What Makes a Good Mentoring Program?

Many successful companies take it upon themselves to ensure that they create an environment that's suitable for both the personal as well as professional growth of all employees. Perhaps the best way to achieve this is through a mentoring program.

A mentoring program can work wonders for the growth of an organization. It can increase employee engagement as well as retention, facilitate the onboarding process, and increase the appeal of your company to potential employees - all while molding future leaders. By individually targeting employees and helping them develop their professional as well as personal skills, more and more companies have been investing in their talent pool through mentoring programs.

Taking these benefits into consideration, it’s no surprise that a staggering 71 percent of Fortune 500 companies have already implemented a mentoring program. Below, we discuss the traits that every mentoring course designed for success should have.

• A good mentoring program must have a strategic purpose

You shouldn’t implement a mentoring program simply because 'successful companies have it'. Counseling sessions offered just for the sake of providing them will bear no fruit and will only cost your company without any meritorious gains. If you wish to see the program actually bear fruit, it must be carefully designed and well thought-out with a strategic purpose. You should be clear about why you've even started a mentoring program in the first place and what exactly you wish to achieve with it. Make sure its purpose aligns with the goals, vision, and mission of the organization itself.

• A good mentoring program has the perfect mentor-mentee match

A mentoring program is only as good as the relationship between the mentor and the mentee. This means that in order to be successful, the program must be able to pair the right mentee with the right mentor, who must be able to provide the right advice and guidance. In other words, the mentor must have the skills and experiences to actually be able to help the mentee. Only then will there be positive and productive mentoring.

• A good mentoring program measures results

Every good mentoring program must be able to monitor and measure the results of the program. Mentors and mentees will be able to track their progress and see how far they've come only when the program offers a way to actually measure these results against the objectives of the program itself. On top of this, if you have a basis for measurement, then you can monitor the improvement of the company as well. This allows you to see where you're going strong and where you need to improve.

• A good mentoring program evolves

A good mentoring program understands that mentoring is not something that's stagnant. Rather, it is something that should grow and evolve constantly, changing with the needs and goals of both the participants as well as the organization as a whole. It is important to realize that mentoring programs need go through several tweaks and adjustments from time to time to accommodate the changing environment. But this shouldn't mean that it won't need a strong foundation.

• A good mentoring program uses a mentoring software

Many companies that have successfully implemented a mentoring program use mentoring software. A mentoring software offers various advantages that help in enhancing the entire program. For example, matching mentees with mentors becomes more accurate as it is done using reliable data analysis. It also makes communication easier and simplifies the process of tracking.

If your company plans to implement a mentoring program soon, make sure that it has these qualities for a positive, productive, and successful mentoring experience.