eMentoring program kicks off second year Published Dec. 16, 2009 By Senior Chief Cryptologic Technician Dee Allen Chief of Naval Personnel - Diversity Directorate ARLINGTON, Va. (NNS) -- The Navy's Women's Policy announced the start of new enrollment for the second year of its e-mentoring program on Dec. 9. The open season, which boasts 700 new e-mentoring slots, is scheduled to remain open to new members until Jan. 1, 2010 and will be filled on a first-come basis. The Navy Women eMentor Leadership Program, launched just one year ago, is designed to help build productive mentoring relationships for women throughout the fleet. Now in its second year, the Navy Women eMentor Leadership Program currently has 900 women participants enrolled, including 500 mentors from nearly every designator and rating. The program has an improved, more user-friendly interface and is adding two new exciting features to the basic one-on-one mentoring option. The first feature is situational mentoring for mentees who have immediate short-term situation-specific needs. This function allows mentees to select one or more mentors to assist them with a particular situation or to post the situation, allowing mentees to volunteer their support. The second new feature is group mentoring in which a mentor posts a group mentoring topic. Mentees can then join the group and participate over a designated time frame. The group mentor can also include teleconferences or simply ask the group to respond to posted discussion prompts. "Within four months, the program exceeded our 12-month enrollment goal of 500 participants by 63 percent," said, Stephanie Miller, head of Navy Women's Policy. "This program has a significantly high satisfaction rate, 82 percent, so we know those who do actively participate are finding the experience rewarding." The Navy continues to recognize mentoring as a necessary component to job satisfaction and performance. eMentoring is just one possibility in the mentoring continuum that all Sailors should engage to aid their personal and professional success. Miller also noted that mentoring need not occur solely within the confines of the chain of command, which she believes may be one of the reasons why the eMentor Program has been so successful. The online mentoring concepts match Navy women from across the globe in new and creative ways that reduce barriers caused by factors like rank differences, age and race. Women who register for the eMentor Program are able to enroll as mentors or protégés and can establish more than one relationship. These relationships are highly flexible because of the electronic matching and communication built into the program. Other mentoring mechanisms include participation in affinity groups such as the Sea Services Leadership Association, Chief Petty Officers Association, the National Society of Black Engineers or the Federal Asian Pacific American Council; formal and informal interactions with peers; social networking groups and enterprise or community-sponsored personal and professional development opportunities. For more information on the Navy Women eMentor Program or other Women's Policy initiatives, visit www.npc.navy.mil/AboutUs/BUPERS/WomensPolicy/ .