The biggest mistake most admins make in running a mentorship program is that they are unable to recruit enough participants needed for their program. After launching hundreds of mentorship programs with organizations across the world, we at Together have compiled a list of the best practices that will take your program to the next level. Three Strategies that will make your mentorship program an overwhelming success:
- Start communication three weeks early and reach out to mentors first🚦
- Have top down and ground up marketing 📢
- A golden ratio of 5 mentors to 4 mentees 🏆
The article below explains these strategies in full and will take about 5 minutes to read.
As always, reach out to your Customer Success Manager if you need any support. You can expect our Matching Best Practices email once you’ve kicked off your program.
1) Start Early 🚦
It’s critical to generate early excitement when starting a mentorship program. By promoting the program, you can generate enthusiasm among employees about having a mentor or mentee. Your mentors will be your early advocates for the program. Putting time and effort into recruiting enough mentors for your program is crucial for success.
Your recruitment process will not only have a top-down approach from your promotion efforts, but also a ground-up approach from early mentors who can advocate for the program.
So, start early and recruit mentors first. It’s best to allocate three weeks for your recruitment process - our recommended approach:
- Week 1: Reach out directly to mentors and get them on board first, by opening up registration just for mentors
- Week 2: Open registration to both mentors and mentees
- Week 3: Focus on getting those who have voiced interest in signing up, but haven’t done so, to complete their registration
2) Promote your program with an omni-channel approach 📢
A successful promotion campaign will reach employees in many ways. Here are some ideas on how you can promote your mentorship program:
- Send out an email on behalf of an executive
- Together provides you with a registration link that can be embedded in the email
- Send an automated email from Together’s platform
- Leave a note in your organization’s relevant communication channels
- Remind managers about the program and encourage them to share it with their teams
- Talk about it at a company town hall, or include a slide at the end of a presentation
- Post about it on your company’s social media platform
You may feel like you’re over-communicating; you’re probably doing the right amount. Your colleagues are busy, and many will need reminding.
3) Asking mentors to take on more than one mentee 🏆
3) Asking mentors to take on more than one mentee 🏆
One of the biggest challenges we see with mentoring programs is not having enough mentors. If you can get your mentors to agree to take on two or even three mentees, it will double or triple your program’s capacity. Here are some ways to pitch mentors on taking on more mentees:
- Gain more experience as a mentor
- “Different mentees will require different learning styles and support. Taking on more than one mentee can give you more perspective and experience.”
- More impact
- “Increasing the number of mentees you take on will exponentially increase the impact you can have within your organization and on other mentees.”
- Accreditation
- “Depending on the program you are following, taking on more mentees at once is a good way to increase your hours spent as a mentor, allowing you to gain more experience towards a certificate or accreditation.”
- Supporting your organization and admins
- “One of the toughest parts of running a mentorship program is having enough mentors for all the mentees. Taking on more than one mentee can really support and help your program administrators in running the program.”
We look forward to working together. At any time throughout your onboarding please do not hesitate to reach out by submitting a request to us here.
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