How to develop an operations manual for your mentoring program

Mentoring takes place in the personal interactions with the mentee. All the aspects of mentoring that are described in this manual focus on how to proceed with these personal interactions. Each section of this manual is devoted to the perspective and experience of each of the distinct roles in program-based mentoring environments, and organized according to the major progressions or transitions that are experienced by a particular role. A mentee, mentor or director can find the section that pertains to her or his role for individual consult.

Alternatively, faculty directors or Pis may integrate readings into their mentoring development plan and provide a structured engagement of the manual during the course of a program.

Many thanks to the following authors, editors, and institutions for their contributions to this project:. Henschen at Northwestern University; Richard A. This work is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Skip to Main Content. How to use this manual Acknowledgments Mentoring: to mentor, or be mentored? How to contribute to this manual This manual is a living document and will continue to develop with your help.

Please use our comments and contribution form to submit: Suggestions for changes or additions to particular content in the manual. Online resources or other publications that would support and enhance existing topics. Personal anecdotes that highlight or would help illuminate particular topics for readers. Any other helpful feedback. What is Mentoring? How to use this manual Each section of this manual is devoted to the perspective and experience of each of the distinct roles in program-based mentoring environments, and organized according to the major progressions or transitions that are experienced by a particular role.

Acknowledgments Many thanks to the following authors, editors, and institutions for their contributions to this project: J. Secondly, identify key reasons and motivations for people to sign up to the mentoring program. These will naturally differ from the business' reasons, but are vital to define in order to attract people to the program and deliver value.

Thirdly, what are you looking to achieve from the mentoring program? And how can you measure success? In order to tackle a challenge such as low employee engagement, you must define the metrics and KPIs you will be tracking in advance.

You can use these KPIs to set goals in order to have a definition of success for your program. This step is crucial to get right, as program managers will often have to report ROI of the program to senior management. This being said, it's not all business goals and objectives. You must also outline what success could be for the mentees and mentors and how you can track and measure their goals as well.

At this planning stage, conduct some research to find out the key reasons for interest in mentoring amongst your company, and what they would be hoping to achieve by taking part. This way you can design your program to fit both your needs as a business and the needs of your people. It will also help when it comes to attracting participation! From this first step, you might decide to design a whole mentoring program around a specific goal, as LVMH have done with increasing gender diversity.

There are a whole host of other questions to help design the specifics of your mentoring program, with a lot depending on the type of organisation and the objectives of the program. The trick is to try and be as detailed as possible here, and map out your whole mentoring program from start to finish.

For more support, download our detailed e-book:. A key challenge for mentoring program organisers is doing all of the work above, and then getting low participation rates. If you can do all of the above, you shouldn't have a problem attracting participants to start a mentoring program!

The details the participants were required to enter upon sign up — such as background, skills, experience, interests and so on — can be used to match mentees with mentors who can best help them reach their goals.

Most of the time, this is done manually by the program organisers, as they have the best knowledge of the objectives and participants. To avoid this, businesses can use mentoring software to match their employees. Guider makes smart, relevant and accurate mentor matches based on data inputted by participants.

This removes bias and democratises mentoring within organisations. Now the mentors and mentees are matched and connected, your mentoring program is well under way. But if you thought this is where you can sit back and let the mentoring relationships blossom, you thought wrong.

Without structure, guidance, and inspiration — such as reminding them why they signed up — you can expect a number of your participants to drop off. This will give the relationship direction and objective, as well as hold both parties accountable for reaching the goals. Making it easy for the participants and the program manager to keep track. Creating a community around the mentoring program will also help maintain momentum.

Send a regular newsletter to all participants of the mentoring program, featuring content about getting the most out of the relationship, as well as personal development tips. This is also a great place to celebrate any successes and make everyone feel part of something.

If you have an end date for your program, why not host an event to get everyone in the program together to thank them for their participation. Rewards and community benefits will reduce drop off. The final stage of starting a mentoring program is measuring its success against its objectives.