How Mentoring Software Can Help You with Your Onboarding Efforts
Having a mentor who is younger than you are doesn’t have to be revolutionary. More people are talking about the concept of reverse mentoring and seeing the potential it has to make a positive impact in people’s lives. If your mentor has experience and wisdom to share, who cares how old they are? The whole point of mentoring is to learn from the experience of others—age should not matter.
This game show can also make the case for having a peer mentor. Sometimes the best mentor is someone who is a step or two ahead of you in terms of skills and knowledge. Having someone who has recently mastered a skill that you are trying to learn can sometimes be more helpful than having a mentor who is an extreme expert but who may have forgotten the basics. As the show proves, we can forget a lot over the years. A peer or near-peer mentor could be someone who has recently learned some tips and tricks while studying a new knowledge area, which they can then share with you as you learn about that same topic.
1. Mentor matches that make sense for your program.
Since the matching algorithm in MentorcliQ can be configured for your unique mentoring programs, you can adjust the factors that the algorithm takes into consideration when calculating and suggesting matches. For example, perhaps you want to make sure that for your onboarding program, new employees are paired with a buddy who is in the same business unit as the new hire. Or maybe you want to make sure they are in the same location or time zone. Or perhaps you want to match them with someone who is in the same job role as they are. All of those configurations—and more—can occur within MentorcliQ’s matching algorithm to help ensure that your participants are finding quality matches that meet your program’s parameters. And all of those configuration ideas can help you leverage peer mentoring to its fullest.
2. Structured learning that provides a framework for new employees.
Within the admin dashboard in MentorcliQ, you can embed a pre-set learning agenda that is delivered to mentees and mentors within the confines of their mentoring relationships at a cadence determined by you. This is a great tool to use within onboarding programs because you can set up assignments that you deem critical for new hires to learn and complete. Activities can come from MentorcliQ’s learning library or from your own internal offerings, meaning you can customize this to suit your organization’s needs. This can also help peer mentors know what to focus on for part of the relationship since they will be given guidance by you, the administrator, at critical junctures in their relationships. This can make the participants feel like they are supported in the program since you are giving thought to what might be important for them to learn, and then providing materials for them to do just that.
