The business case for mentoring has never been clearer. In just a couple of years, there has been an almost 17% increase in Fortune 500 companies that now offer mentoring programs to their employees. Mentoring benefits to employees and the organisation are undeniable, making it a valuable investment for learning and development.
Successful mentoring starts with a strategy. Having a clear mentoring strategy before you launch allows you to establish the goals and objectives of the program, which can be used to support mentors and mentees in understanding their roles. Programs without clear objectives, strong support for participants, and well-thought-out timelines tend to under-deliver expected results and lead to resistance for future mentoring cohorts..
This is a common reason why mentoring programs fail. If you want the mentoring program to succeed, investing time in establishing clear objectives, timelines, and a strategy is needed.
Here at Brancher, we want your mentoring program to succeed. This is why we’ve created this 2024 guide to help you set up your mentoring strategy. Read on for more information.
Guide to Setting Up Your Mentoring Strategy
You’re already a step closer to launching your mentoring program for your organisation. But to cement your program’s success, you’ll need to create a mentoring strategy through careful planning.
We’ll work together with you to properly design your mentoring program for success. Here are the key strategies you need to establish before launching your mentoring program:
Step 1: Identify Your Program Goals and Objectives
Every strategy begins with determining your program’s goals and objectives. In this part of your mentoring strategy, we usually ask a couple of questions:
- What is your strategic context?
- What is the name of your mentoring program?
The first question we ask aims to get to know more about your goals and objectives for having a mentoring program. We want to know what your organisation is about as well as your future objectives for your employees. This also gives us a chance to know more about your audience and what their pain points are.
Meanwhile, the second question allows us to help support your organisation in marketing the program to your target audience. It’s best to have a deep understanding of your employees and the individuals likely to participate in the program. It would also be helpful to know their developmental needs and motivations for participating in a mentoring program.
Together, we’ll establish your program’s objectives and translate them into a SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) goal. The information gathered at this stage allows us to create mentoring objectives that can be used to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) for future program monitoring and reporting.
Step 2: Establish Mentee and Mentor Eligibility
The next step involves identifying who can sign up as a mentor and mentee in the program. This is an essential step as it can pave the way for the program’s success. You’ll need to identify the candidates who will be part of your program and how you plan to match them together.
This step includes identifying your matching criteria and how you can match participants. Brancher’s science-backed mentoring software allows you to match participants based on their values and attitudes. This is done through a Personality and Values Questionnaire that determines the wants and needs of participants in the program. Their career aspirations, personal interests, and industry experience are carefully analysed before matching with the right mentor or mentee.
By using Brancher’s software, you can streamline this process and eliminate unconscious bias in matching candidates. In a previous article, we identified how unconscious bias can lead to poorly matched pairs and how this can lead to frustration. We can eliminate this through the help of our mentoring platform.
Step 3: Set Up Recruitment and Communications
The success of your mentoring program largely depends on how well you promote it in your organisation. Even if you have a well-designed program, it won’t get very far without program promotion and mentor recruitment. This is why we’re here to help in setting up your program’s recruitment and communication channels.
One way we encourage the promotion of the program is by creating a short launch video, which doesn’t last over five minutes and generally features a key sponsor or “face” of the program, clearly articulating the value of participating. It’s also recommended to establish communication channels that will be used for the mentoring program. This can be through an eDM (Electronic Direct Mail), text messages through specific departments, and internal advertising.
A good promotional strategy is to let potential participants know the benefits they get out of mentoring. Some individuals do not know what mentoring programs are about since they are trapped in the notion of traditional mentoring. By taking time to showcase how mentoring can be well worth their time and effort, more individuals will be keen on participating.
In addition to marketing, this is also a step when the needed internal arrangements will be finalised. This includes identifying the following:
- Key points of contact for roles and responsibilities (e.g. Implementation manager, “The Face” of the program, Program sponsor, etc.)
- Key dates (The implementation plan timeline)
- Program structure (How matches will be made, Number of users, Maximum number of mentees/mentors, etc.)
- Training tools that will be offered
- Data and resource management (Including a logo, Custom resources, etc.)
- Pairing criteria
Establishing these things can help the mentoring program have a smooth flow whenever problems arise.
Step 4: Define Program Evaluation
Another step in your mentoring strategy that you should not miss out on is the program evaluation phase, where you can understand how the program measures up to your expectations.
Running a mentorship program is not cheap. Aside from the financial costs included, a dedicated administrator will allocate time to set up the program and make sure it runs with no problems. To ensure that a program is running smoothly, three metrics need to be put into consideration:
- The program itself
- The mentoring connection
- The individuals involved
The continuous monitoring of these factors can play a significant role in ensuring the program is effective. This is why it’s recommended to have frequent check-ins throughout the program instead of its commencement and conclusion. Because of the amount of time and work needed for this, the organisation needs to assign an individual to be the program administrator, who will take control of the program.
Step 5: Program Implementation
When all of these steps have been taken care of, it’s finally time to launch the program. This is the point in the program when the participants should be trained and matched with a mentor or mentee. But this does not mean the work is over.
The work of a program administrator does not end at launch. To ensure that the program becomes successful, administrators need to establish a checkpoint to evaluate the paired participants. The goals of the participants need to be identified in the Mentoring Agreement so it can be used to check that the goals of the mentor and mentee are achieved.
When it’s time to end the mentoring relationship, the administrator can facilitate the transition as the participants reflect upon what they learned. They can also gather feedback on the program and its process to use for further improvement.
Clearly explaining the “wrap up” process, and ensuring the buy-in of participants throughout the length of the program is no easy feat; but a strategic approach to launching and management will remove a significant amount of this burden.
Brancher: Mentoring Solution to Reduce Admin Time
Establishing a formal mentoring program can be a tough process, but one that your organisation cannot do without. To help streamline the process, Brancher’s mentoring software is an ally you can trust.
Brancher helps large-scale organisations and government groups by equipping its program administrators with the necessary tools needed for a successful mentoring program. One thing that sets us apart from other mentoring platforms is that we guide our partners from the start. We’re always here to support your mentoring needs.
Brancher clients save over 82% of the admin time required to launch and run a successful program, and our experience with best-practice can help a new, or existing program reach new heights, deeply imbedding a culture of mentoring in your organisation.
Don’t let the complexity of running a mentoring program stop you. Get Brancher and see the value we bring to your program. Call us today for a free demo.