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  • Getting Started
  • STEP 1: PREPARE FOR ACTION
    • Executive Driven Survey Overview
    • Timelines and Deliverables
    • Schedule a Meeting with your Consultant or Project Manager
    • Stategic Assessment Session
    • Prepare for Action FAQ
      • Who will be responsible for different aspects of the project?
      • What kind of support can we expect during each phase of the survey process?
      • What are the recommended timelines for various project phases?
      • When should we schedule the questionnaire design call?
      • What kind of access will we have to the online reporting tool?
  • STEP 2: DEVELOP QUESTIONNAIRE
    • Questionnaire Design
      • TalentMap Employee Engagement Questionnaire
      • 5-Point Rating Scale
      • Response Scale From Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree
      • Length of an Employee Engagement Questionnaire
      • Determining Areas of Importance
      • Employee Net Promoter Score
    • Questionnaire FAQ
      • Can we customize the standard questionnaire?
      • How can we incorporate our specific themes or categories into the survey?
      • Can we add questions about our organization's mission, vision or strategic plans?
      • Which benchmark should we choose?
      • How do I sign off on a survey?
      • What is the difference between engagement and satisfaction?
      • Where should we place demographic questions?
      • Will the survey questions change in the future?
      • When you use the term “we” in the questionnaire, who does this refer to?
      • Can we change the scale so that Strongly Disagree is the last option?
  • STEP 3: PRE-SURVEY COMMUNICATION & SETUP
    • Participant Information File
      • Change Date of Birth and Length of Service to Ranges
    • Email Whitelisting
      • Compass Email Whitelisting (DIY)
    • Survey Communications
      • Comprehensive Guide To Survey Communications
      • Pre-Survey Email Communication Package
      • Promotional Posters
      • Employee Info Sheets
      • Engagement Survey Invitation Email
      • Exit Survey Invitation Email
      • Entry Survey Invitation Email
      • PIN Survey Invitation Email
    • Response Rate Strategies
    • Pre-Survey FAQ
      • Is the survey confidential?
      • How can we effectively communicate the survey to our employees?
      • How long should the survey be open?
      • Can I make changes to my PIF?
      • What methods are available for survey distribution?
      • Should we include new employees in our survey?
      • Should we survey contract or term employees?
      • What languages are available for communications material?
      • How long does it take to program my survey?
      • Are there standard invitations for Pulse surveys?
      • Why am I getting invalid entries in my import log?
  • STEP 4: DEPLOY EMPLOYEE SURVEY
    • Monitor Response Rates
    • Survey Live FAQ
      • How often are survey response rates updated?
      • Can I save my responses and complete the survey later?
      • Can responses be changed once submitted?
      • Can I extend my survey?
      • My survey link is not working what do I do?
      • We had bouncebacks, can you send the survey to them immediately?
      • What reports will our organization have access to?
  • STEP 5: ANALYZE, INTERPRET & REPORT
    • Compass Reports
      • General
        • Filter Data
        • Bulk Export
      • Snapshot
        • Webpage
          • Snapshot Report Overview
          • Sort Data
          • Compare to Overall
          • Compare to Other
          • Hide Benchmark and / or Previous Period
        • Export to PowerPoint
          • Export Response Rate
          • Export Lookup / Lookdown
          • Export Heatmap
          • Export Key Driver Analysis
          • Export AI Comment Summaries
        • Export to Excel
      • Heatmap
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        • Heatmap Previous Period
      • Comments
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        • AI Comment Analysis
          • Ask Comment Questions
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          • Search Comments by Meaning
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            • Import Hidden Words or Phrases
          • Comment Dimension Score
          • Sentiment Analysis
          • Minimum Words & Random Sample
          • Auto-Translate
        • Word Cloud
          • Word Cloud Overview
          • Word Cloud Settings
          • Import Stop Words
        • Export to Excel
        • How to Handle and Distribute Verbatim Comments
        • FAQ
          • How should disclosure of employee comments be handled?
          • Who has access to comments in Compass?
          • How is AI data handled?
      • Insights
      • Correlations
      • Prepare Reports for Senior Leadership
      • Reporting FAQ
        • How should I analyze the survey results?
        • What is key driver analysis?
        • What is Pearson correlation?
        • What size group is required to do driver analysis?
        • Why do some scores total over 100%?
        • What is the purpose of the neutral option?
        • What is the minimum participation percentage to achieve statistically valid results?
        • Should we focus on dimensions with low scores?
        • How does report filter confidentiality work?
        • Can I turn off the confidentiality similarity warning message?
        • Can I filter by questions in the survey?
    • Compass Admin
      • Results
        • General
          • Enable Results for Reporting
          • Edit Demographic Report Labels
          • Update a Survey Title
        • Participants
          • Edit Participant Information
          • Remove Participant(s) From an Email Campaign
        • Survey Items
          • Customize Survey Items
          • Convert a Survey Item into a Demographic Filter
        • Benchmarks
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        • Snapshot Customization
        • Dashboard Editor
        • Assign Access
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        • Add a User
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  • STEP 6: DISCUSS, CLARIFY & PLAN
    • TalentMap Reports
      • Scouting Report
      • HR Preview
      • Executive Presentation
      • Additional Presentations
      • TalentMap Report FAQ
        • What’s the difference between a preview and a final executive presentation?
        • High satisfaction vs low engagement (or vis versa)?
    • Post-Survey Consulting Services
    • Focus Groups
      • Conduct a Focus Group
      • Focus Group Invitation Email - Template
    • Management Resources
      • Improve Diversity & Inclusion in the Workplace
      • 360 Leadership
      • Employee Onboarding
      • Stay Interviews
      • Exit Interviews
      • One-on-One Meetings
  • STEP 7: COMMUNICATE & TAKE ACTION
    • Communicating Results
      • Constructive Strategies for Leaders with Low Scores
    • Action Planning
      • Organization vs. Leadership Action Plans
        • Pitfalls to Avoid When Action Planning for Senior Leaders and Managers
      • Develop an Action Plan
      • Create Action Teams, Documentation and Implementation
    • Action Planning Resources
      • Before You Start
        • Action Planning Quick Wins
        • 6 Steps to Successful Action Planning
        • Plan for Action Planning Difficulties
        • Proven Action Planning Tips
      • Tactical
        • How to Start Action Planning
        • Action Plan Framework Guide
        • Action Planning - How To Guide
        • Action Planning Checklist
        • Action Plan Template
        • 3 Post-Survey Action Planning Tactics
    • Action Plan Library
      • Compensation
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        • Determining Fair Compensation
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      • Customer Focus
        • Build Loyalty, Not Delight
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      • Diversity & Inclusion
        • Employee Resource Groups
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        • Develop Cross-Training Programs
        • Implementing Job Shadowing Programs
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      • Immediate Management
        • Avoid Switch-Tracking When Given Feedback
        • Developing Emotional Intelligence
        • Fika: Creating Genuine Connections Over Coffee
        • The Pomodoro Technique
      • Information & Communication
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      • Innovation
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      • Senior Leadership
        • Develop Empathy Superpowers
        • Embracing Change in Long-Term Thinking
        • Evangelizing Your Vision
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        • Setting Ambitious and Realistic SMART Goals
        • Understanding Communication Styles
        • Use Storytelling to Share Your Vision
      • Systems & Resources
        • Investing in Technology
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        • Clarifying Roles
        • Project Management Tools
        • Reward Excellent Teamwork
      • Work Environment
        • Adapting to Open Office Environments
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  • DIY SURVEY DESIGN & DEPLOYMENT
    • Compass Questionnaire Design (DIY)
      • Getting Started (DIY)
        • Build a Survey
        • Style a Survey
        • Test a Survey
        • Pulse Survey Overview
        • Getting Started With Logic (Branching)
      • Compass Survey Design (DIY)
        • Build
          • Question Types
          • Add a Question
          • Require a Question
          • Add Text / Instruction
          • Page Title and Description
          • Copy & Paste
          • Reorder Questions
          • Reorder Pages
          • Copy a Survey
          • Skip Logic
          • Question Logic
          • Restore "Undo" a Question or Page
          • Textbox / Long Answer Character Limit
          • Post a Survey Link
          • Disable a Question
        • Style
          • Add Logo
          • Text Options
          • Preview Survey by Device or Language
          • Choose Respondent Interaction
          • Hide Progress Bar
          • Hide Page Titles, Descriptions, and Question Numbers
        • Test
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          • Invite Others to Test
          • View Comments Made by Survey Testers
        • Tools
          • Rename a Survey Title
          • Text & Translations
            • Change Required Text, Messages, and More
            • Add Translation
            • Test Translation
            • Share A Translated Survey
            • Reuse Translations for Standard Messaging
        • Design FAQ
          • Why is there a red asterisk on my question?
          • How do I add or remove page breaks?
          • How can I design surveys to be more accessible?
          • Why is my question title and/or answer option blank?
          • Why Is the font for some of my survey questions different?
          • Why are the option buttons not displaying in my survey?
          • What is a thank you page?
    • Compass Survey Deployment (DIY)
      • Create an Email Campaign
      • Hide Unsubscribe Link
      • Upload Participants
      • Repeated Participant Email Upload
      • Add Reminder or Thank You Emails
      • Add Image to Email
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      • Test Email Campaign
      • Convert UTC Time
      • Resend a Survey Link
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      • Close a Survey
  • GENERAL
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  1. STEP 7: COMMUNICATE & TAKE ACTION
  2. Action Plan Library
  3. Diversity & Inclusion

Mentoring Program

A focus on diversity and an increasingly multicultural society means that most workplaces have more than one identity group within their ranks. Whether this diversity is in ethnicity, gender or sexuality, the advantages that it brings can often be blocked by a lack of proper integration into the workforce. A mentoring program is an excellent way to make sure that diverse employees acclimate to the company culture.

Goal

To create a mentoring program that helps diverse employees integrate with the workplace.

What is a Mentoring Program?

A mentoring program is a formal arrangement where lower-level employees are matched up with more experienced ones. Once matched, the more experienced mentor acts as a guide for the other, teaching them about professional issues. Other topics that mentors might help with are organizational culture, work goals and even personal life objectives. This type of program can be especially helpful for promoting diversity. A study from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations found that mentoring programs increased minority representation at management levels by 9 to 24 per cent. They also found improved promotion and retention rates for minorities and women in contrast to those without mentors.

How do Mentoring Programs improve employee engagement and culture?

Employees are engaged, motivated and happy when their needs match up with those of the organization. By creating a mentorship program, you are making a commitment to your employees, one that says that you are concerned with their integration to the workplace as well as their continued professional development. Especially important to this form of engagement is the feeling of intrinsic rewards, which refers to the feeling of doing work that is meaningful to personal and professional goals. A mentor program provides this exact sort of intrinsic motivation, while also fostering a bond that benefits both the mentor and their mentee. This leads to engagement for all involved in the program and ultimately acts as an investment back into the organization itself.

What are the benefits?

  1. Shared organizational knowledge

  2. Acclimate diverse employees to the work environment

  3. Professional and leadership development

  4. Foster relationships between mentors and mentees

  5. Increased retention

How do you conduct Mentoring Programs in the workplace?

Generally speaking, there are three broad areas of mentoring. One is peer mentoring which focuses on introducing a new employee to the organizational culture and helping with basic acclimation. The second is career focused mentoring, where the mentor acts as a guide who helps employees meet their professional goals. The last is life coaching, where mentors act as support for the integration of overarching personal and professional objectives. Regardless of the type of mentoring the way they are conducted remains the same. Specifically, this means that employees should be matched up and encouraged to meet regularly while focusing on definite important goals. You should leave mentors and mentees the room for flexible meetings and personal interactions.

Action

Create A Mentoring Program

  1. Create a framework. Define the purpose of the mentoring program clearly. Don’t make the goal something overly general like supporting diversity in the workplace. Instead choose something specific and measurable. For instance, your goal may be to focus on creating more women leaders or increasing minority retention rates, both of which can be tracked to see how well the program is performing. Decide what form of mentoring you want to utilize—the most common is one to one mentoring but there are other options like group mentoring. You should also clarify how long each pairing will last and how often they should meet.

  2. Get company permission and leadership support. Support from the top is critical in getting employees and managers to participate.

  3. Gather a group of potential mentors. Contact those in leadership roles and invite them to the program. Explain to them the benefits and use the number gathered here to determine how many employees can utilize the program. Consider offering incentives to mentors or otherwise recognizing their efforts in a public way.

  4. Promote the program. Use existing company communications channels, physical fliers, word of mouth and email.

  5. Pair mentors and mentees. When enough people have indicated interest start pairing. This step is critical as the pairings are what will determine if the program works for a given person. Deciding on pairings can be difficult. Some options to do so include matching participants based on surveys where both mentors and mentees fill out what they can offer or want to obtain from the program. You can also provide a given mentor or mentee several choices and allow them to make the final decision. Considering available skills and their relevancy to a given mentee is important in deciding on pairing choices.

  6. Encourage regular meetings. Make sure that pairs or groups are meeting on a regular basis. Encourage mentees to reach out and book meetings. A basic format for meetings could start with a preparation phase where expectations and goals are set. This could then proceed to the creation of a specific plan and the support of the mentor in helping to accomplish those goals within the given timeframe. Some specific activities that can be done include role-playing and having mentors watch mentees do a task so that they can provide feedback afterwards.

  7. Encourage sharing. Ask that those involved in the program share their thoughts and feelings with you on the program. Their constructive feedback can be used to adjust the program as needed. It can also be helpful to have a quick checkup after mentoring starts to identify any serious problems or desires to switch mentors early on. As the program runs longer you can publicly disseminate success stories of good pairings.

Reference Material

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Last updated 1 year ago

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Improve Workplace Culture With A Strong Mentoring Program