Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and professional growth of a mentee. Most traditional mentorships involve having senior employees mentor more junior employees. Still, mentors do not necessarily have to be older or senior to the people they mentor. What matters is that the mentors have the experience that others can learn from.

Mentoring is often described as a process of informally transmitting or transferring knowledge, social capital and psychosocial support that the recipient perceives as relevant to their work, career or personal development. Mentoring usually involves informal communication that is typically face-to-face and spans over a sustained period. It is generally between a person who is perceived to have more relevant knowledge in a particular scope of work or about one specific topic of interest. The Gen Z Generation Z (or Gen Z for short), also known as “zoomers”, are the demographic of people succeeding the Millennials and preceding the generation Alpha. The media and some researchers use the mid-to-late 1990s as starting birth years and early 2010s as ending birth years for Gen Z.

As the first social generation to have grown up with access to the Internet and portable digital technology from a young age, members of Generation Z have been dubbed “digital natives”, even though they are not necessarily digitally literate. By quite a large margin, results from the happiness surveys on some workplace engaging platforms have shown that employees under 25 (Gen Z) are less happy at work than all other age groups. The question as to the cause of this general unhappiness amongst members of this demographic remains to be seen, especially as they are currently the only generation with full access to the peculiarities of the Internet and social media. Are members of this demographic unhappy because they do not know how to combine Internet use with real-life interactions? What can be done to alleviate this obvious problem and motivate these vital members of society?

The primary role, in this case, will be to use the experience and knowledge they have gained to help their mentee’s work towards their future career ambitions and personal life goals. It is not just about helping the mentee achieve daily goals in the workplace or professional settings.  A good mentor should be connected with the mentee’s day-to-day life to provide objectivity and help them focus on their future and personal development. A good mentor will also be patient in letting their mentee’s career and life unfold and not show frustration if it seems to be taking some time. Therefore, it is not surprising how soothing and solution-oriented results can be gotten by simply talking to someone about the challenges you face and how it can help you align your thoughts and decide on the appropriate steps to take. Therefore, understanding the building blocks to their personalities, preferences, and performance is crucial to giving and receiving information constructively. Through this process, you will discover that if the mentoring relationship chemistry is correct, the practical experience and knowledge will be shared amongst these gen z mentees. We see the result of these mentoring programs in the Gen Z mentees’ positive behaviours and life choices. The mentee will also gain a sense of accomplishment from a mentor’s positive feedback and assessment of their progress. This can serve as a motivating force for them to continue to improve on their performance. The mentor can gain satisfaction from knowing that they are helping an individual and can take a measure of pride in their accomplishments.