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71 percent of people with mentors say the experience resulted in great career advancements.
But, two out of three mentoring programs fail. That’s because mentors and mentees aren't given the necessary guidance to succeed.
This makes sense in practice — especially when you consider that just 10 percent of us are natural-born leaders, and we aren't all intuitive when it comes to mentoring another person.
In this article, our aim is to provide you with some reliable guidelines and ideas for mentorship activities to help you better equip your mentors and mentees.
Let's explore some examples of mentoring activities that your program participants can use to get the most out of their sessions.
What are mentoring activities?
After the mentor matching happens, it is often unclear as to what should happen next. Are your participants going to have regularly scheduled meetups? Will they talk mostly about work-related things, or is it okay to chat about personal issues too?
The answer is — it depends. And, more specifically, mentor mentee activities depend on the goals you're hoping to achieve with your mentorship program.
Mentoring activities are simply any specific tasks or exercises that mentors and mentees participate in together. These mentoring session ideas can be designed to help build relationships, impart knowledge, or solve problems.
Where casual or situational mentorships tend to take place in an informal fashion – offering advice and answering career development questions where needed, or providing support when a colleague is going through a tough time – more formal professional mentoring programs generally benefit from planned mentorship activities.
But don't be fooled; structured doesn't mean boring! In fact, well-planned mentor and mentee activities can actually make the mentorship experience more enjoyable for both parties and help to establish mentorship goals and objectives early on.
Let's jump into some examples of mentoring activities.
Mentoring activities to try
Studies show that the best mentorships are built on a foundation of trust, respect, flexibility, and open and honest communication. If you as the administrator and your participants keep these values in mind, your mentoring activities will naturally reflect that.
Here are a few mentoring ideas to get you started:
Ice breaker mentoring activities
Let's face it – icebreakers have a reputation of being awkward, stilted, and downright cheesy. But when mentoring games are used correctly, they can actually be a great way to get to know someone better, help jumpstart the flow of communication, and do some internal networking.
There are plenty of different mentor mentee activities to choose from, but here are a couple of our favorites:
1. Quick Questions: Before meeting up with a mentee, suggest that both mentor and mentee write down a list of 10 quick questions. This can be anything from "What's your favorite TV show?" to "How do you like to relax?" Once they’re together, they take turns asking each other the questions.
2. Living or Dead: Have mentors ask their mentees who they would meet and why, if they could meet any person in the world – living or dead. You'll be surprised at how much this reveals about someone's interests and values.
1-on-1 mentoring activities
If you are hosting a traditional 1-on-1 employee mentorship program, it's important to equip mentors to guide mentees' development by planning mentorship activities that will help them grow.
Some great 1-on-1 activities for mentors and mentees include:
3. Skills Development: Choose a skill that a mentee would like to develop and then mentors can lead a mini-workshop on how to improve that skill. This could be anything from public speaking to time management. Encourage mentors to draw upon personal experiences and expertise to help them grow.
4. Career Mapping: Do the mentees have a planned-out path for their career? If not, mentors can help them create one. Map out the steps they'll need to take to achieve their long term career goals, and mentors can offer advice and support along the way. Out of all the mentor and mentee activities, this one helps mentees see the true value of being part of a workplace mentoring program, because they get to see how a mentor can help them shape their employee journey.
5. Project-Based Learning: Encourage mentors to give their mentees the opportunity to work on a project that interests them. This is one of those fun mentoring activities that really encourages creativity and innovation. The project mentees choose can be anything from starting a business to writing a book. Have mentors guide them through the process, offer feedback, and celebrate their successes along the way.
6. Goal-Related Resources: Exploring external resources like news articles, studies, TED Talks, and surveys could be a valuable part of your program’s mentor activities. This can help mentees stay current with insights around their goals such as learning new leadership skills, finding new conferences or workshops to attend, etc.
7. Vision Statement: One of the mentorship activities to do with a mentee could be crafting a vision statement. This ties their goals and career mapping together to really focus on where they want to be in a set amount of time. A vision statement could look something like, “In the next five years, I envision myself evolving into a dynamic leader who inspires and empowers others, fostering a team culture of collaboration and innovation in my industry. My journey will be marked by continuous learning and personal growth, ensuring I make a meaningful impact on my team and community.”
Peer mentoring activities
Peer mentoring activities can be a great way for employees to learn from their colleagues and develop their skills. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
8. Book Club: Thousands of excellent professional development books exist, and there's no better way to absorb their lessons than by discussing them with a peer mentor. Have the peer group choose a book each month and meet up to chat about it.
9. Problem-Solving Sessions: When faced with a difficult problem, most people tend to reach out to their mentors for help. Why not have employees do the same with a group of peers? Peer mentors can meet up regularly to brainstorm solutions to workplace challenges.
10. Skill-Sharing: Does your organization have a public speaking expert? Excel wizard? Or are there employees that want to learn a new skill? Use a tool like Together’s Colleague Connect to facilitate skill-sharing sessions. This tool helps employees connect based on shared skills and goals, making it easier to learn from peers and develop new competencies.
11. Elevator Pitch Sessions: Sometimes, you only have a few seconds to make an impression on someone. As part of your employees’ peer mentoring activities, they can help one another perfect elevator pitches by practicing and offering feedback.
12. Job Shadowing: Have employees show off what their day-to-day looks like or explore what someone else does within the company. Job shadowing can be one of the most valuable mentor mentee activities as it helps both parties better understand the company and open themselves up to new skills through experiential learning.
Group mentoring activities
Group mentorship offers many advantages for teams wanting to improve their relationships and cooperation. For example, when team members are brought together to mentor each other, it can help build team cohesion and communication.
Group mentoring activities also provide a greater source of feedback for individuals, as they can interact with their peers and learn from more than one person. Structured mentoring events can help increase program engagement.
Here are a few group mentoring activities to get you started:
13. Bucket List Brainstorms: What are the things you've always wanted to do? Mentors can help their mentees brainstorm a list of life goals, and offer advice on how to achieve them.
14. Career Exploration: If someone is mentoring a group of people all pursuing different career paths, the mentor can help them explore the different options available to them. This could involve researching different jobs, attending job fairs, or networking with professionals in their desired field.
15. Team Building: Working together to achieve a common goal is a great way to build team morale and relationships. Help mentors choose fun activities for mentors and mentees like an escape room, and let the entire group work together to complete it.
16. Roleplay: Mentoring games like roleplaying relevant scenarios framed like “what would you do in this situation” opens mentees up to new perspectives for problem-solving.
Virtual mentoring activities
Virtual mentoring activities are important for remote and hybrid teams to build that positive remote company culture.
If your team is spread out across different locations, or if you're working with a remote mentee, virtual mentoring activities can help bridge the gap. Some ideas and examples of mentoring activities include:
17. Highs and Lows: Every week, mentors can ask their mentee about the highest and lowest points of their week. This is one of the best mentoring ideas that will help mentors understand their mentee better and provide support where needed.
18. Career Updates: Mentors keep mentees up-to-date on their career progress by sharing articles, blog posts, or even just pictures of their sweet new office setup.
19. Mood Boards: Have mentors help mentees visualize their goals by creating a mood board together. Collect images, quotes, and other pieces of inspiration that represent what they want their future to look like.
20. Discuss Books and Podcasts: As part of your participants’ regular meetups, have them discuss the books and podcasts they’ve been listening to lately. If you are looking for new activities for mentors and mentees that’ll help them learn about their interests, this is the best option out there.
21. Create SMART Goals: Equip mentors to help their mentees set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Mentors should record these goals and check in on them regularly.
22. Virtual Event Planning: Use a tool like Together’s Events tool to plan and manage virtual events for your mentorship group. This tool helps with scheduling, sending invites, and tracking participation, making it easier to keep everyone engaged and on track.
Ready to kick-start mentorship activities?
Hopefully, these mentoring ideas have given you some food for thought when it comes to planning your next set of mentorship activities – but if the task feels overwhelming, there's no need to go it alone. We're here to help.
Our team of experienced professionals can work with you to develop a custom mentorship program that meets your specific needs. From curated mentorship plans to powerful analytics and progress tracking, our mentoring software has you covered.
Interested in building a best-in-class mentoring program and using some of these mentoring activities? Book a 15-minute call with our team, and we'll walk you through the benefits of using our mentoring platform. We'd be thrilled to work with you.
