Best practice in mentoring

 

In the 30 years since supported mentoring programmes first appeared, they have changed immensely in scope, purpose, style and approach. They have also proved their value in employee retention and motivation, succession planning and career management. It’s clear that well-planned, well-resourced mentoring programmes deliver results for mentees, mentors and organisations. But the task of implementing and managing mentoring programmes has become harder as budgets tighten and there is a lack of internal resource to support them.

Among the challenges faced are:

• Balancing quality with quantity – ideally, mentoring should be available to everyone in an organisation, but it takes proper recruitment and funds to properly train all participants
• Supporting international mentoring relationships, where most conversations take place at a distance, brings new challenges. Cultural differences can be a compounding factor here too, making it difficult to achieve required levels of rapport
• Gaining sufficient buy-in from the top
• Troubleshooting and how you’ll support this
• Gaining commitment from participants to review the relationship and to invest in improving their mentoring skills over time
• Demonstrating return on investment/measuring impact

This research project aims to examine these issues and to identify good practice and the challenges faced by people involved in mentoring programmes.

With your programme in mind, please could you complete the following questions. The information and details you provide will be collated and analysed by Clutterbuck Associates, we will not transfer your personal information to third parties.