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What Is a Mentorship Program and How Can It Benefit Mentors and Mentees

Updated: May 31, 2023


Bronislava from Vision Factory

Author: Bronislava Segečová

Date of Publication: 22/02/2023




Success isn’t overnight. It’s when everyday you get a little better than the day before. It all adds up.” – Dqayne Johnson. Even though achieving success could take some time, it isn’t impossible. For this reason, nowadays, a lot of successful people have a mentor.



Who is mentor ?


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A mentor is a person, who helps you gain or grow your skills. What’s more, they help you make the best decisions, and provide you with valuable knowledge and experience, which enrich either your career or life. But, how should a great mentor look like? Mentor should have a most of the attributes below:

  • They are a senior experienced employee or leader

  • Also, they are seasoned in their field with a lot of knowledge to share

  • Apart from that, they are having very good reputation

  • In order to know them you should enlarge your network

  • Last, you should speak genuelly with them, and enjoy learning from them


Moreover, a well-experienced and skilled employee can be asked to mentor someone from time to time. Here are some tips how to be successful role model to your new mentee:

  1. Get to know your mentee well

  2. Understand what the mentee wants to learn

  3. Help your mentee with the little things

  4. Remember your mentee’s situation

  5. Establish expectations

  6. Let the mentee lead

  7. Practice active listening

  8. Ensure the relationship is reciprocal


What is a mentorship program ?


Mentorship program is a kind of professional development strategy. Usually, organizations connect well-experienced team members with team members who want to increase their skills or experience. In particular, there are 3 main types of mentoring:


  • Traditional Mentoring: 1-to-1 mentoring, where one mentor works with one single mentee

  • Group Mentoring: 1-to-many mentoring, where one mentor engages with several mentees

  • Distance (virtual) Mentoring: remoted type of mentoring relationship, when mentor and mentee use technology to communicate


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As long as the organization has one of the mentioned mentoring programs, that brings numerous advantages. For example, they include:

  • retaining high-potential talents,

  • strengthening company culture,

  • improving employee satisfaction and engagement,

  • developing new managers and last but not least,

  • increasing knowledge sharing and many more.


So, mentoring programs can have a meaningful impact on both the employees and your company. Whether it’s perfecting your retention rates or setting your top talent up for success, it's more than sure that mentoring well worth the investment.



Benefits of mentorship for mentees


Being mentored brings several advantages for a mentee. For example, some benefits of being a Mentee are:

  • Get to know and learn the workplace/organization culture

  • Enhance skills development

  • Networking opportunities

  • Potential for promotion

  • Knowledge and skill transfer


Benefits of mentorship for mentors


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Also being Mentor, for someone who has less working experience, brings plenty of benefits. Here are some of them:

  • Validate the mentor’s leadership skills

  • Become recognized as an advisor

  • Learn how to communicate clearly

  • Gaining new perspectives

  • Networking opportunities


Mentor is someone who always has time for you. Anytime you need some advice, you can contact your mentor and he should always give you earnest advice. Mentorship should also be a kind of friendship. At the end, mentor relationships aren’t just “mentor-mentee” or “teacher-student”, but rather “mentor-mentor” relationships. Because sometimes, you as a mentee, are coming for advice to your mentor, but mentor is also learning from you.



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