How Mentoring Software Works

In an earlier article, we defined mentoring software as a technology platform that facilitates the organisation and management of effective mentoring programs, including matching mentors & mentees, scheduling sessions and tracking progress.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of mentoring software, you can read our article explaining what mentoring software is to learn more.

The demand for mentoring software is growing across the world as many organisations discover that having mentoring programs is no longer just the reserve of legacy organisations. On top of this, the great resignation has not abated, meaning that talent churn is a key problem for organisations of any size. With 77% of people aged 25-34 looking to change roles in 2022, more and more organisations are looking for ways to retain top talent.

Providing mentorship opportunities is a great way to do just that. However, to build a mentoring program at scale that supports mentorship for your entire company, you’ll need some help! An excel sheet may work for the first 20 matches, but as the number of participants increases, the need for mentoring software is made more apparent.

But how does mentoring software work? ‍

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Mentoring software features‍

First let’s look at the key features of mentoring software in detail. There are a few things you want from mentoring software, these are:
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• A database for mentors and mentees
• Matching mentors to mentees
• Integrated session booking
• Goal setting and tracking
• Relationship management
• Reporting and Measuring

Find out more about how Guider’s mentoring software works on our how it works page! 

A breakdown of mentoring software features

Mentor-mentee database

As the number of mentors and mentees grows in an organisation, mentoring software provides an easily accessible platform, where mentors can sign up to offer guidance and mentees can sign up to choose mentors. The best mentoring software makes this a really great experience by integrating with each organisation’s employee management system, so sign-on becomes a seamless one-click affair.

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Matching mentors and mentees

Instead of manually matching mentors to mentees using an excel sheet, mentoring software automates the process saving organisations valuable time. Guider’s mentoring software, for example, allows mentees to upload the skill sets they would like to improve on. It then matches them with a list of mentors who are experienced in those skills. Our AI matching removes bias and helps create better mentorships.

Plus, mentors are not forced on mentees. They get to scroll through a customised list, read through profiles and then make an informed choice for themselves when they find a suitable mentor match. This is one of the key features of mentoring software that makes mentorship thrive in your organisation.

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Integrated session booking

The most vital part of any mentoring program is the actual mentoring sessions. With mentors and mentees in the same geographical location, this might be as easy as popping into an office and having a sit-down. However, for global organisations and throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, it has not been so easy. Enter mentoring software.

With software like Guider, it is possible to book a mentoring session through the platform. Integrating with virtual meeting software like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google calendar, which means mentoring sessions can be booked across time zones and continents easily. This eliminates the issues of availability and distance.

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Goal setting and tracking

A mentorship happens between two individuals and that can be difficult to track. Particularly if clear goals are not set. When organisations use mentoring software, each mentorship has a dashboard, where the goals of the relationship can be set and tracked. This helps with accountability and effectiveness in the relationship and also helps programs leads to keep an overview of the success of the program without interfering in the relationships.

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Relationship management

Closely linked with goal setting, relationship management is the process of managing each mentorship within a mentoring program. Using mentoring software ensures that you do not just have people signed up for mentoring but not actively participating in any mentorship. Mentoring software goes a step further by providing organisations with the statistics to measure the health of their mentoring relationships. You are able to answer such questions as:

• How many mentoring sessions have happened within this relationship?
• Are the goals of this relationship being met?
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Reporting and measuring

The return on investment of mentoring is a common bottleneck for most organisations as they might struggle to measure the impact of mentoring programs to justify the resources spent on creating them. Mentoring software fixes this by showing organisations the correlation between the number of mentoring relationships and other such parameters such as; resignations, promotions, employee engagement and so on.

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Using Mentoring Software in 5 steps

Now that we understand how the features of mentoring software work, let’s look at the five steps to implementing mentoring software to improve mentorship in your organisation today.

‍Step 1 Setup: Design you mentoring program

Once you’ve chosen your mentoring software provider, you’ll need to design and setup your program. You can do this in conjunction with your provider who will guide you through the setup process.

• Key areas to consider: The aim of your program, how many participants you want to reach, whether you need multiple programs for different aims, and the desired length of programs.

‍Step 2 Signup: Attract participants looking for mentoring

Once your software is ready to go, you’ll need to promote your program to get as many signups as possible. Promoting your program internally through newsletters, on your intranet and in company meetings and announcements is a great place to start. Organising a kick-off event is also a great way to generate buzz.

‍Step 3 Match: mentors and mentees

This is handled by the software, users input their data and are matched using smart AI. All you need to do is sit back and watch as hundreds of matches are made!

‍Step 4 Measure: the impact of your mentorship program

At strategic points you’ll want to check in on how your program is doing. With Guider, it’s simple to view your progress through our analytics dashboard that will show you how many matches have taken place, how many goals have been achieved and what skills are being requested or offered, among other things.

‍Step 5 Multiply: watch as your mentoring program grows!

As your mentoring program or programs grow, you’ll see mentorship flourish across your organisation. Mentoring software makes mentoring easy to scale, meaning that it works for global organisations to connect people worldwide.

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If you’re looking for mentoring software to help you scale your mentoring program, then get in touch with Guider today. Find out more by booking a demo.