Forty mentees waiting, twelve mentors, one spreadsheet
Your mentoring scheme is popular with early career members and those working towards a higher grade. Members sign up through a form, as mentors or mentees, and describe their area of practice, location, and what they want. A staff member, or a volunteer on the professional development committee, matches pairs using a spreadsheet and judgement.
Matching takes weeks, and mentees wait. Some pairs meet once and drift apart. Nobody knows which pairs are active. Mentors who would happily take another mentee are not asked, while others are overloaded. When the scheme lead changes, the history of who was matched with whom sits in the old lead's files.
Why mentoring schemes stall
Mentoring schemes rely on careful matching and light follow-up, both of which are done by hand by people with limited time.
- Sign-up forms collect free text that is hard to compare.
- Matching is done from a spreadsheet by one person.
- Mentor capacity is not recorded.
- Pairs are not checked on after introduction.
- Scheme history is kept in personal files.
- Mentoring is not linked to the member's CPD or grade progress.
The core issue is that the scheme depends on one person's time and memory.
What a stalled scheme costs
Mentees who wait weeks for a match lose interest. Pairs that fizzle out do not deliver the benefit either side hoped for. Willing mentors are underused, and some are overloaded and step back.
Mentoring is one of the benefits members value most in their early careers, so a scheme that does not work well affects retention of exactly the members the body most wants to keep. It also makes it hard to tell council or funders anything useful about the scheme, beyond how many people signed up.
How we build mentoring scheme support
- Members sign up as mentor, mentee or both from their account, with their grade and practice area taken from their record.
- Sign-up asks structured questions you choose: areas of practice, goals, sector, location, and meeting preferences, with a free text box for anything else.
- Mentors set how many mentees they can take.
- The system suggests matches based on the criteria you weight, and the scheme lead reviews and confirms each one.
- Confirmed pairs receive an introduction email with guidance and a suggested first meeting.
- Light check-ins go to both sides at points you choose, asking whether they are meeting and whether they want to continue.
- Pairs can record meetings as CPD, if your CPD rules allow, and the scheme lead sees active, quiet and ended pairs at a glance.
| Stage | What happens | Who decides |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-up | Structured profile from the member's account | Member |
| Suggested match | Ranked suggestions on your criteria | Scheme lead confirms |
| Introduction | Email with guidance | Automatic once confirmed |
| Check-in | Short questions to both sides | Pairs respond |
Suggestions are a starting point. The judgement about a good match stays with the scheme lead.
The scheme afterwards
New mentees see a sign-up form that takes a few minutes. The scheme lead reviews suggested matches weekly and confirms them in minutes, and introductions go out the same day. Check-ins show which pairs are going well and which need a nudge or a rematch.
When a new scheme lead takes over, the full history of matches and outcomes is there. Mentors who have capacity are visible, so the lead can ask the right person rather than the usual few, and mentees who were rematched can be seen alongside the reason.
Is your mentoring scheme like this?
- Matching is done by hand from a spreadsheet.
- Mentees wait weeks for a match.
- You do not know which pairs are active.
- Mentor capacity is not tracked.
- Scheme history sits in one person's files.