Introduction
Mentoring is one of the valuable development opportunities that a company can offer to the employee. Mentoring programs can be difficult to manage and tend to require a lot of administrative work.
Mentoring features of Succession and Development supports the creation and administration of mentoring program, with automated recommendations and matching
Why is it important?
Most organization have mentoring programs but doesn’t have an integrated way to administer them. Hours of work are required to match to import data and configure solutions. SF mentoring is integrated with the entire solution.
Important developments in mentoring program
Intelligent mentor matching: The SAP SuccessFactors Q4 2016 release has introduced an
intelligent mentor matching that can automatically and effortlessly identify and connect mentors and mentees, helping them to develop successful careers.
Integration with SAP Jam Group: With the release of Q2 2017, the mentoring program can now be integrated with SAP
SuccessFactors Jam group, giving an opportunitity to collaborate and grow networks in the mentorhip program.
Prerequisites
- CDP Full (Development Plan) : Only instances with this option enabled via Provisioning can enable the Mentoring features of SAP SuccessFactors Development.
- Metadata Framework (MDF)
- Generic Objects: Mentoring uses MDF objects in the background so your instance must have Generic Objects enabled.
- Attachment Manager: MDF Generic Objects require that the Attachment Manager also be
- Role-Based Permissions
This article covers the following
- Setup of Mentorship Program as an Admin
- User navigation in Mentorship Program
- Intelligent Mentor Matching
- Integration with SuccessFactors Jam Group
- Final thoughts on the mentorship program
Setup of Mentorship Program as an Admin
Figure: Overview of Mentoring Program
Initial Step: RBP setup needs to done for mentor/ admins and participant mentees in the mentorship program.
Step 1 : Program list page:
Go to Admin Center > Manage Mentoring Program > Create new mentoring program
Admins can create new programs and see programs in various stages.
Figure: Cards indicate the stage of program, number of mentors/mentees signed up etc ; Blue button updates to show admin next step.
Step 2 : Create program widget
Figure: Type of mentoring program.
Step 3: Option for Integration with SAP JAM
- Check on the 'create a SAM Jam group'.
Figure: Mentoring program basic information
Step 4 :Add mentors and mentees:
Admins can add people by name or by group. After a group is added, individuals can be added or removed as well.
Figure: Adding mentor and mentees by group or by adding individual employee
Notes:
- When a group is added, only the members of the group on that day are added to the program, and any new members of the group will NOT be added.
- One cannot add new mentor/ mentees after email is sent or after the mentorship program has started.
Step 4 :Intelligent Mentor Matching
- Matching criteria: Admins choose fields based on the data model for their company, such as location, department and skill or competency. The matching algorithm is optimized to find mentees the best matches for their preferences.
- You can add as many questions as you like (preferably limit to 3)
- It best works with same wording of the question for both mentor and mentee. The questions can be very generic or in the question format. Wording shouldnt be different from mentor to mentee.
Figure: Fields that are currently supported, based on your configuration and permissions.
Figure: Let's say one creates a question asking mentors where they prefer their mentees to be based and then select the location preference for that question. Later, when mentors sign up they'll be able to choose from the list of locations defined in your system. Then, when the matching algorithm is run, mentees in the selected locations are ranked higher than those in other locations.
User navigation in Mentorship Program
Step 1 : Users navigate to mentoring : Home > Development > Mentoring
Step 2: Mentor / Mentee approval and
intelligent matching of mentors with mentees
Can choose mentors either by using
- ‘show recommended mentors’ or
- Manual ‘search for a mentor'.
Step 2: Integration with SAP JAM
The integration with SAP Jam provides an additional platform for collaboration, training and discussions. Mentoring administrators have the option of creating a new SAP jam group along with mentoring program.
The SAP Jam feed is shown for the mentee once the mentor approves for the mentorship program.
Figure: SAP Jam feed refreshed after mentor approves mentee for the mentorship program
If its not shown, search for Jam notifications in the search panel, and check the notifications of SAP JAM.
Figure: Enablement of Mentorship Jam group
Final thoughts on the mentorship program
Mentee sign up experience: Mentees can choose mentors based on the suggestions as well as based on custom search. It allows them to have the flexibility to choose among the best fit matches. Mentee and mentors can then schedule meet ups / followups etc.
Jam Integration:SAP JAM integration is one step process and can be easily configured for the mentoring program by the admins. With the integration, the mentoring program became more resourceful where it provides an additional platform to know other mentees and mentors.