Peer Mentoring helps solve the real business issues teams face:

Orienting New Team Members

Bring new employees and contingent staff up to speed faster, with less stress and greater productivity. While subject matter experts might not have excellent communication skills they do need to be able to communicate to work together well. Each of the Peer Mentoring tools help mentors think about and manage their new teammates’ orientation.

Incorporating Changing Technology

Incorporating new technology almost always means part of the team goes forward to figure it out while the rest of the team maintains the current systems. Training peers then occurs on an as-needed basis, usually in the middle of implementing the new technology. Peer Mentoring helps mentors figure out what is most important and timely, and enables them to deliver this information in an efficient manner.

Cross-Training Critical Skills

When only one or two people on a team have a specific skill, that team is at risk. Peer Mentoring tools make it easier for teams to cross-train skills throughout the organization. Then, when someone with a specific skill leaves the group or is moved to another role, less crisis management is necessary.

Developing Independence

Team members with the greatest detail knowledge are often called upon to problem-solve for others. Mentors can use the Peer Mentoring assessment and training techniques to reduce the dependency of others by delivering brief, targeted training sessions.

Encouraging Cross-Group Communication

Managing rapid change or deadlines while pulling disparate groups together is critical. Peer Mentoring tools can help teams to help each other navigate these changes with greater productivity-and more fun!

Mentoring with a Full Project Load

Mentoring can be a frustrating experience for those involved because the job is time consuming and it isn’t written into any schedules. Mentors are almost always expected to play this role and get their project work done on time. Many subject matter experts are tasked with being a mentor do not have the skills necessary to do it well. Peer Mentoring helps mentors juggle these roles better by getting the greatest results from a limited amount of time. The ideas reduce tensions and let everyone involved focus on their project responsibilities.

Launching a New Product

When you launch a new product, and only a few people know it in-depth, there is a mad rush to get everyone involved up-to-speed to support the onslaught of new customers. Training, support, and the installation team all need to have solid product knowledge before the product is released. Peer Mentoring tools and strategies help maximize the process of disseminating information under tight time constraints.

Planning for an Aging Workforce

As Boomers enter retirement age, many are leaving jobs with 25+ years of experience. Often they have “singular” knowledge that isn't missed until it is gone. Peer Mentoring provides a structured way for veteran employees to catalogue their years of experience, prioritize the content and narrow down the vital elements, teach it to others, and then ensure the knowledge has been transferred.

National Public Radio and the New York Times authored stories on the prevalence and effectiveness of on-the-job (OJT) training. Both stories focused on a report published by the Center for Workforce Development in 1998.

The two year study found that during a typical workweek more than 70 percent of work site training took place informally, and over half of the workers said they asked co-workers, not supervisors, for advice. Peer Mentoring builds on this simple fact — knowledge already flows more productively from peer interaction.

Roger Schank, director of the Institute for the Learning Sciences (ILS) at Northwestern University, maintains what many of us instinctively know: that many adults learn by overcoming failures. That means that effective, expert peer mentoring can support the real world on the job, where learning from failure already happens. And that isn’t just faster than traditional learning, it is better.