Mentoring as a Tool for Managing Talents

Abstract

This study explores how mentoring can be used to manage talents in an organisation, how people make sense of it in their everyday lives and how these perceptions play out in professional work life, particularly in a sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) context. The effect of superimposing the Anglo-Saxon etic approach to formal mentoring practice on the African emic culture of informal mentoring was also reviewed. The research was conducted in a typical reflexive hermeneutic style, and the evidence is taken from interviews with eight former bank employees. There is agreement among researchers that mentoring produces a beneficial outcome in a wide variety of settings, and the participants in the study also expressed unequivocal support for using formal mentoring programmes to drive employee engagement and talent retention. Different types and styles of mentoring configurations can be beneficial and thrive in various contexts if there is an awareness of the cultural dynamics that are present and the purposes for the mentoring scheme are explicit. This study proposes a persona called the super-sponsor-mentor, a new construct that describes the model of mentorship that will be most effective as a tool to manage talents in the workplace. The hierarchical and power-oriented culture prevalent in Nigeria and most SSA countries supports this model. Much has been written about structured mentoring, but little of that work has been from an African perspective. This study is a vital contribution to developing literature in this area.