Why Mentoring Programs - And Mentors - Should Matter To You

You Cannot Be Fulfilled In Life If You’re Not Fulfilled At Work

And . . . You’re At Work More Than Almost Anywhere Else

I recently read a Huffington Post article that has me thinking. It identified the amount of time that an average person spends doing specific tasks in an 80-year life span. The task we all do the most - 26 years - is sleeping (and depressingly, we spend 7 more years trying to get to sleep!). But the next task in terms of average length of time we spend at it - is work! We spend over 13 years at work (and that is average - some of us a lot more) in our lifetimes.

Let’s say that again: after sleeping, the next thing we spend our lives doing is working. We spend 11 years in front of a screen. Romance is far behind at 1 year and 30 days. And we are working 12 times more than we likely to be socializing with our friends (at 1 year 3 days). We are spending more of our lives with coworkers than our friends and families. If something is this central to our lives, don’t we owe it to ourselves to make sure it is meaningful?

You need meaningful relationships, impact, and growth at work in order to be fulfilled in life

Recently the company Imperative, a web-based career and culture platform, published their findings on workforce fulfillment. They found that more than twice as many people reported wanting fulfilling work rather than engaging work, and that a majority of those people thought that finding fulfillment was possible in their current jobs. How remarkable! We want to be fulfilled, and we think we can find it where we are . . . we just need some guidance.

Mentoring and peer coaching can be the answer

Companies spend a lot of time developing engagement opportunities for their employees. Yet the research shows that they want fulfillment, and moving toward a fulfillment paradigm not only yields higher results, but it puts employees in the driver’s seat. The study indicated that fulfillment is created when individuals connect their daily experiences to their identity, past experiences, and aspirations. And the best ways to help individuals accomplish this? Through exactly what mentors and peer coaching programs offer:

• Self awareness

• Peer coaching

• Employee first culture

• Purpose mindset

Companies who invest in peer coaching and opportunities for employee self-awareness will have employees who are higher performers, make meaningful connections with their colleagues, experience growth, and are more likely to stay longer. And the study found that most companies have an untapped resource: 90% of employees are willing to serve as peer coaches for their colleagues.

This is great news for employers: most people want to be fulfilled at work, and they believe that they have responsibility for their own fulfillment. They want to help each other, but they need just a few things from their employer. First, a purpose mindset: employees want to know that their leaders care more about the purpose of the organization and the people within the organization than they do money, title, prestige, etc. Leaders need their own coaching on how to communicate that purpose. Second, while the intrinsically motivated employee seeks out their own coaches and mentors within organizations, the high performing, purpose-driven leaders will create opportunities for developing growth, self-awareness, identity, and coaching and mentoring programs within the organization.

If you are interested in developing a purpose driven organization replete with fulfilled employees, Connection Collaborative is ready to help. Contact us and let’s make sure that the hours, days and years we all spend at work is spent well, rather than simply spent.