How to Start a Mentor Program in the Workplace
As an employer, it's important to nurture your employees by providing them with the resources they need to succeed in their jobs. Starting a mentor program at your workplace is one way to help groom employees for successful careers with your company. Mentoring is credited with improving employee efficiency, morale, communication and retention.
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Things You'll Need
- Graphic designer
- Logo
- Meeting space
- Computer
- Presentation software
- Presentation projector and screen
- Refreshments
- Product giveaways
- T-shirts
Instructions
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Define goals for the mentor program for the workplace and determine how you will track the program's progress. Goals identify what the mentoring program should accomplish and list the types of outcomes you want to achieve. Goals can include improving employee relations or increase communication between new employees and senior staff.
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Decide whether the mentor program is mandatory or on a volunteer basis. It may be wise to offer the program on a voluntary basis to start as a way to combat potential employee resistance.
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Make a list of the core benefits of mentoring program. While experiences may vary, identifying common benefits can help you promote the mentoring program to employees. Benefits can include learning new skills to become more marketable for promotions, developing an open relationship to share ideas with senior managers or developing long-lasting professional relationships.
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Create an identity for the mentoring program. Come up with a name for the mentoring program so you have a creative way to address it when discussing it with employees, stakeholders, colleagues and potential employees. Brand the program by working with a graphic designer to come up with a logo.
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Determine how to match mentors with mentees. Match them based on skill or experience level, or even based on their interests or job functions within the company.
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Schedule a meeting to introduce the mentoring program to your employees. Create and present an on-screen presentation which outlines the purpose of the program, the mentoring process, benefits and how you plan to evaluate and measure the success of the program. Excite employees with refreshments, giveaways and promotional items, such as t-shirts, to kick-off the start of the new mentor program.
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Pair employees with their matches and check in occasionally to determine how their mentorship is progressing. BNET suggests monitoring the progress between the mentor and mentee at least once a quarter.
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Tips & Warnings
Go digital by creating an ongoing blog where employees can share their mentoring experiences and give tips on how to get the most out of the mentorship program.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit teacher & students image by Luisafer from Fotolia.com
