I was reading the latest newsletter of Injoy newsletter Life @ Work when I was shocked by this newfound fact. The article by Mike Metzger highlighted the fact that the term employee came from the French term “employé” which meant “to buy and hire” people to occupy “specific tasks.” Looking at the way organizations treat their staff nowadays simply lives out this fact (and I wonder why). Mike’s article highlights the fact that organizations need to emphasize the value of mentoring within the organization. The opposite of which is very true. Employees are being treated as such. Gone are the days when organizations treat their staff with highest respect, realizing that success without the employees is not possible. Emphasis is more on working hard and fast. This gives us the next thing in the list. The word career comes from the French “carriere” meaning “race course” or “to move head-long at high speed.” So much so that everyone who works and has a good idea of what he or she wants often neglects the fact that life is more important than career. In my presentation at the Professional Association for SQL Server Summit last September, I talked about The Irony of Opposites for Success. One pointer I raised was the value of slowing down and how it relates to success. Too often we are bogged down with getting where we want to go the fastest way possible. I guess that’s how most people define their career. But what we don’t realize is that we are loosing too much by not slowing down. In this particular sense, slowing down may mean mentoring on somebody within the organization, thereby, treating the employee you are mentoring with utmost respect for their potential while at the same time cultivating a leadership environment. This is a win-win situation for both the individual and the organization – camaraderie is established between the employees and the mentor while building staff morale, increased staff productivity by learning first-hand from the mentor and a whole lot more. For the mentor, this process of slowing down to extend a portion of himself or herself to the mentee is an investment to multiplication. What this means is that further down the road, tasks can be delegated to the mentee in due time, thus, giving the mentor more time to focus on more challenging tasks.

It is with these facts that organizations should reconsider how they should treat their staff and how working professionals should consider mentoring as part of their career goals. We all should.