You work for the Computer House (CH), a computer retailer and service provider in your city. You are the training manager within CH. CH employs approximately 250 people in a variety of positions that range from retail and customer service specialists in the store to on-call technical home support to all of the supporting functions of the organization (e.g., accounting, human resources, purchasing, etc.). CH is entertaining the option of providing a formal mentoring program to its employees but first it needs to identify some viable candidates to serve as mentors. As the training manager, it’s your job to put this program together.

K E Y P L A Y E R S

Steve, the Founder

I look at things from the 10,000 level. I am not involved with the day-to-day operations of the organization – I trust the managers with this chore. I am more concerned with the strategic growth of the organization. I will need to understand the value of the mentor program in order to sign off on it.

Susan, the Floor Manager

It’s hard to find quality entry-level employees. Those that are good tend to move up quickly and then I’m stuck recruiting all over again. While I’m all for promoting within, I hate to make it even easier for the other managers to steal my good workers.

Horace, the Home Technical Support Manager

Some of the best employees that I find are right on our Sales floor. They get hired initially because they have a passion about all things computer. Once they’ve proven that they can interact with customers, I can use them to make home technical support visits. A mentoring program will be a fantastic way to continue to hone their customer service skills as well as to begin to develop them for other positions in the organization, over time.

Y O U D E C I D E

Based on the information above, write a short report to address the following issues:

• How do you respond to each of these perspectives?
• What is your summary recommendation for developing the mentor program?

In your response, be sure to incorporate your response to each of the Key Players. Consider how the program will be structured, the expense of the program, and how you will find quality mentors for the program. 

Provide an APA formatted paper that includes at 2–3 page body that outlines your decision. Include at least two supporting outside sources outside of our course material and outside of your own experience. Submit your completed report to the designated Dropbox. See “Syllabus/Due Dates for Assignments and Exams” for due date information.