I am in the process of setting up a Buddying Mechanism in my company, and welcome any advice and gudiance as to how I should go about this. One of the key aspects of the project will be be to provide a Workshop "Making the Most of your Buddy". Again my key focus is gudiance on: Role of a Buddy, the tools, techinques and skills necessary to be an effective buddy.
Karen Baldwin
4 Responses
Buddying
An effective buddy is someone who is like the new recruit that they may feel comfortable with to informally show them the ropes. For example a middle-aged woman should be paired up with someone of her own age group of the same grade/job type to assist her settling into the new company.
Sandra Beale
Peer Mentoring
It would be good to find out what the skill set (hard and soft skills) and experiences are of staff across the board on this.
Most peer mentoring or buddying is usually related to performance improvement in the organisation, and often the roles can be interchangeable, e.g. a mentor with good hard skills could learn from a mentee with good soft skills.
Once such information is collated it makes it easier to manage.
Avoid Americanisms
May I just suggest that you resist the galloping Americanisation of our language and culture and call your scheme something other than “Buddying”? How about “friend”, “mentor”, “guide”, or “twin”? There are plenty of perfectly adequate English words without having to resort to dreadful Americanisms.
Michael Green
Potential resource
A buddy programme is worthwhile only if it is followed up with other learning initiatives and build it into an induction programme and performance review. Have a look at a demo course on Manager being a coach and build a buddy programme onn the same skills but to a lesser level (if appropriate) at : http://www.skillsoft.com/demo/bskills/uk_course_demos.asp
My suggestion is to build a buddy programme those acting as buddies as well as the new entrant, into a their respective job description.
Go well.