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 in to the questions you’ll ask as you start to get the word out beyond the leadership champions and the program owners.?

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.?

?

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.?

?

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.?

?

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.?

?

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 as well, or “graduate” your mentees, etc. Also, by assigning all mentees to mentors, your mentors will have unique insight across the entire company for 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.?