Setting up your mentors and mentees for success requires a strong start. Providing an orientation, whether it is a one-on-one meeting or a formal training session, will help your participants feel prepared and understand how to best approach the mentorship relationship.
A good focus for your orientation is to provide good resources for the first meeting and beyond to your mentors and mentees. One of our goals of the Alberta Mentorship Program is to provide foundational tools that you can use as-is or adapt to your specific program goals.
During orientation, provide mentors and mentees with:
Setting clear expectations will reduce the likelihood that a participant will leave because the experience did not match what they expected. It can also reduce conflict between mentees and mentors due to their expectations not being aligned.
Download: Program Expectations
To keep your participants engaged, check in with your participants to make sure they have the information and resources they need for the mentoring relationship. You can make sure that mentoring is going well, answer questions, and troubleshoot any challenges they may be facing. Having a check-in after one month or at the halfway point can ensure that mentorship is going as smoothly as possible.
If your program has not yet developed resources for your mentorship program, the Alberta Mentorship Program website has information and resources available to your program and for your mentors and mentees. Review the resources available in our Resource Guide.
The first meeting sets the tone for the mentoring relationship. Our First Meeting Plan walks the mentor and mentee through setting up a Mentorship Agreement, signing a Code of Conduct, and setting general expectations and a schedule for the rest of the mentoring relationship. The general Meeting Plan provides a simpler framework for subsequent meetings to help mentors and mentees stay on track.
Download:
Read more: What to Do at Your First Meeting
Setting specific goals helps mentors and mentees better reach their desired outcomes. Provide them with this worksheet to help them set and work towards clear goals for mentees.
Download: Goal Setting Worksheet
Read More: Setting SMART Goals
We encourage you to use any forms we provide as they are or to customize them for your program needs, including adding your logo. If you would like to customize these forms, you can find the full set of editable forms here.