So you’ve finally found a mentor or a mentee who is a great fit. But how do you know if your partnership is actually working? And what do you do if you suspect it might be time to find a different mentor or mentee?

To help you identify whether your partnership is on the right track, we’ve compiled a list of five signs that indicate your mentoring relationship is working.

1. You’re meeting consistently

With mentoring, it’s important to establish one simple guideline off the bat: How often will you meet? It could be once a week or several times a month, but the goal is to be consistent.

Consistently taking time demonstrates commitment, which builds trust between the mentor and mentee. Having a regular meeting on the calendar also provides structure to the relationship and minimizes stress, so you can focus on what really matters: development.

Questions to ask yourself: 

• Have we been meeting consistently?
• If we haven’t been meeting consistently, what are the common blockers and how can we address them? 
• Is our time together productive?

2. You’re both thinking outside the box

Mentors and mentees who are curious and willing to try new tactics will gain the most from a mentoring relationship. Curiosity helps us learn, retain new information, and make progress faster. That’s why the best mentors provide new perspectives and help mentees see troublesome situations in a new light. They also ask questions that challenge mentees to reexamine their beliefs while exploring possible solutions in a supportive environment.

Questions to ask yourself: 

• Is my mentor or mentee open to new ideas or ways of approaching things? 
• Have we been able to break through the “status quo” and create a mentoring relationship that works specifically for us? 
• Do we frequently discuss fresh ideas, perspectives, and approaches to problems? 

3. You’re both reaching your goals.

Among the strongest signs of a great partnership is the achievement of both the mentor’s and mentee’s goals. For a mentor, this may be practicing their leadership skills or improving their communication abilities. For a mentor, this may be getting a promotion or building more confidence in their role. Regardless of what the goals are, they need to be explicitly defined at the start of the partnership. Once the goals are defined, they should be examined over time and modified as needed.

Questions to ask yourself: 

• Are we both clear on what our goals are for this mentoring relationship? 
• Are we having conversations about short-term goals and progress made in reaching them?
• Are we also having conversations about larger, big-picture goals and progress made in reaching them?

4. You’re both holding each other accountable.

A sign of a good mentoring relationship is accountability. This means establishing a two-way street where mentors provide honest guidance and mentees hold themselves responsible for meeting established goals. For example, mentors can establish an informal agenda via email, review notes from previous sessions, and brainstorm topics for discussion. Mentees can take notes during the week of wins and losses as they occur so they have a list of conversation topics ready.

Questions to ask yourself: 

• Are we both showing up to meetings prepared? If not, what can be improved? 
• Are we reviewing what we learned in our previous meetings?
• Are we also checking in on progress made since the last meeting? 

5. You’re both truly listening. And you can see each other.

Mentors and mentees spend the entirety of each session talking to each other, so active listening is critical for both parties. When responding to their mentees, mentors should ask thoughtful follow-up questions and never be judgmental. Similarly, mentees should be open-minded to hearing their mentor’s perspective on an issue – regardless of whether or not they agree. 

Questions to ask yourself: 

• Do we both practice active listening during our sessions? 
• Do I feel heard by my mentor or mentee? 
• If you do, what does your mentor or mentee do to make you feel heard? If not, what does your mentor or mentee not do? 

Uh-oh, it’s not a match. Now what?

If you’ve started to doubt the relationship you have with your mentor or mentee, consider discussing your concerns with them before calling it quits. It may be helpful to try to hone in on why you think the partnership didn’t work. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself: 

• Do we have a clash in working styles? 
• Is the other person not open-minded enough in providing or implementing solutions? 
• Am I not making progress on my goals? 
• Do the meetings feel unproductive or not like a valuable use of time? 

Addressing questions like these will help you identify the specific issue and can help you pick a new mentor or mentee in the future – or even save your current mentoring relationship. If you still decide the partnership isn’t working, it may be time to have a conversation. 

Learning and development programs are as varied as companies themselves, but there’s one feature that’s constant across the most effective L&D programs: mentoring.

Across industries, mentoring has been shown to produce solid business outcomes. In fact, a 2019 survey of American workers by SurveyMonkey found that 91% of individuals who have a mentor are satisfied with their job. When implementing or modifying your company’s L&D program, mentoring is one of the best ways to boost employee engagement, create strong leaders for your company, and even keep turnover costs in check.

Incorporating mentors into your long-term learning and development strategy is a great way to ensure you receive a high investment return. We explore the 5 most common roles mentors play in effective learning and development programs below. 

1. Mentors strengthen your company’s culture

What does your company stand for? Whatever your values, they have to be embedded into how your organization acts and makes decisions. Mentoring relationships are a great way to help your employees feel the impact of your company’s values. 

For example, let’s say one of your company values is “Collaboration: Working together for the good of the group.” People who participate in mentoring get the chance to collaborate with people they might not usually work with. This 1:1 relationship allows employees to live the value of collaboration every time they meet with their mentor or mentee. 

We admit collaboration is a prime example, but we promise, you can input any value here and the example still works. Why? Because mentoring is about growth, and what company doesn’t value that?  

2. Mentors boost employee engagement

Employee engagement, how motivated people are to put in extra effort and stay with an organization, is crucial to business success. One of the most consistent drivers of employee engagement is whether or not employees have learning and development opportunities. 

Mentorship is one of the most personalized development opportunities you can provide to employees. Whether internal or external, mentors can help mentees feel more confident about their performance by supporting their developmental goals. When employees are confident in their skills, they’re more likely to put in extra effort. 

Studies have shown that the benefit for mentors is just as apparent as the benefits for mentees. A study in the Journal of Vocational Behavior showed that mentors (versus non-mentors) were more satisfied with their jobs and committed to the organization.

3. Mentors help cultivate your company’s next generation of leaders

To be successful, you must invest in development, especially when it comes to cultivating company leaders. Mentoring can aid in succession planning and leadership development by cultivating a path for high potential employees. 

Promoting employees from within has plenty of benefits: lower training costs, improved employee retention, and better morale. Leadership development and internal promotion also sends a good message to employees; they know that their efforts will be recognized and rewarded.

4. Mentors provide personalized learning strategies

Highly structured, one-size-fits-all learning programs don’t work for everyone. Mentoring works because it can be personalized and customized for what an individual needs.

Mentoring allows employees to engage in learning and development at a time that works during their schedule; this is especially valuable during times when the workload is heavy. It makes learning readily accessible and minimizes stress by giving employees the freedom to set up regular meetings whenever they choose.

As flexible, remote working arrangements become the norm, providing flexibility in your learning and development program becomes even more important. 

5. Mentors protect your bottom line by retaining employees

In addition to cultivating benefits within your organization, mentoring has cost-effective advantages, too, especially when HR budgets and resources are constrained.

One of the main benefits of mentoring programs is that mentors help their mentees feel supported. This can play a major role in reducing employee turnover — you won’t have to invest as much in costs to hire, on-board and train new employees. Expenses related to turnover are significant. Research from the Society for Human Resource Management suggests that direct replacement costs can reach as high as 50% to 60% of an employee’s annual salary.

By providing personalized advice to a mentee, mentors help minimize turnover because they work with employees to manage frustrations and concerns they may have. They also help them build the skills they need for success and increase the chances that employees will want to stay with your company over the long-term.