In the right context, peer mentoring can be a more effective approach than a traditional mentoring program. The success of a mentoring relationship is built on the trust and relationship that exists between the mentor and mentee. With peer mentoring, participants have the support and guidance of someone who’s closer to them in either age or experience (or both). These similarities make it easier for participants to relate to their peer mentor, leading to more comfortable and engaging mentoring sessions.
While it varies from person to person, the concept of peer-to-peer mentoring is adopted by many organizations worldwide. What does peer mentoring entail? How do you ensure its success?
Let’s take a deeper dive below and find out ways that you can take full advantage of the benefits of peer mentor programs, as well as how to overcome any challenges.
Peer Mentoring Defined
Peer mentoring is a type of mentoring program that involves a mentor and mentee who are either close in age, or at a similar level of experience within their career or function. Although age alone is often considered the only factor in a peer mentoring relationship, there are many occasions where an employee’s peer could be someone in a different generation altogether.
There are no restrictions on the formality of a peer mentoring relationship. These relationships could exist within a less structured buddy system to help new employees get acclimated to the company culture and processes. Alternatively, peer mentoring could be fully formal and leverage the similarity in age or experience of the participants to create a stronger relationship.
A peer mentor is someone who is more like a friend providing support or guidance, or a coach who looks after your best interest. They are focused on more than just giving advice and transferring knowledge. They’re there to create a strong support system.
Does that mean a peer mentor is a therapist? It depends. If that’s what the mentee needs, and there’s an agreement on the nature of the mentoring relationship, a peer mentor could easily fill that role as needed. However, when peer mentoring occurs within a formal enterprise setting, the relationship and mentoring will likely be focused on career development, skill development, or other work-related goals.
As with other mentoring programs, mentees typically take the lead. Mentors are there to offer support and guidance in a way that matches the mentee’s self-identified priorities.
Vital Elements for a Successful Peer Mentoring Program
Several elements impact whether or not a peer mentor program will lead to successful mentoring relationships. The following are some of the crucial aspects that need to work together to ensure that you can attain your peer mentoring goals.
Clear objectives and strategy
Goal setting is surprisingly uncommon. Only 20% of people actually set goals, and only a small percentage of those who do go on to achieve those goals. This doesn’t mean people are not achieving in success in their lives or careers. However, what it does reflect is the fact that many of us struggle to get where we want to be in a timely and efficient way.
A clear objective and a defined strategy are crucial if you want to succeed with peer mentoring programs or any other type of mentorship program. The goal will vary based on the individual or organization that is building the program. You can build objectives and strategies that align with your core business processes.
Are you trying to develop a better onboarding process? Do you want to increase employee retention? Your goals will determine how you can structure your peer mentoring program.
Get leadership support
As with most company-wide initiatives, support for executive leaders is essential to even get the program off the ground. Quite often, many leaders have had mentors (and many have had peer mentors) who were integral in their career success.
Earning the support of an executive sponsor is often easy, but may require asking around and selling the idea of the program before you get one on board to support you.
Small steps
The most distinctive feature of a peer mentoring program is how it tosses the traditional mentoring approach out the window. Instead of having a more experienced individual as the mentor, peer mentoring focuses on more lateral relationships.
That is not to say peer mentoring is a “blind leading the blind” situation. Instead, the individual serving as the mentor tends to have some experience or skills that the mentee does not possess.
The peer status of the mentor-mentee pair is to help create a stronger bond and more cohesive mentoring relationship that makes sharing and collaboration easier.
That familiarity allows program administrators, mentors, or mentees to start small and aim for small goals, too. Instead of feeling compelled to go big, mentoring pairs will feel under less pressure to perform or prove something to an individual whose experience level may otherwise feel intimidating.
Starting small also means working with pairs. You can use matching algorithms to ensure that you can get the most successful pairing for your peer mentoring program. Be open to new ideas as the mentoring program progresses along to see if you can make any improvements and get better results.
Create ground rules
Peer mentors and mentees should be on the same page at the beginning of the relationship. The first meeting will likely be focused on setting ground rules. Those rules can be set by the mentor-mentee pair in a more informal program.
In a formal program, these ground rules may be set by the program administrators who’ve designed the program and trained the mentors ahead of the program launch or the start of the current cycle. Ground rules make the relationship flow more fluidly and help mentees set their priorities as they enter into the peer mentoring session.
Program assessment
Peer mentoring is not a “soft” approach to employee engagement. As with any mentoring program, it should be aligned to specific business objectives. Its impact on those objectives should be measurable. For program administrators, that means determining how the program will be measured before the program is launched.
Both qualitative and quantitative measures should be considered to determine program success. These may include (but are not limited to)
- Number of participants enrolled in the program
- Total number of mentoring hours
- Mentoring frequency (if the number of mentoring engagements are not pre-defined)
- Satisfaction surveys
- Turnover/retention rates of mentoring program participants
- Promotion rates of mentoring program participants.
But…how do I measure? Good question! Our Mentoring Soundbites video on measuring program success offers some additional insight from L&D leaders at top-performing companies.
Some of these measures can be examined during the course of the program. And indeed, you will likely want to collect certain data points, such as satisfaction surveys, multiple times during a program cycle. Other data points will be incorporated into your long-term review of the success of your mentoring programs.
Benefits of Peer Mentoring
Peer mentoring offers plenty of benefits, but may not be the best strategy for every organization. However, if your company has a large number of early career employees, a large number of employees from diverse backgrounds, or you’re struggling with building a cohesive work culture, peer mentoring may be necessary. Building an effective peer mentor program takes time and resources.
The following are some (but certainly not all) of the benefits companies will find after launching a peer mentoring program.
Promote employee well-being
Workers’ job satisfaction hit an all-time low in 2022. Just 64% of women and 69% of men state that they are happy with their current job, according to Metlife.
There are several facets to an employee’s well-being. Satisfaction and happiness at work are critical to employee’s well-being in the workplace setting, yet those numbers won’t be high if workers feel their needs aren’t being met. Working with a peer mentor combats loneliness, boredom at work, and communication issues. It also helps employees to address issues with work-life balance.
Better recruitment process
Peer mentorship can play a vital role in the recruitment process. Many young employees these days look beyond financial compensation. They want additional job perks that make their entire work experience more enjoyable. Providing opportunities for personal growth and career development is important to most young employees.
The fact that your company offers a peer mentor program can entice top talents when recruiting new employees. These types of mentoring programs are a sign of a positive team culture.
Reduce employee turnover
Many employees leave their current employer because of a lack of opportunities for professional growth and development. In fact, McKinsey found that “career development” was the primary reason people decided to work for their current organization. If workers find that career development and professional growth aren’t happening, they’re far more likely to leave.
Peer mentoring brings employees face-to-face with personal and career growth. It makes that growth more human, more direct, and more personal. That approach leads to a reduction in turnover.
Access to peer mentors is a positive sign that your company is investing in growth and development opportunities for your employees. It’s why 84% of Fortune 500 companies now visibly offer mentoring programs and advertise these programs and many advertise these programs in the recruiting process. A mentoring program allows the participants to develop many of the following needs:
- Leadership skills
- Interpersonal skills
- Time management
- Collaboration skills
- Communication skills
- Functional skills
Mentoring also creates an overall positive impact on both the mentor and mentee. Since the mentoring program is headed by a peer mentor, it also improves the quality of one-on-one relationships between the participants.
Knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer
In addition to improving essential skills to help you achieve success in the workplace, another benefit of having a peer mentor is that the program facilitates the transfer of knowledge from the peer mentor to the mentee. Peer to peer mentoring facilitates tacit knowledge transfer, particularly by increasing the comfort level of the mentee. Individuals who are comfortable in their learning environment are more receptive to learning and more engaged in the learning environment and relationship.
More experienced or better-trained mentors can also offer advice and support to their colleagues. If you can develop the right mentorship program structure, it’s not just the mentees that stand to benefit from peer mentoring. It can be a two way street where the mentors can also enjoy benefits from the program to help their own career advancement.
Peer Mentoring vs Other Forms of Mentorship Programs
What makes peer mentor programs unique from other types of mentoring programs? Below are some of the key differences:
- Working with a peer mentor is more accessible to potential mentees because there are more peers available than experienced mentors.
- Unlike a traditional mentoring program wherein the focus is on the growth of one person (the mentees ), the dynamic in peer mentoring facilitates learning in both directions.
- Since you are mentored by peers, the similarities baked into the program lead to more cohesive relationships.
How Do I Get the Most Out of Peer Mentoring?
Joining a peer mentoring program is not an end in itself. You should look to have goals that are measurably achieved within a time frame that makes sense for your personal and professional growth. For those stepping into a peer mentoring relationship for the first time, there are several steps that will make sure you get the most out of the engagement.
Step 1: Find the right peer mentor
Choosing the right mentor can have a positive impact on the benefits of peer mentoring. Make sure to check out the tips in the next section to find out how to find the right person to serve as a mentor in the program.
Your peer mentor will share many of the same experiences as you. However, this individual will likely be able to provide a unique perspective on the similar challenges that you face as employees at the same organization.
Step 2: Establish a mutual goal
Goal setting is a crucial element for success in peer mentoring programs. You must be able to define your purpose for building a peer mentoring relationship, which will inform you of the steps you must take to get there. It will also help you develop a structure that facilitates in reaching both the mentee’s and mentor’s .
When goal setting, don’t think small. Be ambitious and think about what you wanted to achieve in the next three to five years. It creates a sense of purpose and added motivation to succeed.
How do you find the right goals? One trick is to evaluate your career journey. Are there any gaps you need to fill, such as skills you must learn or other forms of development? You can use that as a focus when building a mentorship program with your peer mentor.
Step 3: Actively engage with your peer mentor program
A peer mentor is available for you to seek guidance from. While your peer mentor may not be at a management or executive level, they can offer a different perspective that will make you better informed about your career decisions. Therefore, don’t be shy when soliciting advice and always turn to them if you are in doubt.
On the other hand, you should also be receptive to your peer mentoring partner. The peer mentors are also to gain lots of benefits from this program so you have to learn how to give and take if you want your relationship to thrive.
The best way to put it is to make yourself available for mentoring and be cooperative at all times.
How to Find the Right Mentor for Peer Mentoring
Working with peer mentors can be beneficial for the mentee’s career because it can help build a good relationship with your colleagues at work. It will also equip you with the right skills and knowledge to excel in your chosen career path.
Finding the right peer mentor is a crucial part of the program’s success. Program admins may want to consider the following when pairing mentors and mentees into peer mentor programs:
- Identify the goals of the mentee. It should be aligned with what the peer mentor can offer in the relationship.
- Identify if there are existing connections within your organization that you can take advantage of. If two individuals are already connected in other ways, a peer mentoring relationship may make sense.
- If using mentoring software to automate matching, add peer-related criteria to streamline the watching process and ensure mentors and mentees are properly matched in ways that make sense for what they’re looking for or need.
- Consider the personality of the peer mentors and the mentees. It’s crucial in how they communicate and work with each other.
- Understand the purpose of a peer mentoring program and how it aligns with the company objectives, as well as the participants’ career objectives.
Prioritize Participant Needs in Matching
Peer mentorship programs will never be “perfect.” Sometimes, matches don’t work out as intended. Sometimes, how you defined “peers” needs to be reassessed. But if you take into account the information provided above, you can improve your ability to use peer mentors as a tool that will achieve the goals you have set for the program.
As with any resources and tools that are available to you, it boils down to how you use them that will determine your success. Overall, the better your mentoring program matches, the better your results will be.
Take the next step! Explore the different types of matching that could improve the success of your peer mentoring programs.
