When done well, mentoring programmes can be a tremendously valuable addition to your organisation’s youth employment and employee development offering. Mentorship can educate and empower your young and junior employees, allowing them the opportunity to learn from more senior colleagues. It can also provide valuable opportunities for mentors to pass on their knowledge, enhance their leadership skills, and play a vital role in nurturing the next generation of talent.
However, running a good mentoring programme takes careful planning, structure, and development. One aspect of this process is creating a strong mentoring agreement. In this post, we will show you how to do it.
What is a mentoring agreement?
A mentoring agreement functions as a sort of contract between the employer or organisation, the mentor, and the mentee. It outlines the goals and anticipated outcomes of the programme as well as what is expected from and can be expected by, each party involved. Your mentoring agreement should be provided to participants in writing ahead of the programme’s beginning.
Mentoring Guidelines: What to include in your mentoring agreement
A good mentoring agreement creates a framework for the programme and allows both mentors and mentees to understand what they can expect and what is expected of them. In this section, we will cover five essential elements that your mentoring agreements must include.
SMART goals and clear objectives
For your mentoring programme to be effective, you will need to understand the goals and objectives it sets out to achieve. Aim to establish 3-5 clear objectives for your programme and create goals that are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Your goals and objectives should align with your overall youth employment and employee development strategy as well as your broader goals as an organisation.
A breakdown of roles and responsibilities
Before beginning a mentoring relationship, both mentors and mentees should understand their roles and responsibilities clearly. This means that your agreement should specify:
- How often, and for how long, mentors and mentees should meet
- Any details about the format and structure of mentoring meetings
- Any paperwork or reporting that participants will be expected to complete
- Guidance on expected behaviour, etiquette, and respect between mentors and mentees
- Any work that will be expected to be completed between meetings
- Any limitations to the mentor/mentee relationship, including when mentees should be referred to additional resources or support
A confidentiality clause
A good mentoring relationship is based on trust. This means that a degree of confidentiality must be built into the agreement so that mentees can feel confident that any worries, concerns, or issues they disclose will be handled sensitively.
Don’t forget to include any limitations to confidentiality in your agreement. For example, if a mentee discloses a major problem such as abuse, harassment, or gross misconduct, the mentor may be obligated to pass this information on to the appropriate people.
Scope and duration
How often are your mentors and mentees expected to meet and for how long will the mentoring relationship continue? Is there an option to continue it beyond that point if both parties find it valuable? Your mentoring agreement should be as clear and specific as possible about the scope and duration of the commitment participants are signing up for.
In general, you should not leave mentoring relationships open-ended. It is better to have a clear end date with the possibility of an extension if the participants wish.
Feedback and complaints mechanisms
Feedback is a vital part of running an effective mentoring scheme. Therefore, take steps to gather feedback from both mentors and mentees both during and after the mentoring process. This feedback can come from informal conversations as well as more formal channels such as forms, surveys, and focus groups.
It is also important to have a clear process for making complaints if either party is not holding up their end of the mentoring agreement. Who should a mentor or mentee speak to if they are unhappy, and how will the dispute or complaint be handled? Though it is our hope that you will never need it, having a clear complaints system is vital.
Revising your mentoring agreement
Your mentoring agreement will be a living document that can change over time. As you gather feedback and make observations about how your mentoring scheme is working, you will need to make adjustments and revise your agreement accordingly.
Make it a habit to revisit your mentoring agreement with each new cohort of mentors and mentees. If you begin mentoring relationships on a rolling or ad hoc basis, aim to revise it around once every six months.
