What makes a great work mentoring program?

So what does make a mentoring program just work.

Is it the quality of the mentors?

Or the correct selection of the participants?

Or perhaps it is how the matching of mentor pairs happens?

Or that the program is fun and enjoyable?

In fact, it’s a combination of the above plus a whole lot more. Sounds daunting?

But setting up and running a successful mentoring program doesn’t need to be hard. At NLM we ensure our programs are built around the 4 principles that will guarantee success. The program needs to be Simple, Sustainable, Effective and Engaging.

Lets discuss each of these four principles in a little more details.

Simple

Your mentoring program doesn’t need to be complicated or convoluted.

• Are you thinking of having all your participants complete a 20 page registration form.
• How about mandating that all mentors go on a 2 day training session.
• Wouldn't it be great if all the participants completed a TMP / Myers-Briggs assessment beforehand.
• Would it not be great if we set up monthly topics where the mentees have pre-read and are expected to discuss that specific topic with their mentor.

The question you really need to be asking yourself is "does adding this element into the mentoring program a "nice-to-have" rather than a "need-to-have"? All of the above points, in our mind, are all "nice to haves".

A key point to remember is that every additional thing you add into your program will add a layer of complexity to it and, trust us, makes it a little less enjoyable for both you and the participants.

Sustainable

Sustainable is about ensuring your program can be run year on year.

At NLM, we have heard several cases where companies have put a lot of energy into developing a mentoring program for it to stop 1 year later with several different reasons for this. These could be that the person who was leading the program left the company, that there wasn’t real buy-in from the executive team or that it became a victim of a cost-cutting exercise. In NLMs opinion, the initial energy used has now been wasted.

Mentoring programs will naturally evolve and improve the more years you run them until it becomes part of your company’s culture and you can fully harvest the benefits it brings.?

To ensure continuity all of NLMs mentoring programs follow a simple 5 step process that allow this evolution. It starts with planning correctly and finishes with evaluating all the various forms of feedback to enhance the next program you run.

One thing to consider is that if you are finding it difficult to run the program then think what would happen if someone else has to try and take it over if you leave.

Effective

I was once told a story about a large multinational company who spent millions on establishing and then rolling out its mentoring program. They had considered who the mentors should be, who the mentees should be and how they should be paired. Once the pairings were done the mentoring pairs where then left to themselves. There was no clear goals or overall strategic objectives from the program and the mentoring pairs ended up just having “a nice cup of coffee” but with no clear direction. The outcome was the mentees didn’t feel that they had learnt or benefited as much as they should have and the program wasn’t considered a success.

For your program to be effective you need to understand why you are wanting a mentoring program in the first place. What are you hoping that mentoring will solve? Once you answer this question you program is already in a better position.

For the participants mentoring sessions to be effective there needs to be a level of structure. Not so much that the meetings become rigid, but enough to ensure your participants are getting the most value from them. At Next Level Mentoring we recommend 2 important items for giving structure to the sessions.

1. Goals. Each mentee needs to thinks about the goals they want to achieve from mentoring and almost the first task to complete is to discuss these with their mentor. These goals will normally evolve during the discussion with the mentor to become something more meaningful which is natural for a mentoring journey. We can this the Define and Refine stage.
2. Reflections. We recommend that before each meeting that the mentee reflects on what they have achieved in the period since they last met, writes it down and gives it to their mentor to read 1 day before they meet. This allows the mentor to have an idea of what the mentee has been doing and ensures they hit the ground running in their meeting. At NLM we use our own ABCD template to facilitate this stage.

(I know if I get asked the question "what have you been doing since we last met" I will only remember what I did today, perhaps yesterday. But if I am given time to reflect on that question before I meet my mentor then I will be able to recall what I did several weeks ago).

Another point to consider is that when running a company mentoring program you usually find yourself in the position that you have your current and future leaders together in the same place and in an engaged state of mind. You should try to take advantage of this opportunity i.e. communicating strategic initiatives or an important matter.

Engaging

What is the best way to make your mentoring program a success? Make it fun and exciting for everyone! Your goal is to have the mentors and mentees rave about how good the program is when they are talking with their peers both inside and outside the company. This is a great way to showcase your company to outside top talent as well as making people internally want to strive to be nominated to go on it.

When your program finishes you need to have also run a closing ceremony to celebrate the amazing journey your mentors and mentees have gone on.

Conclusion

If you follow these 4 principles and make your mentoring program simple, sustainable, effective and engaging you should create a great mentoring program for your employees.

Next Level Mentoring

We hope that these newsletters are bringing you value and helps you get the most from mentoring.

If you want to know more on how NLM can help you set up or refine a mentoring program for you and your company then please check out our website.

Or please get in contact with me directly at [email protected]