Encouraging Participation in Your Company’s Mentoring Program

Being an effective leader involves setting clear and attainable goals for your employees. A great place to start is by aiming to help key talent build strong relationships, develop career skills and knowledge, improve engagement, and increase productivity within your workplace. Corporate mentoring programs offer a valuable way to help employees thrive and generate success. The benefits of mentoring are tremendous—those who participate in a mentoring program improve upon essential skills and unlock their full potential to become strategic and innovative thinkers, as well as future leaders at your company.

While the leadership development opportunities offered by a mentoring program may be obvious to the person instituting the program, it can be difficult to hit the ground running and encourage employees to actively participate in a new program. How exactly can you promote a mentoring program in an attractive way? We’ve put together some tips to help you do just that. By emphasizing growth opportunities, gathering and responding to feedback, hosting information sessions, and encouraging word-of-mouth, you’ll have employees jumping at the opportunity to be a part of your program.

Emphasize Growth Opportunities

There are no secrets when it comes to the benefits a mentoring program can offer, but sometimes employees need a little push in order to fully get behind a new program. By emphasizing the growth opportunities of a program, you can attract participants who are interested in this strengthening their critical thinking and leadership skills. The key is to make sure to not only highlight the opportunities for mentees, but also for the mentor.

By participating in Menttium’s internal corporate mentoring program, mentees will learn to use the knowledge, tools, and resources that their mentor provides them with in order to broaden their skillset. Mentees will glean valuable insight from the experiences of their mentors, better positioning themselves to overcome obstacles and challenges in the workplace. And let’s not forget about the mentor. A mentor doesn’t only provide the outside perspectives but is also able to learn from their mentee. Being a mentor can be an extremely rewarding experience, not only for the mentor but for your company as a whole—ultimately, mentoring programs can work to create a pay-it-forward culture in your workplace.

Gather Feedback and Measure Results

Once you get your program up and running, it’s essential to conduct regular surveys of participants in order to gather both quantitative and qualitative feedback about the mentoring partnership experience. This valuable data will allow you to examine what is and isn’t working in your current program and make changes as it progresses. Eventually, your program can evolve into an experience that delivers maximum ROI to you and to your mentors and mentees. To ensure ongoing success of Menttium programs, we survey mentees regularly, gathering data on participant satisfaction, job performance, and overall company retention and engagement.

Host Information Sessions

You may find employees are reluctant to participate because they don’t fully understand what they will get out of a mentoring program. This is the perfect opportunity to host an information session. These sessions should be an in-depth conversation about the benefits employees receive from either being a mentor or mentee. Mentoring programs are designed to guide employees to become innovative leaders in their company—by stressing this point you can attract employees who are eager to grow and thrive throughout their careers. Having an information session before the start of each new mentoring program is a great way to help those who are on the fence about participating really understand what this type of program can do for them.

Encourage Word-of-Mouth from Current Participants

One of the best ways to increase participation in a program is through word-of-mouth. Once your program gets underway, encourage current mentors and mentees to share their positive experiences with those who aren’t currently participating. You never know who may be impacted or inspired to join the program. Actively discussing the advantages of joining a mentoring program can help bring in more interest than you might have seen otherwise, especially when those discussions take place in an informal setting, like in the break room.

Mentoring Programs from Menttium

Mentoring programs are one of the best ways to position employees to excel in the workplace, but before you can begin to encourage participation, you need to figure out which program suits your employees best. Armed with 28 years of success, Menttium can give you the foundation and support you need in order to reach your engagement and retention goals. From coordinating a cross-company mentoring program to tailoring a customized internal program, we’ll help you assist your employees as they develop throughout their careers.

With the mentor-mentee relationship at the heart of everything we do, we design each program to provide the tools, resources, and knowledge to allow for open-minded, unique conversations. We never base our matches on a computer algorithm, but rather run a thoughtful interview process that keeps the mentee, as well as the mentor’s, goals in mind.

At Menttium, we are passionate about creating high-quality mentoring programs that help you build a more engaged, cohesive workplace. By designing, facilitating, and administering these programs, we can assist you in increasing retention and improving job satisfaction. With the help of a mentor, your high-potential employees will expand key skills that will put them on the path to becoming leaders and changemakers within your company. Contact us today to learn more about what Menttium has to offer.