Everyone’s been there—it’s the first day at a new job, and you feel both nervous and excited. As you meet your new team members and begin onboarding and training, you hope that you can get a strong start in your new role and work toward your personal and professional goals.
Of course, you can progress by working hard on your own. But what if you had a mentor to guide you?
There are many benefits to offering mentorship opportunities to employees. According to a recent study by Gallup, employees who have a mentor in the workplace are:
- Twice as likely to be actively engaged in the organization
- 98 percent more likely to recommend the organization as a great place to work
- More likely to agree that someone at work is helping them reach their career goals
- More likely to agree that their organization provides a clear plan for career development
To experience these benefits and more, you’ll first need to develop a high-quality mentorship program. Let’s dive into some steps to do so.
1. Define program goals.
Before getting into the nitty gritty, ask yourself: What does our organization want to achieve by establishing a mentorship program?
You may already have some specific goals in mind, such as:
- Enhance specific skills in mentees, like communication or project management.
- Support mentees’ career growth by guiding them in choosing the right career path, taking advantage of networking opportunities, and establishing a personal brand.
- Bridge the generational gap between employees by teaching new employees workplace expectations and best practices.
- Reduce employee turnover rates by providing employees with the resources and support they need to engage with the organization and succeed in their roles fully.
Ensure that your goals align with your organization’s mission statement and values so that your mentorship program supports your larger organizational strategy. Doing so allows your entire organization to benefit from the program.
2. Outline how the process will work.
Your mentorship program needs a well-defined structure to help you reach your established goals. Here are a few tips for developing a process that is clear, consistent, and ready to be put into action:
- Create comprehensive program guidelines. This includes the duration of formal mentorship relationships, expectations for both mentors and mentees, a systematic approach for matching mentors with mentees, suggested meeting durations and locations, and feedback mechanisms for improving the program.
- Identify participants. For mentees, you may allow employees to opt in or be hand-picked by managers at your organization. Or, you may require all new employees to go through your mentorship program as part of your onboarding process. For mentors, determine the qualifications and qualities you want mentors to possess and consider potential mentors’ job performance. You may also require a short interview or application process.
- Create resources for mentorship meetings. Provide discussion guides with suggested topics, goal-setting activities, or progress-tracking tools. This will help mentors align their guidance with your organization’s expectations and ensure that mentorship conversations are focused and productive.
With a framework in place for how the mentorship program will run and how your employees can get involved, you can quickly implement it and begin seeing results in your workplace.
3. Train mentors.
The outcomes of your mentorship program will largely depend on the people mentoring the mentees. Thoroughly train them to provide compassionate, professional, and useful guidance.
Here are some areas to focus on in your training:
- Understanding the goals of the program
- Active listening to better understand mentees’ needs and concerns
- Giving constructive, actionable feedback
- Building trust and rapport through open communication
- Helping mentees set and act on goals
- Navigating cultural differences in mentoring relationships
- Respecting and valuing diverse perspectives
- Celebrating mentees’ successes
In addition to these areas, mentors should share personal experiences and insights from their careers that will motivate and encourage their mentees to achieve their professional goals. This helps humanize the mentoring experience and allows mentors and mentees to build strong, genuine relationships that last far longer than the program’s duration.
4. Match mentors with mentees.
Each mentor and mentee participating in your organization’s program has their own personality, communication style, and professional development needs. You can’t just randomly pair mentors and mentees and expect success.
Instead, you must carefully match each mentor with a mentee who will benefit most from getting to know them and working together on their professional goals. Personality compatibility is essential, but also consider each mentor’s experience and skill set in relation to each mentee’s goals and career growth needs.
For instance, Isabella (a tenured employee and mentor) and Richard (a recently recruited entry-level employee and mentee) may seem like a good match at first because they have similar professional backgrounds and personal interests. However, suppose Isabella has a wealth of management experience and is passionate about helping people become capable leaders, and Richard isn’t interested in working toward a management position. In that case, they may not be the best pairing.
After you’ve set up mentoring relationships, check in regularly to ensure both mentee and mentor expectations are met. Be open to adjusting pairings as needed to lead to more optimal outcomes.
5. Monitor the success of the program.
As your mentorship program gains momentum, you’ll start to observe trends and patterns that tell you how it’s working and whether or not your program is on track to reaching your intended objectives.
Your mentors and mentees will be invaluable in providing insights into how well the program works. To gather those insights, ask them to:
- Provide written documentation of their own goals for participating in the program.
- Track their progress over the course of the program.
- Provide feedback on the program via a survey or one-on-one conversation after completing the program.
Whether you hear that mentees learned new time management skills, mentors felt more engaged in the workplace, or that the program needs to run for a slightly longer duration to be more effective, take their feedback in stride. Show that you value participants’ input by making positive changes to your program. As you iterate over time, you’ll find that the program significantly benefits both your organization and your employees.
Mentoring relationships can transform your employees’ experiences for the better. Use the guidance above to create your own mentorship program, and remember to stay open to changes and adjustments that will improve it over time.
