Mentoring Skills
We believe that mentoring skills have never been more relevant and valuable as they are today. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, summed it up well when she said “When mentoring is done well, everyone flourishes”.
Good mentorship supports and develops team members at all levels of the organisation. Therefore, it makes a big contribution to learning and development. Mentoring also makes a big, positive difference in times of volatility and uncertainty. So, these benefits will be valued by both individuals and organisations.
In addition, it’s a low cost activity. The main investment for those involved is their time and commitment. In these constrained times, this is good news. Let’s take a closer look at the key considerations.

Why developing mentoring skills makes sense
What are the main benefits of mentoring?
- Newly appointed leaders
- Those identified as leaders of the future
- Employees joining through acquisition or merger
- Individuals going through any sort of transition or change.
What’s the difference between coaching and mentoring?

What makes a great mentor?
Research shows that great mentors share the following qualities:
- Have a genuine desire to develop and support the growth of their mentee
- Build deep levels of trust
- Willingly share their knowledge and experience
- Stop short of imposing their views and directing action
- Encourage the mentee to reflect and think through solutions for themselves
- Leave their ego’s and their seniority (if applicable) outside the door
- Focus solely on being of value and a partner to their mentee
- Achieve the right balance of challenge and support
Why training mentees is important
Preparing and training mentees is very important. However, it’s often overlooked or it’s minimal. As a result, the success of the mentorship is limited. Research, by Henley Management College, found that when mentees were trained, the effectiveness of mentoring relationships increased by an impressive 30%.
For instance, mentees who are trained have clarity about what they want to achieve with their mentor.Therefore, they take responsibility and ownership for the success of the mentoring. Finally, they bring energy and enthusiasm. So, it’s easy to see that training mentees has a significant impact on the success of mentoring.
Our top 5 tips for a great mentoring programme
- Be clear about why you are introducing mentoring. Explain how it fits with other processes and who the target audience will be.
- Invite mentors to volunteer rather than impose it. Not everyone makes a good mentor.
- Train both mentors and mentees. It doesn’t have to be lengthy, but it’s essential for success.
- Ensure you have a clear structure and framework. Don’t over-engineer or complicate things.
- Review progress and measure success. Engaging the line managers of mentees can be very helpful here.
Our Mentoring Skills Workshops and Webinars
Mentor Training
We develop skills and confidence with interactive webinars for mentors:
- A practical and engaging virtual learning experience that’s tailored to your mentoring programme
- A resource-rich eBook for mentors, which supports them beyond the workshop
- Time efficient learning – 2 hour webinars or half day face to face workshop.
- Lots of tools and materials for practical use during mentoring sessions
- Clarity about processes and mechanics of your programme
- Mentors leave workshops energised, enthusiastic and confident
Mentee Training
We ensure your mentees get off to a flying start with our mentee training webinar:
- A practical and inspiring webinar that’s tailored for your mentees
- Clarity about what mentoring is and how to maximise its value
- Knowledge and confidence to take responsibility for their relationship with their mentor
- Time and support to set effective goals
- The opportunity to reflect on their readiness and their learning style
- Tips to maximise their learning opportunities
- An invaluable eBook for mentees, is packed with resources for ongoing use
Tools for in-house Mentoring Skills Training
Skills training for mentors and mentees can be challenging for large organisations. When participants are spread across a wide geography, training is often inconsistent, variable in quality or reliant on a set of PowerPoint slides.
However, we have the solution that allows you to deliver consistent, high quality, in-house training anywhere.
Mentoring Training Toolkit
Our Mentoring Training Toolkit give you a complete toolkit for training mentors and mentees. High quality products with built-in flexibility and everything you need.
It includes session plans, handout templates, activities and exercises and tips and techniques for powerful facilitation.
Your Branding on materials
Our flexible branding tool enables you to add your corporate branding to your eBooks or workbooks to create a bespoke look and feel for your mentors and mentees.
We offer 2 levels of corporate branding plus the ability to add your own welcome message at the beginning of the workbooks.
Train the Trainer
This workshop can be virtual – giving you the confidence of consistent training wherever your teams are based.
Alison’s input and preparation prior to the programme running was very comprehensive and took into account our business needs as well as the required learning outcomes. The results were even better than we expected. The workbooks were a particularly important and valuable element. She delivered a programme that proved to be worthwhile, very informative and enjoyable for all.
Our Blog Posts

The Power of Mentoring Programmes
Over the past 15 years, mentoring programmes have bloomed in all sorts of settings.

Training Mentees makes the difference
Training mentees makes the difference Research from Henley School of Management found that.

Tips for Mentees
Our Tips for Mentees series starts with a look at a hidden barrier which we call The Awe Factor.