One of the best ways to help people advance in their careers and meet their professional goals is through a workplace mentorship program. This is no big secret—it’s why 97.5 percent of Fortune 500 companies have mentorship programs in place and 75 percent of executives say they’re successful because of the mentors they’ve had.
Yet, many companies struggle to create successful mentorship programs. In fact, only 37% of employees say they currently have a mentor.
If you see the value of a mentorship program but need help designing yours , look no further! In this guide, we’ll share everything you need to know about structuring a mentorship program that positively impacts your company, your people, and performances that drive results.
What is a mentorship program?
First things first: What exactly are we talking about when we refer to a workplace mentorship program? Mentorship pairs a more experienced person (a mentor) with a less experienced person who is trying to grow their skillset and move ahead in their career (a mentee).
Is this the same as a manager providing guidance to their direct report? Not exactly. One of the key elements of mentorship is that it involves social learning, where employees work to solve problems and overcome challenges together.
Mentorship is a unique form of teaching/training and learning because its foundation is the exchange of information and experience. Mentors don’t necessarily prescribe specific actions or give instructions to their mentees. Their time together isn’t a one-way communication exchange—there’s give and take involved. Plus, it’s often directed by the mentee and based on a specific question or challenge they’re working through.
It’s wonderful when mentorship emerges organically. But without structure, it's much harder to make mentorship opportunities available to everyone or to achieve specific results. This is why creating a structured mentoring program is so powerful—it makes mentoring accessible, creates accountability, and provides guidance so everyone benefits from the relationship.
It’s also worth mentioning that even in workplace mentoring programs, conversations aren’t always strictly focused on professional development. In addition to seeking guidance on what’s happening in their industry or how to move ahead in their career, mentees might turn to their mentors for advice on topics like managing stress or developing a better work/life balance.
Mentorship programs can lead to professional and personal growth for both mentees and mentors.
What are the benefits of effective mentoring?
Why invest in a mentorship program? Workplace mentoring benefits mentees, mentors, and your whole organization.
Mentoring develops your employees’ professional skills
Your workplace mentors can share all kinds of professional knowledge with their mentees, from coding to using a specific software. But mentoring is not just about teaching these types of “hard” skills. Mentors can also teach their mentees soft skills like communication and empathy that will help them become strong leaders. And through the process of developing the relationship and guiding their mentees, many mentors also strengthen their own leadership skills.
Mentoring encourages knowledge sharing and transfer
The open and honest conversations that take place between mentors and mentees mean that mentors can turn their own experiences into lessons for their mentee. This is especially powerful when mentors can share some of the wins and losses they’ve experienced within your company, ensuring that their valuable institutional knowledge gets passed on.
Mentors can help mentees advance their careers
HR.com finds that 56% of HR professionals cite “preparing employees for new roles and assignments” as the main reason for offering mentorship programs. In addition to helping mentees develop hard and soft skills, mentors can assist mentees with career mapping by sharing advice about their career progression and may make recommendations about how and when to pursue promotions. Mentors may even be able to recommend their mentees to hiring managers, increasing their chances of landing new roles within your organization.
Mentoring increases confidence of both mentees and mentors
The constructive feedback and positive reinforcement mentees receive regularly from their mentors can helpboost confidence. But mentees aren’t the only ones to benefit—the process of being a positive role model can foster growth in mentors, too.
Mentoring creates more networking opportunities
Because mentors tend to be more established within your company and the workforce in general, they can help their mentees grow their professional networks by introducing them to other contacts within your company and industry.
Mentoring promotes diverse perspectives
Creating an inclusive mentorship program means you can give opportunities to mentees who come from backgrounds that were traditionally underrepresented in the corporate world, especially in leadership positions. Giving mentees access to guidance from senior leaders, increases their chances of moving up the career ladder and promoting more diverse perspectives in leadership as a result.
Mentoring boosts employee engagement and retention
When employees feel that their employer is investing in them and their career, their engagement increases. HR.com finds that 52% of HR professionals leverage coaching and mentoring to improve employee engagement and retention.
Mentoring yields a positive return on investment (ROI)
Everything we’ve described above—the increased performance, skills development, employee engagement and retention—means that you will often get much more out of a mentorship program than it costs to run it. Together’s mentorship ROI calculator estimates that a company with $10 million in revenue could see $2.4 million in increased productivity if 20% of employees participate in a mentoring program.
Which skills should you look for in mentors?
While mentors can come from different backgrounds and areas within your organization, good mentors tend to have certain characteristics in common. These include:
- Professional and life experience: There’s not necessarily a specific number of years someone needs to work in order to become a mentor, but having a wide variety of life and professional experiences (including several leadership roles), would be valuable.
- Good listening and communication skills: Mentors will spend a lot of time actively listening to their mentees in order to understand the challenges they’re facing. They'll also need to feel comfortable being transparent about their own experiences and be able to communicate them effectively.
- Open-mindedness and curiosity: Mentees will often share challenges and problems they’re facing, and it’s important for mentors to approach these conversations with open-mindedness and curiosity rather than judgment.
- The ability to coach and guide: Sometimes mentees will require more direct guidance and other times they might just need a sounding board as they work through challenges. In these situations, mentors need to be able to step back and let mentees develop their problem-solving skills by taking more of a coaching approach.
- A desire to help others: Potential mentors need to be motivated to help others. If they’re not excited about the process or the program, they’re unlikely to find mentorship to be a good use of their time.
8 steps to create a mentorship program and track results
While mentorship can happen organically, you’re much more likely to enjoy all the benefits and drive results when you create a structured plan and roll it out throughout your organization. Here are eight essential steps to help you develop a mentorship plan or build a mentorship program template that works for your organization.
1. Define your program’s goals and objectives
How will you know if your mentorship program is successful? It starts with setting clear mentoring goals . You might start with simple objectives around participation (for example, getting a certain percentage of your employees to sign up as mentors or mentees). You might also aim for satisfaction metrics, like targeting a net promoter score, among participants.
Eventually, it’s a good idea to think about goals in terms of things that will benefit your business as a whole. For example, if attrition has been a problem, a goal for your mentorship program could be to extend employee tenure. Or if you’re concerned about succession planning and having enough leaders in the coming years, you might focus on training high-potential employees to prepare them to move into leadership roles.
2. Select and match your program participants
How should you select your mentors? Look for employees who have the right blend of skills, experience, and personality that will make them well-suited to guide their mentees. For mentees, the most important characteristic is a willingness to learn and grow. When it comes to matching mentors and mentees, prioritize compatibility by considering factors like shared objectives and similar interests. And remember: You don’t have to do it all on your own. Mentoring software can automate the matching process so you don’t have manually find matches.
3. Create guidelines and expectations for mentorship program participants
One of the benefits of creating a structured mentorship program is that you can create clear mentoring guidelines and expectations. Include in your guidelines:
- Frequency and length of meetings: How often should mentors and mentees meet?Are there recommendations for how long each meeting should be?
- Communication: How should mentors and mentees expect to communicate with each other?
- Confidentiality expectations: What steps will participants take to ensure confidentiality in their discussions? If there are any cases where a mentor would be legally required to disclose information (for example, if a mentee shares information about unlawful activity within your company), make sure they understand those requirements.
- Compatibility: What should happen if either party is unhappy with the match? Ideally, all matches will work out, but there may be cases when mentees just don’t mesh with their mentors. Create contingency plans for how to handle these situations to minimize awkwardness and encourage all parties to stick with the program, even if they’d like to request a new match.
4. Plan out a structured curriculum—with room for flexibility
The ideal mentorship setup balances flexibility and structure. A few elements you might want to offer include:
- Events or workshops that are designed to build specific skills
- Group exercises or individual assignments that focus on real-world application
- Discussions that focus on specific topics or challenges
5. Provide comprehensive resources for mentors and mentees
Most mentorship relationships lean on the mentee to drive their interactions, bringing questions or topics they’d like to discuss with their mentor. But as a mentorship program manager, you can still provide resources to facilitate a smooth process and positive outcomes. For example, you might offer the following:
- For mentors: Create (or refine) a mentorship agreement that outlines their responsibilities as a mentor, mentorship methodologies that introduce effective mentoring strategies, toolkits and case studies, and handbooks.
- For mentees: Create (or refine) a mentorship agreement that outlines their responsibilities as a mentee, guides that provide ideas for discussions, and mentorship program handbooks that outline how to be a good mentee.
6. Establish communication channels
While the typical mentoring arrangement is a one-to-one, in-person meeting, there are plenty of other options. In addition to face-to-face meetings, mentors can meet with mentees through virtual mentoring on platforms like Zoom or Teams. What matters most is creating a cadence of regular, consistent communication.
7. Drive interest by promoting your mentorship program
A mentorship program won’t work well without willing mentors and mentees. That’s why it’s important to plan out the logistics of your program. A few things to include when you design your plan:
- When the program is starting
- Who is eligible to participate
- How interested people can apply/register. What participants can expect in terms of time commitment and potential benefits
In addition to planning out what you’ll say, you’ll also want to think about how you’ll say it. It’s generally a good idea to include a few different formats to ensure you reach as many potential participants as possible. For example, your promotional plan might include communication through company platforms like email, messaging, and intranet, as well as events like program kickoffs or signup drives. You might even invite people like leaders or managers to become program champions to recruit more participants.
8. Have a plan for tracking progress and evaluating your program’s success
The best way to know if your mentor program is successful is by tracking and analyizing specific metrics that you’ve determined before you begin.
Here are several ways to monitor how your mentorship program is doing:
- Run mentorship surveys to ask participants how it’s going and get get feedback on how to improve. Your mentorship program survey questions can ask for simple ratings on their satisfaction or perception of the program’s impact.
- Encourage mentors and mentees to hold feedback sessions where they set aside their usual topics and focus on the dynamics of the mentorship relationship and any areas for improvement.
- Host group discussions where multiple mentors or mentees can share their experiences to help identify common challenges and best practices.
- If you’re using mentoring software, youlikely have access to powerful analytics. You might have a mentoring tracking system that monitors interaction frequency, task completion rates, or even participants’ sentiment.
Creating a winning mentorship plan: Best practices for structuring your mentorship program
We’ve covered the basics of setting up a mentorship program. But if you’re looking for some additional tips and mentoring best practices for running a successful program, read on!
Implement a three-step process to tailor your mentorship plan to mentees and mentors
Step 1: Survey your potential mentees
Ask potential mentees what areas they need the most support in. Once you received enough responses, identify topic areas and think of mentors who’d be well suited to help with these themes.
Step 2: Consider your potential mentors
Consider how you can entice mentors to participate. Beyond the pride and satisfaction they’ll get from helping others, can you offer other incentives? These might include networking sessions with other mentors or social media spotlights of their work.
Step 3: Plan your outreach and marketing
Think about which platforms and formats will be most effective for attracting potential mentees and mentors and allow plenty of time for sign-ups. Remember that the main goal of your outreach is to ensure mentors and mentees understand what they stand to gain from participating in the program.
Foster strong relationships with emotional intelligence checkpoints
Showing up for mentoring sessions and addressing the mentee’s most pressing topics are the foundation of a successful mentoring relationship, but to facilitate the best results, mentors and mentees also need to commit to fostering a mutually respectful relationship.
One of the best ways to achieve this is with “emotional intelligence checkpoints.” These are dedicated sessions where the mentors and mentees take a break from discussing professional development topics and instead focus on the dynamics of their relationship. During these conversations, they can share whether they feel understood or if there are things they can do to improve communication.
Beyond progress updates, it’s important to make space for transparent self-reflection and openness. Authenticity paves the way for stronger, more trusting professional relationships.
Make mentorship a two-way street
Consider alternatives to the traditional top-down mentorship models where more senior employees give advice to more junior employees. Instead, emphasize the fact that reverse mentoring is also possible, where knowledge can flow from junior to senior employees.
Mentees can offer advice on what they look for in the workplace and about how they want to be managed. They can provide different perspectives about the kinds of professional development opportunities they’d like to see.
Focus on setting clear goals and providing individualized guidance
Even though mentoring can be an enriching experience, it does take employees away from their everyday work and deadlines. If they’re not clear on what they’re hoping to get out of mentoring, it will be easy to lose interest. Overcome this by having each mentor set specific goals and objectives. What are they hoping to achieve from the mentorship? What career goals are they working toward or professional skills are they looking to strengthen?
With clear objectives in mind, it’s much easier to develop a roadmap with milestones to hit. This helps mentees stay motivated, even with the demands of daily work.
Offer group mentoring opportunities
Remember that mentoring doesn’t always have to follow the one-to-one format. Group mentoring sessions, where one mentor meets with several mentees at the same time, can also be powerful. These types of sessions facilitate peer learning where mentees share their challenges and engage in collaborative problem-solving.
And if your organization is interested in succession planning, this is a relatively simple way to begin cultivating future leaders by developing essential leadership skills today.
Establish clear mentorship timelines and check-ins
When creating your mentorship plan, it’s helpful to create clear mentorship timelines. When will mentoring programs begin? How long will they last? How frequently should mentors plan to meet with their mentees? When are some points during the program where it will make sense to do regular check-ins and goal setting?
Establishing a clear timeline helps set expectations for mentees and mentors. And making regular check-ins part of the program gives you the chance to collect feedback when it’s fresh in everyone’s minds. Getting regular feedback also allows you to adjust as necessary so you can resolve any pain points and increase your program’s chances of success.
Balance structure with flexibility
A structured mentorship program can feel overly rigid if the curriculum isn’t aligned with the mentee’s unique questions, challenges, and desired growth. Empower mentors to use the curriculum as a starting point and ask them to remain open to their mentee’s requests so the program can be adapted for maximum value.
Match mentors and mentees based on goals—but don’t be too rigid. One effective way to match mentors and mentees is to pair people up based on experience levels, goals, and interests. This approach encourages a two-way flow of information and provides learning opportunities for both mentors and mentees.
However, this doesn’t mean you always need to strive to find mentors and mentees whose backgrounds and interests perfectly match up. Sometimes, speaking with someone from outside of your discipline or department can inspire new and innovative ways of thinking.
Connect the program to employee resource groups
Traditional mentorship was not always inclusive of people from different backgrounds, so one of the unintended consequences of these programs was that leaders would select mentees who were like them, which continued the pattern of homogeneity among leaders.
Avoid this outcome by taking an intentional, inclusive approach to mentorship and making sure these programs are available to everyone, especially people from diverse and underrepresented groups. If you’re striving to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) through your mentorship program, one way to achieve this is by partnering with employee resource groups (ERGs).
Your company’s ERGs can encourage their members to participate in mentorship. Members of the ERG might also be willing to share their experiences to help your company improve its inclusion efforts, especially when it comes to your mentorship program.
Set up a successful mentoring program with Together & Absorb
We understand there’s often a disconnect between wanting to have a mentoring program and getting one off the ground. Here’s what employee development experts said were their biggest barriers to initiating a formal mentorship program:
- Lack of HR budget
- Lack of sufficient number of mentors to support their mentee base
- Not enough buy-in from leadership into HR initiatives or programs like mentorship
- Admins feel “too busy” to run a program—or they’re afraid it will be a “heavy lift”
- It’s hard to capture the impact of mentorship
If any of these barriers resonate with you, we get it. That’s what the Together mentorship platform is here for—we’ll take on the heavy lift to set up, monitor, and track your program’s successes. As well, we’ll help you match mentors and mentees at scale and calculate your program’s ROI. If you’re curious to see how it all works, get in touch to learn more about Together mentoring software.
