Mentoring Success Tips? … essential concerns to be asking.
The concept of mentoring has proved to be a powerful way to keep and attract excellent employees. One of the most frequently asked questions for a large number of HR professionals is What are the critical factors to creating a successful mentorship program? There are many answers, and often it’s about ensuring company-wide fit, getting top management’s support, the proper selection of mentors, matching, and the right training for all those involved.
How can you ensure that your mentoring program is successful? Reviewing mentoring program standards and benchmarks is an excellent place to begin. Based on our experience with Oystercorp in providing mentoring programs across the globe, we’ve developed the following diagnostic tool to ensure that organizations who are that are thinking about mentoring ask the right questions.
These questions can aid in clarifying your program’s goals and prompt you to think about the most effective areas for coaching program implementation. We suggest that program managers (together with stakeholders that could be involved) read and fully answer the following questions. These questions can help to start your mentorship program off to a great beginning.
Mentoring Program Implementation stages
These questions are listed under the ten areas of the Mentoring program’s implementation.
1. Design and development
2. Organizational alignment
3. Stakeholders and participants
4. Structure of the program
5. Promotion of the program
6. Matching and selection
7. Resourcing
8. Participant training
9. Monitoring and reviewing
10. Roll-out
1. Design and development
What are the goals for the program?
This is the most crucial aspect of the designing phase.
Also, you should think about
What do you hope to achieve?
What do you think you can do to achieve these goals?
Who is the population that should be targeted (by gender, age or geography, income, etc. )?
What is success? To mentors, mentees, and the company?
Write a brief statement of the program’s goals.
For instance, “The mentoring objective is to train 12 new managers in our succession plan”.
Answer these questions regarding your assertion:
Are they true?
Are they clear and concise?
Do they reflect the beliefs and values of your company?
Does it meet the needs of the participants?
2. Organizational alignment
What are the values of the organization and strategies that the program supports?
Which other initiatives in HR or organization are the program aligned to?
3. Resourcing
Where will the budget of the program be placed?
Who will be in charge?
4. Stakeholders and participants
Which is the most senior patron?
Who are your peers? Mentors?
Are you able to get line managers to get involved? If so, how?
Who are the individuals who will be driving this program? Your team of support (steering committee and program manager(s) champions, program manager)
5. Structure of the program
What kind of coaching will be provided?
(i.e., traditional, peer, group, reverse).
What kind of model do you want to employ (one: to one or one-to-many)?
What should the format of the meetings be? (how often and how long), and when, and which location).
What (if what) technologies will be utilized to facilitate mentoring? (email, telephone, Mentoring, telementoring, etc.)
Do you think your mentoring sessions to continue?
6. Promotion of the program
How can you market the program?
Are you planning to launch? If yes, what will it appear like?
What are the resources you will use in promoting your program?
(i.e., Intranet, website, Ezine, company newsletter (e.g., company newsletter, intranet, website, etc.) and others as presentations, meetings)
What can we do to promote the program’s results?
7. Matching and selection
How do participants get selected and screened?
Who will be in charge of this?
What will be the recognition for participation in the program?
How can the mentors and mentees get matched?
What assessment tools and criteria and other tools will we employ to help us in our process?
8. Participant Training
Who will be responsible for the orientation and the training?
What is the most appropriate timing to accomplish this?
What is the minimum time frame for workshops?
What other activities are included in this program? (social etc.)
What will other courses be used to enhance the education? (on-line resources, special projects, etc. ).
How will the partnership be monitored and supported?
What will the participants receive in order to maintain the momentum?
What will we do to mark the end of the facilitated portion in the course?
9. Monitoring and evaluating the Program Monitoring and Evaluating the
What are the best ways to measure success?
What are the objectives of the program that we will be evaluating our program against?
What are our goals for our mentees, mentors, and the organization?
What is the best way to monitor how participants are progressing through the course?
What will we do to assess the program after it is completed?
What will we do to evaluate this? (i.e., participants self-assessment, etc.)
What will you be evaluating? (how frequency etc.)
What will information about the program be maintained and controlled?
10. Roll-out
What concerns do we have to take into account when deciding to roll out?
What changes could we implement to improve the structure of our program?
Where will we begin to implement the program?
What are the ways to maintain control over the program in the phase of roll-out?
(Go through the entire list of questions to help you roll out).
And then …
In light of the unique nature of this organization, What are the other questions we need to be asking ourselves?
It’s not simple, but it can be simplified with the help of the ten steps of mentoring success. The key to success in mentoring is placing the proper foundation. This means asking essential questions to your key stakeholders as well as anyone who is involved in the program’s planning.
The answers to these questions can help you understand the goals you want to achieve and help you get your mentorship course off to the best beginning.
Sally Armstrong is a senior consultant for Oystercorp. The company offers bespoke training and mentoring solutions to both private and public organizations. Sally has provided these solutions to international clients across countries like Australia, Canada, the U.S., South America, Africa, and South-East Asia. Sally has been awarded an award for business excellence from the country for her contributions to coaching and mentoring.