Corporate Mentoring vs. Corporate Coaching 

People often confuse coaching and mentoring. Though related, they are not the same.A mentor may coach, but a coach does not mentor. Mentoring is "relational," while coaching is "functional." There are other significant differences.

Coaching characteristics:


• Managers coach their staff as a required part of the job.
• Coaching takes place within the confines of a formal manager-employee relationship.
• The focus is to develop individuals within their current job.
• The interest of the relationship is functional, arising out of the need for individuals to perform the tasks required to the best of their ability.
• Managers tend to initiate and drive the relationship.
• The relationship is finite, ending when an individual has learned what the coach is teaching.
  
  
  Mentoring characteristics:
  
  
• It occurs outside of a line manager-employee relationship, at the mutual consent of a mentor and mentoree.
• It is career-focused or focused on professional development that may be outside a mentoree's area of work.
• Relationships are personal--a mentor provides both professional and personal support.
• Relationships may be initiated by mentors or created through matches initiated by the organization.
• Relationships cross job boundaries.
• Relationships last for a specific period of time (nine months to a year) in a formal program, at which point the pair may continue in an informal mentoring relationship.

To learn more about starting a mentoring program in your organization, call us at 617-789-4622 or contact us today.