Abstract
The purpose was to investigate the extent of mentoring within companies and organizations in Västra Götaland County. The purpose was also to investigate the effect of mentoring by measuring results. Questions raised at work were whether there is a mentoring program or equivalent in the company / organization and which are covered? In what ways are mentoring conducted and increased employee satisfaction for those who apply it and if it is possible to distinguish patterns in different types of mentoring? If so, what effects do these have on employees? One issue was also how these patterns can be used to increase employee satisfaction.
The work is based on a pragmatic world view with the research design explaining sequential mixed method and has an abductive approach.
The survey was sent to 1234 companies and organizations in Västra Götaland County with 50 or more employees at the workplace. The response rate was approximately 7%. Of these, seven participated in an in-depth interview. It also emerged that there is conceptual confusion regarding the word mentoring, with this in mind the figures given are uncertain. More than a third of the respondents indicated that they had no mentoring due to lack of time. There are basically six different variants on which mentoring is conducted, formally where managers have a mentor, formally where everyone gets a mentor, informally where everyone has a mentor, informally where the managers have a mentor, a mix between formal / informal and finally the companies / organizations that call introduction / training for mentoring.
The questions in the questionnaire and interview are based on the cornerstone model. However, given the lack of evidence, it is not possible to draw any generalizable conclusions. However, the author can note that the most obvious effects were participation, security, communication, getting into the organizational culture and keeping down staff turnover and sick leave. In addition to this, desirable effects would be to be able to make good recruits and get a committed management. In the survey, fairly similar results were found in the comparison between formal and informal mentoring. Based on these results, it is difficult to determine whether mentoring and, if so, what variant the company or organization should invest in. This is likely to depend on what the rest of the organization looks like and whether needs exist.