Launching A Successful Mentorship Program

In my last article, I covered 4 questions to prepare for a successful launch of your

mentorship program. Now we get to dive into the questions you’ll ask as you get

the word out beyond the leadership champions and the program owners.

1. How will you recruit great mentors? Ask company supervisors and managers

who they recommend. And no, I purposely did not say to ask Directors and VPs.

Supervisors and Managers who work with the most entry-level people daily will

better know how those people behave daily, which is how they will behave with

their mentee, at least after day one. For drivers, ask Driver Managers and check

their Driver Scorecard (if you have one) or with safety to confirm they are a well-

rounded candidate. For any position, if you are not already asking HR to own the

program, check with HR before you move forward with someone. They may have

knowledge from a confidential file that would disqualify someone from

participating.

I would start with this list and make phone calls or catch people in person to

share they have been recommended as mentors and you would like them to

attend a training session to see if they are interested in moving forward. I would

try to get every recommended potential mentor to attend the first training session

before making their decision on if they wish to participate or not, just for your

initial launch. It is always hardest to get people to sign on for something brand

new because it’s vague, and people are wary of committing to anything new and

vague. Also, if you start by simply publishing and asking for volunteers, you may

or may not get the best candidates.

2. What does a first training session look like? Once your potential mentors

have all been contacted, schedule a meeting for your first training, ensuring

supervisors are aware. If you can meet with people in person and provide food,

do it. People are less likely to interrupt each other or fall silent in person than

they are virtually and time eating together and chatting is bonding. Best case

scenario, your mentors not only bond with mentees, but bond with each other

creating a community of top-tier, promotable professionals. If you cannot meet in

person, break potential mentors into small groups (maybe 6-10) and meet

virtually with cameras on. To be efficient, you can ask for questions in advance.

Plan an ice breaker or some type of connecting activity requiring people to talk.

Your training session should launch with your leadership champion expressing

why he/she supports this mentorship program initiative and thanks to those

answering the call of duty. This will set the tone for the meeting that this will be

important and recognized work. Next, the person/people who will own the

program will walk through the expectations, qualifications, what will be measured

to determine if the program is a success, how the mentors will be held

accountable and how they will be rewarded for participating in the program.

3. How do you keep the program going? Regular communication keeps people

connected to each other and to the mission. I suggest creating a space for

communication amongst your mentor group, whether that is a Microsoft Team, a

What’s App chat, a Facebook page or some other option. However, if you create

it, use it. Ask your mentors how it’s going, what challenges they’re having if

appropriate to share with the team, or what is the fondest memory they have

created so far. Get their feedback on company initiatives or changes. Ask them

what ideas they have to make the program a greater success.

You could offer an annual training to welcome new mentors and remind everyone

of the values. Depending on how transparent you’re willing to be, you could

share the goals of the program and how the program is performing with the

mentors. Use the session to talk in more detail about ideas they’ve had to

improve the program and put together an action plan. If the mentors come up

with the creative branding and activities for the program, they are much more

likely to be bought in and get the mentees excited about it as well. Perhaps your

mentees can have special titles. Perhaps they could graduate and have a

monthly or quarterly celebration of graduates. Perhaps they could earn small

rewards based on their tenure. If the administrators of a program come up with

all the ideas and love them, but the mentors think the ideas are stupid, guess

who the mentees will agree with... You got it—the mentors. Any idea must have

mentor buy-in first to land with the mentees, so keep them engaged. Get their

thoughts and ideas and build off of them together so they will be something

company is willing and/or able to do and something the mentors and mentees

actually value.

4. How will you know how the mentors are doing? Ask the mentees. People are

much more likely to be honest anonymously; however, that makes it more difficult

to identify which mentor needs to be coached or removed. With that in mind, I

would pick an entity separate from whomever is the face of running the program

to survey the mentees. If you can outsource the surveys, fantastic. That’s the

most likely to get honest answers. If not, pick a different person or team in the

company who make sense and would be believed to keep the feedback

confidential. Mentees are much less likely to tell the mentors’ “supervisor” how

they really feel. Most people want to avoid direct conflict at all costs and telling

the supervisor can feel like it is going to get back to the mentor and cause an

uncomfortable rift. Or perhaps even worse, they feel like the supervisor is going

to side with the mentor because they know each other better, so being honest

could damage the mentee’s future with the company.

You should also measure mentee turnover by mentor, but with a grain of salt. Are

they mentoring people in harder jobs or with a difficult supervisor? Are they so

patient and kind that you are assigning them the toughest mentees? There are

factors beyond the mentor’s control that could be causing his/her mentees to fail

or quit. That being said, if they have an ongoing trend of not retaining mentees,

this needs to be investigated. They may need more counsel or a break from

mentorship.

5. How will you maintain or grow the program? Depending on your mentor

turnover, you could have a big push annually to recruit mentors or a regular

push monthly or so. Certainly, at least annually, I would craft a message from

your leadership champions to put out to the company about their appreciation of

the program and the success they have seen. You could include some quotes

from your mentee surveys and give shout-outs to specific mentors based on

those surveys. If you have a regular company-wide meeting, this would be an

excellent time to shout out the program, “graduate” your mentees, etc.

Also, by assigning all mentees to mentors, your mentors will have unique insight

across the entire company into who might make a good addition to the group. If

you’ve branded and engaged your mentors well, they’ll be recruiting for you.

As a person who is passionate about developing the next generation of leaders and

truck drivers, I love this topic. I am always up for a conversation on attracting and

retaining people in our industry so please reach out if you would like to discuss further.