10 Ideas for Companies to Celebrate, Support and Recruit Mentors During National Mentoring Month

National Mentoring Month (NMM) starts in less than a week! Particularly because mentoring helps prepare the future workforce for success, many companies like to join in the call to action during NMM. Are you looking for ways your company can participate and encourage employees to get involved? Here are a few ideas:

1. Use your company’s intranet to promote that January is National Mentoring Month (NMM). A memo from the President or CEO is always a nice touch to say thanks to those who volunteer. On a daily or weekly basis, profile an employee who is giving back through mentoring.

2. Start meetings out on an even more positive note. Ask team leaders and managers to start out meetings by saying it is NMM and recognizing employees on the team that are volunteering.

3. Promote Thank Your Mentor Day, which is on January 25th this year. Set up an internal electronic message board, and ask people to write a sentence about who mentored them.

4. Encourage employees to personally thank their own mentors on Thank Your Mentor Day. There are many quick and easy ways to do so, such as naming someone in a Facebook or Twitter status, or sending this free Hallmark e-card.

5. Provide employees who mentor with tools to address education and lifelong learning with their mentees. The Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota (MPM) has put together a collection of resources that serve this purpose.

6. Distribute a small, mentoring-themed gift to employees. One idea: a pedometer with a note attached that says, “Take a step in the right direction, become a mentor!” Print MPM’s website on it so that employees can find mentoring opportunities in their neighborhoods.

7. Ask a mentoring program to participate in a recruitment lunch sponsored by your company. Ask an employee who is volunteering with the program to be the guest speaker, and offer information for other employees on how to get involved.

8. Do a department recruitment challenge for a mentoring program that needs more mentors. The department that recruits the most mentors wins a reward, such as a pizza party, gift cards, or an hour or two of extra PTO.

9. Put a recruitment message in everything you send out. You can list the mentoring programs you work with and refer employees to MPM’s website, www.mpmn.org, to find a mentoring opportunity on the “Find a Program” page.

10. Implement or promote an existing release time policy for mentoring. Some companies allow a few hours of PTO each month for employees who engage in company-approved volunteer efforts.

For more information on National Mentoring Month in Minnesota, click here.

Special thanks to Federated Insurance and the Curtis L. Carlson Family Foundation for their generous support of Minnesota’s National Mentoring Month efforts   .

 

 

Post author Mindy Twetten is the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota’s Marketing & Communications Coordinator.

1. Use your company’s intranet to promote that January is National Mentoring Month (NMM). A memo from the President or CEO is always a nice touch to say thanks to those who volunteer. On a daily or weekly basis, profile an employee who is giving back through mentoring.2. Start meetings out on an even more positive note. Ask team leaders and managers to start out meetings by saying it is NMM and recognizing employees on the team that are volunteering.  

3. Promote Thank Your Mentor Day, which is on January 25th this year. Set up an internal electronic message board, and ask people to write a sentence about who mentored them.

4. Encourage employees to personally thank their own mentors on Thank Your Mentor Day. There are many quick and easy ways to do so, such as naming someone in a Facebook or Twitter status, or sending this free Hallmark e-card.
5. Provide employees who mentor with tools to address education and lifelong learning with their mentees. The Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota (MPM) has put together a collection of resources that serve this purpose. 6. Distribute a small, mentoring-themed gift to employees. One idea: a pedometer with a note attached that says, “Take a step in the right direction, become a mentor!”  Print MPM’s website on it so that employees can find mentoring opportunities in their neighborhoods.
7. Ask a mentoring program to participate in a recruitment lunch sponsored by your company. Ask an employee who is volunteering with the program to be the guest speaker, and offer information for other employees on how to get involved.8. Do a department recruitment challenge for a mentoring program that needs more mentors. The department that recruits the most mentors wins a reward, such as a pizza party, gift cards, or an hour or two of extra PTO.

9. Put a recruitment message in everything you send out. You can list the mentoring programs you work with and refer employees to MPM’s website, www.mpmn.org, to find a mentoring opportunity on the “Find a Program” page.

10. Implement or promote an existing release time policy for mentoring. Some companies allow a few hours of PTO each month for employees who engage in company-approved volunteer efforts.

To discuss more ideas or to work with MPM during National Mentoring Month, contact Mai-Anh Kapanke, 612-370-9169.

Support for National Mentoring Month Special thanks to Federated Insurance and the Curtis L. Carlson Family Foundation for their generous support of Minnesota’s National Mentoring Month efforts.