training and development
Employment in Toronto, he worked with
new Canadians to link them to employ-ers.
During his tenure at ACCESS, he was
impressed by the energy and excitement
generated by mentee and mentor conver-sations
and became inspired about the
many possibilities of mentoring.
“Throughout your life and career, there
are times when you can benefit from the
advice, guidance and support of a mentor,”
said Mintz. “There are also times when you
can share your expertise and experienc-es
to guide mentees in the right direction.
MentorCity creates a mentoring commu-nity
that enables you to engage in a series
of give-and-take relationships.”
SIMPLE AND
STRAIGHTFORWARD
For both mentees and mentors, the
mentorship program is easy and straight-forward;
simply create a profile in the
automated profile builder. A user’s
LinkedIn profile can be uploaded to the
system. The criteria are the same as for
LinkedIn: industry, job function, experi-ence,
gender, location and language. Soft
skills are matched using algorithms in the
background and are not displayed to po-tential
mentors or mentees.
Once complete, the system provides
a list of possible matches based on the
criteria entered in the profile, giving a
compatibility rating with potential men-tors.
Mentees can send a request directly
if the self-serve option is available or have
the administrator make the match. An ini-tial
conversation and evaluation is set up
where both parties determine the type of
relationship they want.
The program eases the administrative
burden by automating initial meetings,
progress updates and evaluations with
data easily exported into Excel. The re-porting
features of the platform are simple
and customizable, allowing administrators
to pull data they want from information
uploaded on training or recognition and
incentives, for example. An administra-tor
dashboard tracks the number of hours
completed, the status of the relationship
and the number of searches and invita-tions
sent out by users.
HOW IS MENTORING BEING
REVOLUTIONIZED?
MentorCity can be used across the entire
organization, regardless of geographical
location, for member engagement, suc-cession
planning, leadership development
and diversity and inclusion strategies. An
organization can develop and use its own
training tools or speaker series, better uti-lizing
in-house expertise.
“MentorCity was launched in
September 2013 to our global employee
base; re-affirming our value proposition
to provide meaningful and impactful
development, tailored to meet each em-ployees
individual needs,” said Rebecca
Nemaric, senior director of Global Talent
Management, Development and Strategic
Acquisition at Celestica, one of the pro-gram’s
largest clients, having successfully
implemented the platform across the en-tire
global organization of over 30,000.
“The MentorCity rollout was synchro-nized
across the company to capitalize
on cross business and cross geographical
“THROUGHOUT YOUR
LIFE AND CAREER,
THERE ARE TIMES
WHEN YOU CAN
BENEFIT FROM THE
ADVICE, GUIDANCE
AND SUPPORT OF A
MENTOR. THERE ARE
ALSO TIMES WHEN
YOU CAN SHARE
YOUR EXPERTISE
AND EXPERIENCES
TO GUIDE MENTEES
IN THE RIGHT
DIRECTION.”
– SHAWN MINTZ, CREATOR AND
PRESIDENT, MENTORCITY
knowledge sharing and enterprise-wide
collaboration.”
For Celestica, choosing MentorCity
complemented their existing mentoring
strategy.
“Mentoring has always been a key part
of Celestica’s talent strategy and critical
for the development of our employees.
Given the global nature of our business,
MentorCity is an integral component to
rounding out our well established mentor-ing
program – providing the flexibility to
match our employees across the 13 coun-tries
in which we operate,” said Nemaric.
Employees can seek their own mentors
through a structured and guided com-munications
process that matches people
based on mentor strengths and mentee de-velopment
needs.
BENEFITS FOR HR
PROFESSIONALS
The Human Resources Professionals
Association (HRPA) decided to standard-ize
the MentorCity platform in the fall of
2013, making it available to all 28 chapters
across Ontario. The previous mentoring
platform, Mentor Scout, will be phased
out by August 2014. HRPA, in its 2010
annual member survey, discovered that
soft skills were a common concern among
its membership. With the introduction of
Mentor Scout, and now MentorCity, the
number of HRPA members enrolled in
chapter-based mentoring programs has
increased from less than 300 in 2011 to
over 1,400 by the end of 2013, according
to Chris Larsen, HRPA’s vice president of
Marketing, Membership & Professional
Development.
HRPA members also expressed a need
for help advancing their careers, and access
to senior professionals with experience and
skills to offer is crucial for a junior HR pro-fessional.
Mentors, Larsen says, can help
junior professionals accelerate their “pro-motability”
and get the necessary experience
faster. Mentees can search for mentors spe-cializing
in their own areas of practice, such
as health and safety, recruitment, com-pensation
or training and development,
allowing mentees access to members who
can help advance their careers.
“Mentorship is a way to stay passionate
about the amazing work you’re doing with
your company,” said Mintz. ■
64 ❚ MAY/JUNE 2014 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL