The ultimate guide to mentoring.

This guide is dedicated to showcasing how mentoring can be used at your organisation.

by PushFar

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

01 INTRODUCTION.

02 WHAT IS MENTORING?

03 10 USES OF MENTORING.

04 TYPES OF MENTORING.

05 SETTING UP A MENTORING PROGRAM.

06 10 TIPS FOR SETTING UP A MENTORING PROGRAM.

INTRODUCTION.

Have you ever wondered what the term 'mentoring' really means? Or wondered how it could be used at your organisation? Mentoring is now becoming widely recognised across the world with multiple studies showing it is a highly beneficial method for career and personal development. This guide explores deeper into mentoring for organisations, the different purposes of mentoring, the steps you should take when setting up a mentoring program and our top tips.

A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself. – Oprah Winfrey

WHAT IS MENTORING?

Mentoring is a phrase thrown around a lot. People often speak of having a mentor to support them with entrepreneurship, career progression, personal development, professional mentoring and mentoring in the context of coaching. The term can be confusing for those who haven't had a mentor or been mentored before, but what does it mean? The truth is, mentoring is easy to understand because there are no established rules to follow and can be personalised to the parties involved within the mentoring relationship. In simplistic terms, mentoring is the act of an individual helping, supporting and guiding another individual to help meet particular goals.

10 USES OF MENTORING.

We all know that mentoring has many benefits for both individuals and organisations involved. We've compiled a list of 10 fantastic uses of mentoring within an organisation.

  • Succession planning

THE TYPES OF MENTORING.

There are various types of mentoring to choose from, that can be used within your organisation. The type of mentoring completely depends on the objectives and goals you're trying to meet, with each type proving beneficial in its way.

One-on-One Mentoring.

This type of mentoring is considered the traditional method where a pair of individuals (one is a mentor, the other is a mentee) enter a mentoring relationship to help support and guide the mentee. In this specific type of mentoring, the mentor typically has more experience and knowledge in a certain area that the mentee is most interested in.

Reverse Mentoring.

Reverse mentoring is when someone in a more junior position mentors their senior within the workplace. This type of mentoring encourages knowledge sharing across the organisation.

Virtual Mentoring.

With more people than ever before working from home, virtual mentoring is something all businesses should consider. This style of mentoring is done virtually, which makes it more accessible for every individual within the organisation.

Peer Mentoring.

This style of mentoring is when colleagues of a similar age or experience level take turns acting as the mentor, this type of mentoring is all about creating a support and learning system.

Group Mentoring.

This specific type of mentoring involves a singular mentor working with various mentees within a group environment. This style allows for more mentees to be reached and supported in a shorter period and is useful for organisations that have a limited number of good mentors available. Group mentoring also allows the individuals to participate within a group setting thus allowing for improvement in teamwork skills.

SETTING UP A MENTORING PROGRAM.

A successful program is created from a well thought out plan and good organisation skills. There are many things you need to understand and identify such as the who, what, where, when and how before launching your program. It's important to gather insight into the needs and wants of mentors and mentees whilst supporting the needs of your organisation as a whole. Planning means you will be certain that your program will run as smooth as possible, without meeting challenges along the way. This next section will focus and provide you with more information on how you can deliver your program effectively.

Define Your Purpose and Goals.

If you're reading this guide, it's more than likely that you're in the process of researching mentoring programs for an organisation. The first step to running a mentoring program is identifying the purpose and goals you set out to achieve by implementing one. From increasing retention rates to building a more diverse workplace, the outcomes and design of your program will be based on the individual needs and wants. For your program to be successful, it's crucial that you clearly understand and define your purpose before planning. Listed below is a list of some questions you should think about:

  • What results are you looking to achieve from this mentoring program?
  • What purpose does it solve within the organisation?
  • What problems are the organisation facing and what could having a mentoring program solve?
  • What are your employees looking for?
  • What does success look like for participants and the organisation?
  • What value do we want to add as an organisation?

All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible. – Orison Swett Marden

Design Details.

Once the goals and purpose of the program are clearly identified, it's time to work out the design details. Effective mentorship programs are both structured and flexible, which is essential for supporting the mentoring needs across your organisation. We have listed some factors you should consider below when designing your program:

  • How long will mentoring relationships last?
  • How will participants sign-up?
  • What are the requirements of participants?
  • How many mentors and mentees will there be?
  • How will mentoring relationships be formed?
  • Is the program open or closed?
  • What type of mentoring will you use?
  • How will you promote your program?
  • What resources do you need?
  • What is expected from mentors and mentees?
  • What KPIs will you be looking to achieve?
  • How will you measure success?
  • What policies and procedures will you have in place to support the program?
  • Who will manage the program?

Attracting and Onboarding Participants.

Even the most planned and well thought out programs won't be effective without program promotion, onboarding and training. One of the key challenges faced by organisations is that although they may have participants who feel enthusiastic about the implementation of a mentoring program, there are low participation rates. Without promotion and effective onboarding, mentoring programs can only go so far. You need to convince the participants that mentoring is worth their time and effort, whilst also educating leaders and stakeholders on the benefits and value the program can bring to the organisation as a whole. Here are our top tips for promoting and attracting participants:

Provide Training and Resources.

You need to provide training and resources to participants that are both educational and engaging. This may be the first time being in a mentoring relationship for the individuals, so they need to have a clear understanding of the goals of the program, the roles they play, the best mentoring practices and how they can have the best experience. By doing this, participants will feel more comfortable committing to the program and more likely to sign-up.

Communicate the Benefits.

There are some highly valuable benefits of mentoring for both personal and professional development, but don't assume everyone knows about them. You need to showcase the value of mentoring to participants, leaders and stakeholders.

Recognition and Rewards.

It's crucial that you understand the factors that can influence program participation. Once you identify them, you can strategically find ways to ease these hurdles. Are participants struggling with time? Is confidence a problem for individuals within the organisation? Although these are all valid points, you need to come up with ways to implement recognition and rewards for participants. By recognising mentor engagement and involvement, you're motivating participants whilst attracting new ones to the program.

The Pairing Process.

The next step is pairing mentors and mentees. Now you have several applicants, one of the most crucial factors in deciding how you plan to match participants. This is one of the more challenging parts of running a program as participants have varied backgrounds, needs, goals, learning styles and skills. During your original planning stages, it's likely you identified how you plan to do this within your organisation. There are many ways you can match such as self-matching or admin-matching.

Remember, if you're planning to do matching manually it may take a substantial time depending on the size of your company, it also means that pairing mentors and mentees can be more complex. Using software to run a program makes everything more simple and manageable. A mentoring program like PushFar helps support the pairing process, whilst having the capability to pair participants through the algorithm in a matter of seconds.

Measure Success.

The final stage of running a mentoring program is measuring the success and comparing it against the company objectives and KPIs. The main goal of any mentoring program is being successful, you expect a result after all the resources you've put in. But how do you even know if it's been successful? You need to measure it. Listed below are ways you can effectively track and measure the success of your mentoring program.

Mentoring Engagement.

Engagement within any program is one of the most common ways to measure and gauge success and value. Measuring the engagement of the program can be done by looking at things such as:

  • The number of relationships formed.
  • Active participants.
  • The number of hours spent mentoring.
  • The number of tasks set.
  • The number of messages sent.

Employee Satisfaction.

An effective way to measure the success of your program is simply asking the participants what they thought of their experience. You can collect the information and use it to make improvements to the program in the future, a simple way of collecting the data is through organisational surveys. It's also important to create a safe space where members feel comfortable sharing honest feedback to reduce bias opinions.

Participant Progress.

Before forming the mentoring relationship, it's recommended that participants set goals with their mentor. To measure the effectiveness of the program, you can track participant progress as a whole. You can do this by:

  • Tracking the number of goals set.
  • Seeing how many participant goals have been achieved.
  • Gathering feedback from participants.
  • The timeline for meeting the goals.

Organisational Outcomes.

Before implementing the mentoring program with your organisation, goals and objectives would have been set. It's an extremely valuable way to see your mentoring efforts. Each program is designed to meet unique goals and so vary for every organisation, for example, a program for increasing employee retention would have different goals than a program for increasing diversity. However, some key KPIs you can track are:

  • Employee retention.
  • Employee engagement.
  • Participation rates.
  • Promotion rates.
  • Employee satisfaction.

10 TIPS FOR SETTING UP A MENTORING PROGRAM.

Now we have been through the process of running a mentoring program, here are our 10 top tips for success:

ABOUT PUSHFAR.

PushFar is the world's leading mentoring and career progression platform, helping thousands of individuals and organisations across the globe. Our cloud-based platform is the perfect solution for implementing a mentoring program within your company to meet organisational and employee goals. Our platform enables you to build highly effective, customisable and scalable mentoring programs for your team members. Our data-driven algorithm, easy-to-use platform, and efficient features create a truly seamless experience.