10 ways to promote mentoring in your organisation

We asked the Charity Mentoring Network how they promote mentoring in their organisation.

Here are their top 10 tactics.

1. Engage senior leadership

Ask senior leaders to become mentors. By becoming mentors they are endorsing mentoring and signaling to the organisation that it is an important part of employee and organisational development. Leaders also stand to learn a lot from becoming mentors.

2. Embed it into your learning and development strategy

Mentoring is a low-cost, high impact development tool that reaches across the organisation, engaging colleagues at all levels and in all roles. For this reason, it is a powerful tool for L&D teams in charities.

3. Align mentoring with your appraisal/performance process

Mentoring is an effective development tool, so align your mentoring scheme with your organisational appraisal process. This helps integrate it into development activities that are aligned with appraisal objectives and helps engage managers with mentoring too.

4. Make it a part of your onboarding process

Mentoring is a great tool to use in the onboarding process. Not only does it help new starters get up to speed in their new role more quickly, it also demonstrates the charity’s focus on employee development. Consider other moments of need, such as a promotion, when mentoring can help support an individual.

5. Use all communications channels …

Make the most of the communication channels at your disposal, including the charity’s intranet, internal newsletters, and all-staff emails to announce the launch, post news updates, and continuously remind staff about mentoring. Consistent communications are key, so don’t stop after an initial burst of activity.

6. … including offline promotions

Distribute posters in work locations including reception areas, social spaces and the back of toilet doors. Use QR codes in posters too so that colleagues can sign up easily. Ensure all communications are accessible to all colleagues.

7. Promote early

Begin promoting the mentoring network well in advance of its launch, using all-staff briefings and email reminders.

8. Target your communications to specific audiences

Consider the needs of specific audiences – senior leaders, new starters, managers, apprentices – and craft your messaging to show how mentoring can benefit them and their teams/peers.

9. And keep promoting it consistently

Did we already mention this?! Seriously, consistent communication matters not only to promote mentoring but to ensure mentors and mentees are active and responsive to mentoring requests. Yes, the system sends auto reminders but it’s important that you follow up with mentors and mentees too. Ask simple questions such as, “When was your last mentoring meeting?” or “When is your next mentoring meeting?”

10. Remember, there are plenty of resources to help you

Our technology partner PushFar has a fantastic set of resources on mentoring, including guidelines for mentors and mentees and how to promote mentoring in your organisation. Find out more here.