I was recently training a group of mentors who are at the Vice President level when the issue came up about what role does a mentor play in talent review? In other words, should a mentor provide feedback during talent review of his/her mentee in addition to having the mentee’s manager provide feedback?
The short answer is “No”. The fundamental building block for successful mentoring is to have a completely confidential relationship. This extends especially in the area of talent review meetings. Granted, that a mentor may have valuable information about the mentee that the company would like to access but it is really the mentee’s manager who should be providing this info.
If a company allows mentors to comment on talent reviews there will be two specific side effects:
1. It will have a stifling effect on mentees sharing the real issues that impact their success if they know this information will be shared with upper management.
2. Should a talent review committee opt to support the mentor’s recommendations rather than the mentee’s manager, mentee managers will feel undermined by the program and this will have a bad effect on the program.
So, put responsibility for talent management reviews where they belong–on the shoulders of an employee’s manager and not the mentor.
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