Savvy millennial employees are anxious to develop their skills and feel more productive. At the same time, management needs an efficient way to improve the collaboration of their multi-generational workforce.

This may sound obvious, but when I’m helping clients jump-start their mentoring programs, it is evident that mentoring can have at least five different objectives. Are you clear on what kind of mentoring your less experienced employees need – and want?

Onboarding

One of the most valuable mentoring roles is helping new employees get productive fast.  My colleague Steve Trautman describes this type of mentoring as providing an “air, food, and water” list of what’s needed just to begin working effectively in a particular job. This means providing introductions to key people, identifying the fundamental computer setups and orientation, providing access to current documentation and network passwords.

Want to improve your onboarding processes? Just interview several employees who’ve only been with the company six to twelve months. Ask them what they wish they had been given when they first started working in the organization.

Learning to do a job

This type of mentoring focuses on teaching the details of performing a new role, such as assistant project manager, data analyst or sales rep. It might involve daily or weekly check-ins to review work and answer questions.

In the trenches mentoring

This more informal “drive-by knowledge transfer” occurs when a more experienced colleague is available to answer job-related questions that pop up unexpectedly. This type of coaching may not even be formally recognized, but less experienced employees are much more effective when an experienced colleague is available to answer questions.

Career development mentoring

Many millennial employees are anxious for advice on potential career paths in the company and what jobs they should be considering long term. This kind of coaching provides more of a personal payoff for employees, but it is essential for keeping young workers engaged and convinced that the company cares about them.

Mentoring on professional development

Sometimes employees want coaching on specific steps in their professional development independent of the organization they’re working for. Which architecture exam to do I take and in what order? As an accountant, what do I need to know to get through the CPA exams? What about pursuing specialty certification or advanced practice roles in nursing? This type of mentoring can not only speed development of young employees, but it also communicates that the organization is interested in their professional growth, which increases retention of high performers.

No matter what type of mentoring your employees need, managers must clarify their expectatons in a meeting with each mentor and those they are coaching. Help with onboarding and on-the-job mentoring will increase productivity faster, but try asking your millennial employees what type of coaching they want. Getting their input and then responding to their needs will go a long way to increasing the engagement and retention of younger workers.