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Michael Wood and Saeed Motahari both joined Abbott Laboratories 2 1/2 years ago, but the chances of them meeting were slim in a workforce of 65,000 employees in 130 countries.
Wood was a sales representative, working out of his home in southern California. Motahari, a divisional vice president, worked at Abbott's corporate headquarters in north suburban Abbott Park.
The two hooked up last year, sight unseen, through an online mentoring program at Abbott. Wood filled out an application for the program, offering details about himself, his interests and career aspirations. The computer software spit back a few names as potential mentor matches for Wood, including Motahari.
"I was really looking for someone to give me advice in my career," Wood said. "You have to be honest in filling out the application. I said I'm open and I'm coachable."
Today, the two men not only know each other but Motahari is shepherding Wood's career as his mentor. And it's no longer a long-distance or a one-sided relationship. Motahari hired Wood to work in his group. "I'm really learning a lot from him," Motahari said.
Such relationships are becoming increasingly common in the corporate world, as companies adopt online mentoring programs that mimic online dating. But instead of talking about hobbies, eye color and a love for long walks on the beach, people seek to match the job skills or leadership qualities they want to gain.
"It's a growing market and a growing approach to mentoring," said Tom McGee, a vice president at Triple Creek Associates, Inc., a Greenwood Village, Colo.-based company that helps companies establish online mentoring programs. "People know that just offering training is not the solution to personal and professional development."
In traditional mentoring relationships, rising stars are paired either formally or informally with seasoned executives who guide their ascent up the corporate ladder. Online programs take mentoring to a new, more democratic and systematic level. Proteges get a say in whom their mentor is, and the matches are based on the skills or leadership qualities that the protege wants to develop.
In Chicago, companies ranging from pharmaceutical firm Abbott to risk-management consultant Aon Corp. recently have opted to develop the more robust online programs.
Fortune 500 appeal
Just a few years ago Triple Creek added 15 to 20 clients annually. In the first quarter of this year alone the company signed up 14 clients. Most are Fortune 500 companies and governmental organizations.
For employees, an online system means they can plug in key phrases, just like with online dating, and find, say, a mentor who works with clients and has good presentation skills, is a vice president, and is an African-American woman who balances work and family issues.
For their bosses, online mentoring is a way to stem the "brain drain" that is expected to result from Baby Boomers leaving the workforce while also broadening corporate diversity initiatives. And computer software, not someone in human resources, does the matching.
"The advantage is you get access to people who you might never meet," said Belle Rose Ragins, a professor of organizations and strategic management at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "Organizations need to be concerned about keeping their top talent, and mentoring relationships are the magnet for keeping their top talent. If you have an effective mentoring relationship, you are less likely to leave that organization."
But there are disadvantages as well. Long-distance mentoring relationships, like long-distance romances, can be hard work when there is little, if any, face-to-face contact.
Also, companies need to ensure that there is good breadth of talent in the mentor pool and that both sides are communicating regularly.
At many companies, mentors are eager to sign on to the programs and share their knowledge.
Abbott's online U.S. mentoring program, which began in April 2005, has grown to 930 mentors and 1,616 proteges.
When Aon decided late last year to test an online mentor-match system, it hoped to enroll 500 participants. It heard from more than 500 mentors alone, and currently 95 percent of the 750 program participants are in active mentoring relationships.
"The workforce is changing and we have an obligation," said Michael Westwood, an executive vice president at Aon subsidiary The Berkley Group, who was paired with a protege online. "I don't always understand the younger workforce and this gives me an opportunity to understand them," Westwood said. "And there's an obligation to help grow people."
The pilot program doesn't end until early summer, but Aon, which previously offered a mentoring program to about 10 percent of its workforce, already has decided to roll out the online program to its 46,000 employees during the next three years.
"This tool has really shifted the thinking we've had around the traditional mentoring," said Talethea Best, Aon's director of U.S. learning and development. "There is reverse mentoring going on. There is group mentoring going on. There's peer mentoring that is taking place. It's really done some really cool things in terms of our own thinking about mentoring."
LaSalle makes matches
At LaSalle Bank, online software lets participants register for the program and identify their interests but the bank's office of mentoring still works to make the matches. The bank also is running a small pilot program that is entirely online.
Professional groups are exploring the idea as well. More than 1,160 members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., participate in an online mentoring program launched in August. One among them is Ahmed Avais, a revenue systems engineer for the Chicago Transit Authority, who was paired with a mentor in California.
The two have exchanged e-mails and phone calls, and Avais says he is now following through on all the advice he has received.
The Dow Chemical Co. was an early adopter of online mentoring programs, having put one in place six years ago. It has grown to 1,800 formal relationships across the company and the globe and now Frank Morgan, Dow's director of executive development, fields calls from other employers seeking advice on establishing their own initiatives.
How does he sell an idea that has little quantitative return on investment? He tells them, "Think about your own careers. Those of you that got here with no mentors, raise your hand. These people realize they wouldn't be where they were without mentors."
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