A good mentoring relationship has a mentoring agreement in place to help ensure that mentees and mentors are always on the same page. It acts as a tool to help both mentees and mentors understand what’s expected of them as well as the specifics of their mentoring program and the program’s goals.

Program administrators can customize this agreement to outline both the vision and goal of the program as well as their expectations for how they would like the relationship to work. Is the goal of your program for mentors and mentees to meet only once? Or is it a longer-term mentoring relationship? Or, is a one-time meeting all that’s expected and, if there is good chemistry, then they can engage in a longer-term mentoring relationship? A mentoring agreement ensures that everyone involved knows what is expected of them when committing to being a mentor or mentee.

Outlining the length of the mentoring relationship in the mentoring agreement has its advantages. Doing so allows you to:

* Remind participants to book their next meeting at the end of each meeting to keep their relationship going

* Schedule a series of emails that are delivered throughout the mentoring relationship, such as a pulse survey and a conversation topic for each month

* Email everyone in a mentoring relationship about completing the program evaluation versus only the people who have set their relationship length

As the mentoring relationship evolves, both partners can easily update their mentoring agreement to reflect any changes in the relationship. When one person makes a change to the mentoring agreement, the other person will be notified by email.

By taking some time to customize your mentoring agreement, you are setting up mentoring relationships for greater success as participants have a better understanding of how their mentoring relationship should move forward.

Resources:

·      Download a sample mentoring agreement

·      Watch how to complete the mentoring agreement and set goals in MentorCity