Mentors, here is the good news: it’s likely that all elements you need to carry out an effective mentoring program are already available within your company. Whether you’re just beginning a mentoring program or already have one in place, consider the following diagnostic checklist of effective mentoring practices to learn where you may want to make improvements to your process.

1. A
CHECKLIST
FOR
MENTORS

2. Mentors, here is the good news: it’s likely
that all elements you need to carry out
an effective mentoring program are
already available within your company.
Whether you’re just beginning a
mentoring program or already have one
in place, consider the following
diagnostic checklist of effective
mentoring practices to learn where you
may want to make improvements to
your process:

3. 01IS MENTORING A
PRIORITY?

4. Mentoring is a management activity, not
just a management responsibility. A
mentor proactively and directly interacts
with staff being mentored.
If you are a mentor and your mentoring
activities appear at least twice a week on
your calendar, you are visibly and
actively making mentoring a priority for
both you and your mentee.

5. 02
HOW VISIBLE ARE
YOUR MENTEE’S
ASSIGNMENTS TO
UPPER MANAGEMENT

6. Mentored staff should be
assigned a “real” project as
soon as they join the work unit.
The new staff as well as the
mentor need to quickly develop
a sense of where and how the
mentee can contribute to
projects that matter.

7. If the mentee’s project is
important enough to show up
on the monthly or quarterly
general management review
agenda, it’s a highly visible
assignment.

8. 03
HOW AND HOW
OFTEN DO YOU
REVIEW PROGRESS
ON ASSIGNMENTS
WITH YOUR MENTEE?

9. Mentors should schedule a
weekly review meeting for
each project in which the
mentored staff participate.

10. Ask that the new staff prepare
written weekly summaries in
advance of the review meeting.
The entire project team, as well
as the new staff, benefit from
this discipline of preparing
written summaries in advance.

11. 04
WHAT RESOURCES ARE
AVAILABLE TO YOUR
MENTEE TO LEARN AND
NAVIGATE THE
WORKPLACE CULTURE?

12. Mentors should introduce the
new staff member to
established staff members who
can serve as resources for
questions related to the key
support tasks of daily life at the
office/lab/shop.

13. If resources are available and
in place for the mentee to tap,
you’ve effectively and usefully
expanded your mentee’s
internal network.

14. 05
HOW DOES YOUR MENTEE
LEARN ABOUT EXTERNAL
MARKET AND INDUSTRY
DYNAMICS THAT AFFECT
YOUR BUSINESS?

15. Mentors should schedule
regular one-to-one “touch
base” meetings not associated
with performance evaluation
activities. These “touch base”
meetings should be office-
based but without a formal
agenda to allow free-ranging
conversations.

16. These more free-ranging
conversations provide the
opportunity for mentors to
introduce forward-looking
topics such as changing
market or industry dynamics
and the company’s planned
responses to them.

17. 06
WHAT ARE THE
OPPORTUNITIES TO
TRANSITION A MENTOR TO
ASSIGNMENTS WITH GREATER
RESPONSIBILITY/AUTONOMY?

18. Mentors should treat
mentored staff as adults, even
if they are “junior” staff based
on age or experience.
Mentored staff are with your
company to contribute and
they want to contribute to the
real project to which they’ve
been assigned.

19. 07
WHAT ACCESS DOES YOUR
MENTEE HAVE TO NEEDED
DOMAIN OR SUBJECT MATTER
EXPERTS WITHIN THE
COMPANY?

20. Both mentor and mentee
should recognize and utilize
the good will that usually
exists among more
experienced staff toward
new, less experienced staff
members.

21. As the need arises, the mentor
should identify other more
senior staff who can serve as
a resource for project-specific
issues that arise during the
course of the work.

22. For mentees, senior staff input
can help get projects
“unstuck.”
For senior staff, having a
mentee succeed after
following the guidance they
provided is gratifying.

23. 08
DO YOUR MENTORING
PROCESSES REFLECT NEEDS
UNIQUE TO MENTEES “FRESH
OUT OF SCHOOL”?

24. Employees fresh out of school,
with little or no prior
experience in a corporate
work environment, benefit
from mentoring that
addresses issues specific to
that situation.

25. Aside from all the issues addressed in
the previous diagnostic/checklist
points, there is the additional issue of
these new-to-business employees being
unfamiliar with aspects of business that
all of your experienced employees take
for granted, e.g., company/business
vocabulary; firm business and financial
objectives; company communications,
both top down and horizontal; and
ways in which different departments
interact with each other.

26. Review the content and
format of your orientation
sessions, perhaps with the
input from a fresh-from-
school employee who joined a
year or two ago, to identify
gaps in your existing
onboarding practices and
how to fill them.

27. 09
DO YOU HAVE A MENTORING
PROCESS THAT SPECIFICALLY
ADDRESSES SENIOR LEVEL
MENTEES?

28. A key marker of senior-level employees
is strategic thinking. Thinking and
acting strategically is a transferable
skill – one that enhances a mentee’s
prospects for advancement to other
roles within the company. Through all
of the mentor-led discussions described
previously, the mentee herself begins to
think and act strategically,
strengthening the alignment between
her personal professional goals and
those of the company.

29. If the mentee is fully engaged in
producing outcomes that the
company values, she will be
noticed – and noticed favorably –
by her colleagues.
As a mentor, once you see that
happening, you know you’ve
contributed effectively to your
mentee’s career development

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