The effect of informal mentoring on staff employee performance evaluation scores at California State University San Marcos

The problem. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a significant difference in the 2007–2008 performance evaluation scores between staff employees at California State University San Marcos who participated in an informal mentoring program and those who did not participate.;Method. This study was conducted using a quasi-experimental design to compare the performance evaluation scores of staff employees in the Division of Finance and Administrative Services who participated in informal mentoring with a control group who did not have an informal mentor as self-reported on an electronic survey. The data was analyzed using an Independent Samples t-test and sorted further to determine the degree of association using a Pearson product moment correlation coefficient.;Results. The first hypothesis, which stated there would be a significant difference in the 2007–2008 overall performance evaluation scores between staff employees who participated in informal mentoring compared to those who did not participate, was not supported. Performance evaluation scores for Quality of Work, Initiative, Interpersonal Skills, Judgment and Professional Development were analyzed using a t-test for Independent Samples and the results suggested having a mentor did not have an effect on these scores.;Results of the study did not support the hypothesis which predicted a relationship between the mentors' years of service and overall performance evaluation scores of those who reported having an informal mentor. Correlation coefficients were statistically significant at the .05 level of confidence. The results also found there was no relationship between the length of time of the informal mentoring relationship and the performance evaluation scores of those who participated in informal mentoring.;While a limitation of this study was sample size and the ability to generalize the results, it is recommended that California State University San Marcos recognize and promote the importance of informal mentoring as a professional development tool to attract and retain staff employees while deriving benefits associated with change management and organizational learning.