Canadian Retailer - Spring 2013 - 28

MYSTORE RETAILER'S GUIDE VOL. 9.2: TALENT MANAGEMENT

pany will go and bring the protégés along.
Indeed, for a mentoring program to work,
mentoring needs to become part of the
senior manager's job description. Mentoring isn't a program managers can view
from a distance—it's a program that exists
only when managers make it happen.
2. Potential: Retailers need to identify high
potential protégés.
Everybody needs coaching. Not everybody needs mentoring.
As a general principle, retailers should reserve mentoring for high potential people.
They should treat mentoring as a way of
grooming protégés for leadership.
How do retailers know the high potential
people? That’s the challenge. Part of the
design of a mentorship program has to include a mechanism to evaluate talent and
identify the high performers, the people the
company wants to retain, and the people
with the potential for leadership.
Dave DeFilippo, a researcher of mentorship practices, says businesses should “make
being selected an honour.” Retailers should
set the bar high and employees chosen for
mentoring need to know they are part of a
select group.

Mentoring is not counselling. It
provides motivation and support to
an individual seeking a new path.
The mentor can influence the mentee in many ways: by helping to
set performance standards, challenging self-expectations, offering
motivation during difficult times or
just by being a sounding board.
3. Leadership: Retailers have to ﬁnd the
right mentors.
What does a good mentor look like? Charney says mentors should satisfy three needs.
First, the mentor should not be the protégé's direct boss. The direct boss is the
protégé's coach. The mentor works at two
or more steps above the protégé and offers
an education in leadership, not job training.
Second, the mentor takes the position as a
facilitator, not an advisor. The mentor needs
to be a person who knows how to listen and
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ask questions. “For the most part you're listening and asking powerful questions,” says
Charney.
Third, the mentor needs to have an interest in mentoring others. “You have to want
to do it,” says Charney.
4. Outcomes: Retailers must establish realistic, measurable outcomes.
Without goals to measure a program's success, mentoring can quickly become a chore
rather than a meaningful, profitable activity.
At the highest level, the goals of a mentorship program seem obvious: to develop
leadership talent. But each retailer likely
has finer grain goals that need to be articulated. These goals may relate to reductions
in employee turnover or an increase in the
percentage of internal promotions. Retailers should set timelines and milestones so
mentors and protégés know what they need
to aim for.
5. Measurement: Retailers need to measure
success and adjust the program accordingly.
Mentoring is the most cost-effective way
to develop people. Mentorship programs
lose traction for a variety of reasons, including badly matched mentors and protégés.
While it is difficult to evaluate the qualitative effects of a mentorship program (i.e.,
the dynamics of the mentor-protégé interpersonal relationship) retailers can measure
and control the quantitative results of mentorship programs.
Here are some ways to measure the program: What percentage of meetings between protégé and mentors actually take
place? What is the rate of internal promotions before and after the mentorship
program, and between mentored and unmentored employees? What is the retention of employees inside and outside the
mentoring program? Has job readiness improved among mentees when they progress
to a higher level in the company?
Coaching and the independent operator

For independent operators, coaching tends to
take priority over mentoring because the day-today nature of retail. And this isn’t a bad thing.
Coaching is the backbone of retail training.
“Coaching is a constant, situation-by-situation decision-making process,” explains
Garry Hapton, owner of The Brass Monocle,
an eyewear store that has operated in Calgary
since 1980.

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Canadian Retailer - Spring 2013

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