I’ve seen enough mentoring programmes die a slow, quiet death to know the pattern: someone has a good idea, there’s initial enthusiasm, a spreadsheet gets created, and six months later nobody’s using it, managers don’t know who’s mentoring whom, and the whole thing becomes another abandoned initiative that people reference in meetings with a slightly embarrassed shrug.
I've seen so many mentorship programs fail because 1) There was no proper budget 2) No one was allocated to do the admin (this was before systems were available that could do this for us) 3) There was no clear definition of outcomes and/or they weren't matched to organizational goals.
The mentor system that could have worked because it had proper training, clear expectations baked in etc. failed because it reeked of exclusivity. The MD picked the mentees so instead of becoming a useful tool to increase capability it became a game of favorites. Because of this, no one wanted to be a mentor so the whole thing fell over.
Yes, 100% agree with everything you said.
I've seen so many mentorship programs fail because 1) There was no proper budget 2) No one was allocated to do the admin (this was before systems were available that could do this for us) 3) There was no clear definition of outcomes and/or they weren't matched to organizational goals.
The mentor system that could have worked because it had proper training, clear expectations baked in etc. failed because it reeked of exclusivity. The MD picked the mentees so instead of becoming a useful tool to increase capability it became a game of favorites. Because of this, no one wanted to be a mentor so the whole thing fell over.