoring
must support the human learning process. Otherwise, its ability to transform individuals and organizations will
be limited.
Train Pets, Not People
Most succession management programs look wonderful on paper but discount the complexity of human
relationships. In the modern workplace, programs play out inside the sterile, white space surrounding the boxes,
circles and arrows of a companys flow chart. Highly structured, formulaic processes generally follow the same
flawed pattern as they attempt to:
Address a perceived need for managers and junior executives to be schooled in leadership, performance
management, conflict resolution and corporate citizenship.
Create and implement a curriculum built around critical topics.
Put a spark in or otherwise balance out the classroom elements of the design with a simultaneously
running high-touch program.
Match participants with an appropriate senior executive in a mentoring relationship.

Further, a structured, traditional mentoring approach may not always work because no one truly knows how to

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meaningfully or effectively pair people. Succession management often ignores that necessary development
activities discount EQ in favor of IQ. To ascend the higher regions of a career arc, nearly all the leverage is in a
persons EQ development and ability to cultivate:

Accurate self-awareness.
Self-confidence and steward-like behavior toward colleagues and the world.
Thorough trustworthiness.
Transparency and authenticity (perceived by others as being an open book).
Full self-control.
Flexibility and a welcoming attitude toward change.
Passion for learning and achieving.
Consistent optimism and resilience.
Organizational astuteness.
Empathy as a teacher/mentor.
An image as an inspiring role model.
The goal of an effective mentoring process is for high-potential individuals to find their muse and true voice,
which in turn allows them to focus their best qualities on their careers and personal lives.
Great enterprises arent built by extraordinary people; theyre built by large numbers of ordinary people whose
hard work leads to meaningful contributions. And since thats where authentic human developmental processes
occur in real life, thats precisely where an organizations heavy lifting must focus.
EQs Role in Mentoring
A thriving mentoring or succession management process requires an organizational culture that
understands EQ and cultivates it first with its managers and executives. This core group becomes the change
initiatives EQ-savvy protagonists, and they may stand against those in the organization who have difficulty


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coping with experimental or ambiguous mentoring experiences. In the beginning and in the end, most of the
critical success factors that underlie organizational change are psychological and emotional in nature.
Effective mentoring or adult learning, also called EQ competency development, takes place in an environment
marked by:
A transcendent mission to infuse the daily work environment with meaning.
An urgent and personally obvious need for change.
Equally obvious indicators of the rewards/benefits individuals and their teams will gain by participating
in the change process.
Engagement in practical, pragmatic and meaningful solutions.
Respect for and capitalization on a diversity of perspectives, ideas and backgrounds. This requires that a
companys leaders be adept at:
1. Inspiring people.
2. Getting fellow executives, managers and employees to believe in themselves and one another.
3. Coping with non rational behavior.
4. Walking their talk about vision, values and strategy.
A mechanistic mentoring solution will never get an organization from here to there when it comes to succession
management. The process needs to be fashioned and then lived day-to-day within the organizations culture.
Move from a Dyadic to a Communal Mentorship Model
Depth and a substantive approach to succession management should change how organizations view the
traditional mentor-learner archetype. A mentor is someone who takes a personal and systematic interest in a
junior persons career development, guiding and sponsoring that person for advancement. Core mentoring
competencies include being an effective listener, a proactive coach, a challenger, cheerleader and skillful
teacher of organizational wisdom.

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Mentees, on the other hand, have to prepare for the relationship by acknowledging they are in it to learn. This
often requires being comfortable asking questions, revealing concerns, initiating contact with a busy mentor and
even exposing certain vulnerabilities. The underlying notion that mentoring is essentially about an
apprenticeship-like process, involving masters on the one hand and learners on the other, is a valid one that
deserves support.
Hhowever, the manner in which most mentoring relationships are implemented is straining to fit todays nimble
and change-friendly organizations. Women and minorities, in particular, find themselves increasingly ill served
by the traditional model. Matching mentors and learners is simply a red herring that begs the following
question: Why not give mentoring relationships a more strategic and communal bounce by turning them loose
in a true learning and teaching organization? In this kind of environment, each person would be prepared to
welcome an effective teacher in some situations and expected to act as an observant learner in others.
The Mentoring Launch Platform
Its now well-known that the best way to develop high-potential individuals is to provide them with a series of
stretch assignments in concert with the coaching and support necessary when theyre pushed out of their
comfort zones. This simple truth is anything but simple to execute in the real world.
Again, mentoring relationships are only one facet of the overall succession management platform. But leaders
constructing a systemic path to follow the EQ arc should start at the beginning. The platform from which true
adult learning can launch is built by creating a vision, articulating the mission, identifying core values,
constructing a strategy map and outlining a strategic blueprint for execution.
The companies best positioned for success are those that already possess a deep respect for the extraordinary
complexity of human beings and have a talent culture mindset. A strategic frame of mind is far more
important than any set of tactics could ever be. Strategic-minded organizations value and cultivate a
performance culture seeded with socially and self-aware protagonists, a population of change agents who thrive


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in a fluid, open-ended workplace experiment. Dynamic cultures such as these will attract like-minded people
who want to work in a meritocratic, energizing and engaging organization. These workers generally are team
players who enjoy and are adept at changing roles from mentor to learner and back again, for example
with a speed and flexibility similar to what they demonstrate and find exciting in their personal lives. Entering is
one important link in this new process of succession management. The much larger process continually seeks
greater optimization of the people value chain (PVC), which is a relatively new concept in the talent
development arena. The PVC is a model for organizational transformation that applies the value chain concept,
introduced by Michael Porter in 1985, to the people side of the overall business equation.
Companies that are serious about solidifying and extending their competitive advantage in the global
marketplace need to realize that nearly all the organizational levers required getting them from good to great are
related to people. They also need to realize their competitive edge is determined primarily by talent
management and leadership expertise, not by their core business processes. In short, profitability is about
performance, and performance is about people, which is what the PVC process is all about.
Application
Succession planning best practices aim at exposing candidates identified for higher responsibilities to
developmental experiences such as job rotations, simulated training, task forces, turnaround projects, and the
like. Mentoring forms a critical component of this process.
Mentoring and succession planning helps the candidates identified as successors develop their leadership skills
through many ways such as role socialization, reducing feelings of isolation, and the like.
Activities
During succession planning the leadership identifies critical positions, and then uncovers what successors must
know to fill those vacancies. Professional development meetings, career planning, goal setting and mentoring

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must take place in order to prepare the employees for the skills they will need. These processes must
consistently be revisited as situations arise and change.
Considerations
In some cases, there may be no internal candidates to take on the role of a successor. In this case, a recruitment
plan must be implemented to attract outside talent. An outside candidate with similar experience and leadership
can effectively become a successor with the right mentoring and training.

(Case study)
MENTORSHIP PROGRAM FOR LnT POWER




1 BACKGROUND
The results of the employee engagement survey conducted by Gallup in 2010 indicate that the overall employee
engagement level for L&T Power is 3.23. Hence, there is a need to address the issue of the low levels of
employee engagement at L&T Power, with key focus on engagement cascading down the hierarchy and
engaging the younger employees of the organization.
From the Gallup Survey results obtained, it can be inferred that there is a need to address the dimension: There
is someone at work who encourages my development which has been given a rating of 3.05 in L&T Power


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overall which is substantially low. In order to address this need of employees, a formal Mentoring Program has
been proposed, which has been identified as an important influence in professional development of employees
in the organization.
2. OBJECTIVES OF MENTORING PROGRAM
1. Provide greater insight into the roles and responsibilities of the mentees and guide them in charting out a
career path.
2. Provide professional and personal guidance and leadership role model to mentees
3. Demonstrate/model how a mentee might develop greater initiative, increased independence, and self-
reliance
4. Enable the mentees to assimilate and align themselves with the culture and values of the organization
and develop a sense of belonging with the organization
3. SCOPE
The Mentoring Program is applicable to all companies / units inclusive of manufacturing facilities, project sites
and offices of L&T Power. The Program is applicable to all employees of L&T Power.
4.DEFINITION OF ELIGIBILITY AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF MENTOR AND MENTEE
MENTOR:
A senior level Executive who has at least 3 years of experience in the organization and more than 15 years of
experience in the industry and is well versed with the systems and practices of the organization, preferably
belonging to the level Tier 3 and above can be considered as a Mentor.

26
Mentor should be at least 2 levels above the protg and should not have any direct reporting
relationship with the mentee.
Mentors should preferably be selected from a different function/ department.
Employees considered for the role of mentor should have a good track record and a positive outlook and
an inclination towards taking up the role of Mentoring.
Mentor should be a proactive listener and maintain open communication and accessibility with the
mentee.
The mentor should make time available for periodic interactions with the mentee
The mentor should be a person with empathy, who can understand the needs and necessities of an
employee who has entered Tier 1 of the organization.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF MENTOR:
Share and believe in the goals and objectives of the Mentoring Scheme
Provide direction to the employees to plan, develop and manage their careers and encourage them to be
responsible as self-directed learners.
Provide guidance to employees to evolve career goals and help them in persistently working towards
them.
Instil encouragement and support to mentees when challenges arise and empower them to handle the
hurdles independently.
Encourage the development of leadership competencies through example, guided practice and shared
experience.
Actively seek and elicit feedback from the mentee and provide constant feedback on identified areas of
improvement


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Counsel mentee on the culture and values of the organization, model desired behaviours and cultivate
the right attitudes
When a mentor moves to other location/leaves the organization he may recommend substitute /
another mentor / practice e-mentoring.
BENEFITS OF MENTORING FOR THE MENTOR
Satisfaction of having guided an employee reach his/her professional goals
Obtaining greater insights and understanding about the needs and obstacles faced by the lower levels of
the organization
Enhanced skills in coaching, counselling, listening and modelling
Enhanced understanding of the personal style of leadership in developing employees
Increased self-esteem and affirmation of professional competence
Recognition at work for participation in a developmental activity
Enhanced network of professional colleagues
MENTEE:
From the Gallup Survey results obtained in 2010 for L&T Power, the employees belonging to the level of
Executives and Tier 1 have a significantly lower level of alignment with the company values and culture and a
lower sense of belonging with the company.
The ratings provided for the Encourages Development dimension of the Q12 has been the least for employees
who have completed tenure of 2.1 5 years and the employees who belong to the age group of 31-35 years. For
this reason, a mentee has been identified as:
A mentee is a high potential employee with consistently good track record, who:

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1. Belongs to the Tier 1 level of the organizational hierarchy.
2. Has completed a tenure of 2 to 5 years
3. Belongs to the age group of 25-35 years

Mentee is to be proactive in his/her own personal and professional development with the support,
guidance and encouragement of the mentor.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF MENTEE:
Share and believe in the goals and objectives of the Mentoring Program
Develop coherent career goals
Actively seek and appreciate the support and guidance of the mentor
Take initiative to and arrange for meetings with the mentor and actively participate in them
Demonstrate commitment by following through with the advice and counsel of the mentor
Create and define goals of the relationship
Initiate and provide feedback to mentor

BENEFITS OF MENTORING FOR MENTEE
Support and guidance in charting a career path and in career advancement
Leveraging strengths and exploring potential
Increased career networks and greater exposure within the organization.
Furthering development as a professional
Gaining the capacity to translate values and strategies into productive actions


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Individual support, guidance and recognition
5.0 PROCESS
1. Mentorship Training Program
2. Identification and Mapping of Mentors and Mentees
3. Orientation and Guidelines for Mentors and Mentees
4. Entering into Mentorship Agreement
5. Mentor-Mentee interactions and Mentor-Mentee Dialog
6. Reviews
5.1 Mentorship Training Program
A training program needs to be conducted for the benefit of the mentors and the mentees in order to clarify the
roles and responsibilities of the Mentor and the Mentee and gain a broader understanding of the mentoring
process. The mentor and mentee are required to prepare a Personal Action Plan which is to be communicated
to the HRD accordingly.

Training Program
I ntroduction to Mentoring
Goals and purposes of the mentoring program;
Definition of mentoring;
Roles and responsibilities of mentors and protgs;
Mentor-protg relationships;

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Balancing mentoring responsibilities with other responsibilities; and
Assessing mentoring behaviours.
Change Process
The mentor as a change agent;
Stages of change through which protgs progress; and
Changes in the mentoring process over time.
Supervisory Skills
Setting short- and long-term goals;
Setting limits on inappropriate or unsafe practices;
Reinforcing mutual respect and trust;
Collaborating for conflict resolution;
Providing feedback;
Accepting feedback from protgs; and
Setting schedules.
Communication Skills
Active listening;
Assertion;
Conflict resolution and negotiation;
Collaborative problem solving;
Writing; and
Sharing information verbally and non-verbally.


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Self-Assessment Skills
Journal writing;
Portfolios; and
Self-assessment checklists.
5.2 Identification and Mapping of Mentors and Mentees:
i. The HRD finalizes the pool of mentors from the list of voluntary nominations received from the
interested eligible mentors and mentees.
ii. The profile of the potential mentors are obtained and their profile is placed on the intranet so that the
mentees can easily access it and after weighing several criteria such as experience, expertise, learning
style, accessibility, personality type, professional interest, proximity, educational background,
affiliation, gender and compatibility, the mentees are allowed to choose their mentor.
iii. Each Mentor identified is mapped to mentees in the ratio of 1:2 or 1:3.
iv. Networking event allow potential mentors and mentees to meet many possible partners before making
a final selection in a formal get-together.

5.3 Orientation and Guidelines:
The orientation is essentially, an opportunity for matching pairs to get acquainted, establish a mentoring
agreement, and begin working on a mentoring action plan. Orientation is a half to a full day.


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The HRD will be responsible for providing the orientation to the mentors and mentees and bringing them
together in order to establish the relationship. The mentors are attached to mentees honouring the preferences of
the mentees. After the matching of Mentors and Mentees is complete, a meeting is arranged with the respective
HODs and the importance of mentoring along with the crucial role of mentors should be shared.

5.4 Entering into Mentorship Agreement
A standard mentoring agreement as given in Appendix IV needs to be signed by the mentor and the mentee to
mark the inception of the mentoring relationship. The mentoring agreement contains:
The objectives of the program, duration of the relationship and time invested by the mentor;
An action plan completion date;
Frequency of mentor and protg meetings;
A confidentiality clause;
Termination of agreement rules, and;
Signatures of both the mentor and protg.

5.5 Mentor-Mentee Interactions and Mentor-Mentee Dialog:
Selection of a particular day in a month for mentor-mentee meetings and scheduling it regularly.
Providing an agenda for the first two meetings would help in producing a climate for fostering the
mentor mentee relationship.
Tracking the dates of the meetings and maintaining record of other ongoing mentoring activities


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During the first meeting, the mentor and mentee can get to know each other from their respective profiles and
also clarify expectations from both the sides regarding the objectives, roles and responsibilities and also finalize
the frequency of their meetings.
During their second meeting, the mentee can set out clear career objectives and chart out the possible action
plans.
The mentors can mention the roles performed by them in the KPAs and sufficient weight age may be
assigned to the criteria by the reporting authority.
E- Mentoring can be practiced when the mentor and mentee are not able to meet due to transfer or
workplace distance or any other reason.
Share mentoring success stories in the company Newsletters, Journals etc.
Competitions can be held between the various Mentor mentee groups
Sharing of the experience and learnings of the mentor and mentee once a year.
Letter of recognition can be given to the mentors as per the Companys Rewards Scheme.
5.6 Reviews
A review of the mentorship process conducted at regular intervals helps in identifying the satisfaction levels of
the mentor and the mentee with the ongoing mentorship process and streamlines the process for the future
interactions between them.
Appendix IV, Appendix V and Appendix VI provide the sample Mentoring Agreement forms that is to be used
at the inception of the mentor mentee relationship for mutual agreement on the terms and conditions of the
program, Six month review and Twelve Month review templates respectively.


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6. SEVERANCE OF MENTOR MENTEE RELATIONSHIP
As mentioned in the mentoring agreement, both the mentor and mentee must sustain the relationship for a
period of at least 1 year. However, after one year has lapsed, the relationship can be severed if the mentor and
mentee feel that the relationship is no longer necessary. An informal relationship can continue between the
mentor and the mentee even after the severance of the mentoring relationship. Sometimes mentoring
relationships do not provide the anticipated results for the mentor or the mentee or both. In such cases, the HRD
should intervene and explore whether the mentoring relationship should be revised or terminated. In these cases
there should be a process in place to amicably terminate the relationship and match the protg with another,
more suitable, mentor, if the need arises.
Mentoring is a long term relationship and must be sustained for a period of at least one year.
The relationship can be severed by the mentor and mentee if they feel that the relationship is no longer
necessary, with their mutual consent and approval.
7. REWARDS AND RECOGNITION
The Mentoring relationship is a mutually collaborative one with benefits for both the participants. It is a
participative program and does not entail any monetary benefits. A program graduation/recognition ceremony
will help in recognizing the efforts and achievements of both the participants. Senior leaders who have been part
of the mentoring program should be invited to speak on behalf of the program. Awards, such as certificates can
be presented to the mentors and protgs.




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Conclusion:
For any industry that thrives on the dynamics of constant change, success comes to those who have the foresight
and the ability to counter unexpected challenges. The whole process of training these future leaders is evidently
time consuming and requires a lot of additional resources, but in the long run it is a worthwhile investment that
is essential for the survival of any organization. In the words of Rashmi Barbhaiya, the President of R&D at
Ranbaxy Laboratories India, grooming leaders should be one of the ways of self assessment. When I am ready
to retire, there must be at least three outstanding candidates ready to takeover. After all, it is more than just the
passing of power and responsibilityit is about survival and continuity..the true challenge for doing business
in India!
Bibliography
http://www.brighthub.com/office/human-resources/articles/83504.aspx
http://www.management-mentors.com/
http://hrcouncil.ca/hr-toolkit/planning-succession.cfm#_secA2
http://managementhelp.org/leadingpeople/mentoring.htm
http://www.mentoringforchange.co.uk/
www.larsentoubro.com