Lessons Learned about Mentoring in the Workplace
Lesson #1: Mentoring Needs a Purpose
Whether you want to develop a mentoring program because your employee surveys show it is desired by your workforce, or because you think it can help with retention efforts, or because of any number of valid reasons, you need to have a reason why you are launching a mentoring program. Sometimes your purpose may be well defined, such as deciding to use mentoring to support an onboarding program, while other times it may be more general in nature, such as seeing a growing hunger for mentoring among the workforce and looking for a way to meet this need.
Our clients tend to use mentoring for very clear business reasons, and in the vast majority of times for more than one reason. It is fairly common for our clients to utilize mentoring for a mix of specific narrow initiatives (e.g., high potential development, new manager training), while simultaneously offering mentoring on a broader scale to a larger employee population—effectively tying mentoring to business needs of all types. Some of the top ways that our clients use MentorcliQ mentoring software include:
- Career development
- Leadership development
- High-potential programs
- Onboarding
- Diversity and inclusion initiatives
- Intern and new graduate programs
- Employee resource groups
- Manager and supervisor training
- Classroom training support
- Technical skill development
- Knowledge sharing
So ask yourself this: Where can mentoring fit in your organization?
Your measurement strategy should not be a one-size-fits-all model. Each mentoring program is unique and your measurement strategy should reflect that. MentorcliQ works closely with our clients on these types of issues and consults them on plans for tracking and measuring success with their programs. As we learn via the triumphs and struggles of organizations that we work with, our best practices evolve. What we learn today becomes information we disseminate and blend into our advice for you tomorrow.
For example, MentorcliQ can be configured in numerous ways that allow you to fine tune what mentees and mentors see within the software, how matches get made, what monitoring and tracking occur via MentorcliQ, and much more. These configurations include:
- Deciding if your program will support one-to-one mentoring, group mentoring, or both
- Deciding if matches between mentees and mentors will be self-directed and/or administrator-matched
- Identifying the profile fields and information you want to collect to subsequently use in configuring the matching algorithm and to make available for reporting purposes
- Identifying what competencies/skills/experience areas you want people to profile themselves against
- Designing the matching algorithm to suit your needs
- Building the monitoring check-in surveys so you can keep an eye on participants’ progress
The way you design and run a mentoring program for leadership development will likely differ from how you design and run a program for new manager training. The factors you want mentees and mentors to see, the data you want to collect, and the way you want the program to operate overall should be unique for your various programs. The way you configure each program should reflect your audience and program goals.
Part of MentorcliQ’s promise to our clients is that they are never in this alone. We offer a mentoring solution, not just a software system. Our mentoring experts consult you on every step of your journey so that you create a powerful mentoring program that leaves a lasting impact. Contact MentorcliQ today to start your journey.