Question and Answer: Mentor Program Design - Granite State Learning and Organization Development Roundtable
Recently, I led a workshop on Mentor Program Design for Workforce Development for the Granite State Learning and Organization Development Round Table. Participation was strong, with great discussion and questions about designing great programs for organizations.
Check out my new Digital Course: Mentor Program Design for Positive ROI
As I have written about in past blogs on Mentoring, learning how to design programs that lead to a high Return On Investment (ROI) has been the goal for my client projects, and is important for gaining funding and support. Many questions were asked, and I have answered a few below.
Questions that came up in the workshop included:
What are some ways to match mentors with mentees?
One way to match mentor to mentee is to look at the group’s or individual’s development needs and consider subject matter experts inside or outside your organization. You can also use mentoring as a leadership opportunity for those who are advancing in their careers. For large mentor programs, we partner with an organization, eMentor Connect, that uses proprietary software with algorithms to match mentors with mentees.How can we gain buy-in for informal mentor programs?
Buy-in on an informal mentor program is often easier because it typically has little to no cost and doesn’t require as much administrative support. As with any development program, having a clear purpose and objective, along with ways to check in and evaluate success, makes it more likely that you will get buy-in.How do you know things are still moving and working (not fizzling out) - while not having to micromanage the process?
To “check in” on the mentees or mentors, it is helpful to design short evaluations to do a “pulse check” throughout the duration of the program. It is also helpful, especially for longer programs, to schedule focus group meetings or 1:1 meetings with mentors / mentees to get feedback.What if the executive team doesn’t want to be mentors?
Good news! Every mentor program doesn’t need executive team members to serve as mentors. For example, when I designed the Apprenticeship Program for Simon Pierce as a way to expedite training of new apprentices, the best mentors were the master glass blowers because they had mastery in those skills, not the execs. Once you have selected the competencies and behaviors the mentor program will be designed to support, then you can consider who are the subject matter experts in your organization. Sometimes this may be members of the executive team (for high potential development or succession planning, for example ) and other times individual contributors may be the best mentors for your programs.
Thanks to the Granite State Learning and OD Roundtable for this opportunity!
What questions do you have about mentor program design? Please share in the comments. If you have specific questions, ask me. I'm happy to help.
MENTOR PROGRAM RESOURCES:
Workshops:
Sarah Scala hosts mentoring workshops for teams and organizations of various sizes. Learn more about business facilitated workshops here.
About the Author:
Sarah Scala is a senior talent management leader and executive coach with 20+ years of experience providing organization development, change management, and leadership development solutions for diverse global and local industries. She is a collaborative consultant, coach, and educator supporting performance transformation of executives, leaders, and teams. Sarah is a methodical, results-driven leader recognized for helping clients reach their highest potential, increase revenue, reduce turnover, elevate business profitability, build competencies, and improve performance.
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