System for managing formal mentoring programs

• US 20120282576A1
• Filed: 05/03/2011
• Published: 11/08/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/03/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Chenoweth, Kathi Lynn, Van Houten, Marcelyn, Barnfield, Louise Diana, Borho, Klaus
• Granted Patent: US 9,767,436 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 434/107
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/105 Human resources
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 19/00 Teaching not covered by other main groups of this subclass teaching or practice apparatus for gun-aiming or gun-laying F41G3/26
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 19/18 Book-keeping or economics

Abstract

A system and method for facilitating mentoring in an enterprise. An example method includes establishing a set of candidate mentors and a set of candidate mentees; providing a first user option to match a candidate mentor with a candidate mentee from the set of candidate mentors and the set of candidate mentees, respectively, yielding a mentor and an associated mentee in response thereto; selectively tracking a first performance parameter of the mentee over an interval during which a mentoring relationship exists between the mentor and the mentee and providing an indication of a change in the first performance parameter over time; and providing a second user option to initiate an action in response to the indication. The action may include initiating an adjustment in compensation for the mentee or mentor when the indication indicates a particular improvement in one or more performance parameter(s).

Claims

1. A method for facilitating mentoring in an enterprise, the method comprising:

establishing a set of candidate mentors and a set of candidate mentees;

providing a first user option to match a candidate mentor with a candidate mentee from the set of candidate mentors and the set of candidate mentees, respectively, yielding a mentor and an associated mentee in response thereto;

tracking a first performance parameter of the mentee over an interval during which a mentoring relationship exists between the mentor and the mentee and providing an indication of a change in the first performance parameter over time; and

initiating an action based on the indication.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the action includes initiating an adjustment in compensation for the mentee when the indication indicates an improvement in a performance parameter, wherein the improvement results in the performance parameter exceeding or falling below a predetermined criterion.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the action includes automatically initiating an increase in compensation for the mentor when a performance parameter of the mentee meets or exceeds a predetermined criterion.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the action includes adjusting a performance rating of the mentor based on the indication.

5. The method of claim 1, further including providing a collaborative user interface adapted to enable a mentor to communicate with a mentee.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the collaborative user interface includes a third user option to assign one or more tasks to a mentee.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the collaborative user interface includes a fourth user option to rate a performance of the mentee, resulting in a second performance parameter.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein establishing includes retrieving preexisting profile information pertaining to a profile of each candidate mentor and each candidate mentee.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the preexisting profile information includes data maintained by an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the profile information includes an indication of the first performance parameter pertaining to each candidate mentee and candidate mentor.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the first performance parameter includes a measure of quota attainment pertaining to each candidate mentee that is a salesperson.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein establishing further includes providing a fifth user option to filter a set of enterprise personnel based on one or more predetermined criteria to yield an initial set of candidate mentors and an initial set of candidate mentees.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the one or more predetermined criteria include an indication of a particular skill or knowledge or lack thereof.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein providing a first user option further includes providing a sixth user option to enable a candidate mentor to associate one or more search tags with themselves.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein providing a first user option further includes providing a seventh user option for a candidate mentor to indicate that they are not available to be a mentor.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein providing a first user option further includes providing a seventh user option to enable a candidate mentee to associate one or more search tags with themselves.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein providing a first user option further includes providing an eighth user option to search for a candidate mentor or mentee matching one or more search criteria pertaining to one or more tags.

18. The method of claim 1, further including providing an indication as to how much time remaining that a mentor has to perform mentoring for a mentee.

19. An apparatus comprising:

a digital processor coupled to a display and to a processor-readable storage device, wherein the processor-readable storage device includes one or more instructions executable by the digital processor to perform the following acts;

establishing a set of candidate mentors and a set of candidate mentees;

providing a first user option to match a candidate mentor with a candidate mentee from the set of candidate mentors and the set of candidate mentees, respectively, yielding a mentor and an associated mentee in response thereto;

tracking a first performance parameter of the mentee over an interval during which a mentoring relationship exists between the mentor and the mentee and providing an indication of a change in the first performance parameter over time; and

initiating an action based on the indication.

20. A processor-readable storage device including instructions executable by a digital processor, the processor-readable storage device including one or more instructions for:

establishing a set of candidate mentors and a set of candidate mentees;

providing a first user option to match a candidate mentor with a candidate mentee from the set of candidate mentors and the set of candidate mentees, respectively, yielding a mentor and an associated mentee in response thereto;

tracking a first performance parameter of the mentee over an interval during which a mentoring relationship exists between the mentor and the mentee and providing an indication of a change in the first performance parameter over time; and

initiating an action based on the indication.