Topic: Mentor program

Hey All!
We have had an informal mentoring program within our team for years, but have never made a policy or program out of it. Anyone have best practices, tips, tools for a "real" mentor program? In particular, I want to formalize mentoring for the Management and Leasing office first...then Maintenance! Appreciate any help!

We have a standard list of tasks that should be learned in the first 90 days. The Property Manager and the Staff Member are accountable to each other to complete the list. This way our new Staff Members can let us know when they have mastered a task and are ready for the next challenge. The Property Manager must sign off that they introduced the task and watched the Staff member do it correctly, when the Staff Member is confident in the task they sign off. It does not happen overnight and it is not perfect but if your team believes in it and makes it their own, it is a great success.

I did set up an mentor program for a company and it had great results. I have always believed that the manager is the mentor for each team member, therefore encouraged to look for training and growth opportunities for every person.

A mentor manager was assigned to each manager for the first year of employment. That person was the first call when a manager came out of training. The mentor manager, regional and new manager would meet and discuss new manager's goals, strengths, weaknesses and expectations out of the mentor relationship after the training. Every four months that same team would meet and discuss how things were going and if they were on track with training and goals.

A mentor manager had to be with the company for at least 2 years and recommended by the regional. We looked for those manager's that were looking to grow in the industry and become district and regional managers themselves. The mentor team's focus was entirely on what that manager's goals were and how best to help him/her grow.

It was very effective in making sure that all team members got training and support. It was very effective with providing manager's an upward step in their career. We had very talented people wanting to work with us all the time!

Also want to add, we had a great training and support program for maintenance team as well. Our vendors were really helpful with 'gorilla training'; met at a property and everyone help install an a/c system, perform preventative maintenance on a boiler, etc. Maintenance supervisors were given training in leadership and supervisory skills, etc.

Great info! Thanks!