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Mentoring Program Implementation: Best Practices

This article provides key strategies and tips for implementing a successful mentoring program, including clarity of purpose, tactical approach to design and implementation, advocacy by top leadership, program maintenance needs, commitment by participants, support from mentees' leaders, thoughtful matching philosophy and process, creativity in meeting mentee development goals, and addressing common reasons why mentoring programs may not work.

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Mentoring Program Implementation: Best Practices

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  1. Mentoring Program Implementation: Best Practices Mentoring Program Success September 12, 2011 v.3

  2. “Outstanding mentoring programs don’t just happen. They are the result of careful planning and consideration to a number of details.” -Kathy Simmons, noted mentoring expert and author

  3. Best Practices

  4. Clarity Around the Program’s Purpose • Be clear about both the purpose for offering mentoring, and the target audience. • Ensure the program’s design - including format, enrollment, matching, and timeframe - supports clarity of purpose. • Involve key stakeholders and sponsors in decisions/approval around purpose and positioning, including: • Overarching goal of program • How program will be positioned (e.g., talent development strategy, knowledge transfer initiative) • Whether or not program will be transparent • Whether internal or external mentors will be used

  5. Tactical Approach to Design & Implementation Set-up Phase – Make decisions, develop content relative to… 5-phase model • Program coordinator or committee • Program structure • For example: 12-months, cross-culture, 1:1, etc. • Program policies (and policy document) • Expectations • Confidentiality • Mismatches • Voluntary or involuntary de-selection • Communication • Roll-out plan • Matching criteria and selection (process) • Lynchpin criteria = Alignment with program goals • Best practice = integration of formal matching and personal preferences • Orientation/training for participants • Evaluation tools and process

  6. Advocacy by Top Leadership/Sponsors • Top leadership should value and promote mentoring by such actions as: • Advocating benefits at meetings and other forums • Receptivity to time allowances for participation by mentors and mentees • Being the sponsor “face” or “voice” of mentoring in communication vehicles • Kicking off or participating in mentoring networking activities

  7. Consideration of Program Maintenance Needs • Program coordinator/committee work doesn’t end once the program is launched. • A point of accountability (individual or committee) is needed during post-launch period as mentors and mentees participate. • A contact person is needed during the program’s time period to handle potential issues, such as: • Administrative-related (e.g., schedule/facilitate quarterly networking events, trigger 6-month participant survey) • Participant-related (e.g., mentoring pair mismatch, breach of confidentiality)

  8. Commitment by Participants • Communicate the importance and value of the program to participants (mentees, mentors). • Provide support for success through orientation materials and events (e.g., tools, resources, troubleshooting contact). • Ensure participants are committed to the process. • Identify/respond to emerging factors that compete for participants’ time (e.g., higher priorities, unexpected projects, less than fully engaged mentoring partners). • Recognize that all situations cannot be rectified; expect some program drop out.

  9. Support from Mentees’ Leaders • Engaging the leaders of mentees is essential. • Reach out; Include mentees’ leaders in the communication loop. • Solicit mentees’ leaders input on program progress and satisfaction. • Help mentees’ leaders understand the value or “return on investment” of mentoring to the individual, department and organization.

  10. Thoughtful Matching Philosophy & Process Three Categories Of Criteria Examples of Activities to Support Matching * Posting online bios and photos to support identifying preferences * Pre-matching get acquainted events, such as a mixer fashioned after “speed dating”

  11. Creativity in Meeting Mentee Development Goals • Encourage and support a variety of ways for mentee development, such as: • Job Shadowing • Training workshop • After session assignment – e.g., read an article and identify key points , interview an expert and capture , • Lessons-learned session • Storytelling • Leader- or learner-as-teacher – i.e., the mentee presents or teaches a topic at a professional association meeting, for example

  12. When Mentoring Doesn’t Work

  13. When Mentoring Doesn’t Work: Top Reasons From “Creating a Mentoring Culture” by Lois Zachary, leading mentoring consultant • Time commitment issues (related to mentor, mentee or program coordinator) • Untested assumptions (varied/divergent assumptions about the program’s purpose, roles and expectations) • Poorly defined or lack of an overarching goal for the initiative • Inadequate preparation and support for mentors and mentees • Failure to continuously evaluate progress, satisfaction levels, etc. • Lack of thoughtful pairing of mentors and mentees • Failure to incorporate lessons-learned

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