Did you know that mentoring programs can help in your association’s goal of developing better standards for your industry?
The world is constantly changing—which means your industry is, too. However, many associations can be set in their ways, and it can take them a long time to find out that what they’re offering members isn’t enough, or is simply not cutting it anymore.
This means they end up playing catch-up instead of leading the way.
So how can you ensure your association doesn’t fall behind?
Thankfully, a mentoring program can help. Let’s take a look at a few reasons why.
How A Mentoring Program Can Help
1. Identify Gaps
We all know that sharing practices across different companies and geographies provide all members with valuable insight. But what if you’re missing opportunities to do just that?
Mentoring programs can help you identify gaps in your association’s offerings for members. That’s because when your members are communicating actively about your industry, it’s easier to spot what’s lacking and move to address it.
2. Garner Support
Mentoring programs can help garner more support and involvement for the activities and advocacies you already have in your association. It’s always possible that your members simply don’t know they exist, so leverage your program and your people to get the word out about everything your association provides!
3. Stimulate Conversation
Mentoring programs also provide great opportunities to stimulate conversations about issues in your industry. Whether it’s a new development, technology, trend, or system, your mentoring participants will have someone to share their thoughts with.
Some questions might include: How has the older participant dealt with changing regulations in the past? How can the older participant best adopt a new tool or technology? Such conversations can add tremendous value to your members.
4. Flip the Script
If you decide to employ reverse mentoring, you can flip the script—allowing those who may be more junior to provide a fresh perspective to your more senior members.
Think about it this way: In many associations, all senior people look and sound the same, and have similar life experiences. On top of that, most traditional mentoring programs are run poorly, and only offer mentoring to a select few; this reinforces the same type of people moving into positions of influence.
Thankfully, with Mentorloop, you can break this cycle.
Women In Transport Mentoring Program
Victoria’s Women in Transport (WiT) program aims to attract and retain more women in the transport sector. When they started the program, their goal was to increase the number of women in transport from 16 to 25% and female senior role representation to 50% by 2020.
One of its initiatives is the Women in Transport Mentoring Program, a six-month program that offers professional development and networking sessions, monthly guides for mentees and mentors, and a focus on face-to-face connections.
Initially, the mentoring program involved 62 women engineers, but after overwhelming enthusiasm and positive feedback, the program has since extended to include almost 500 participants, across all disciplines within the transport industry.
Participants have shared how they’ve learned how to translate vague ideas into defined thoughts, developed their listening and probing skills, learned how to present with ‘natural authority’, and more.
Learn how the Mentorloop platform can help you run your best mentoring program yet—like it did for WiT.
