Mentoring app for employees [plus free matching tool]

Workplace mentoring programs have become more and more popular as companies look for ways to attract top talent. Many job seekers have shown they are looking for organizations that offer growth opportunities, such as mentorships. Research has shown that employees that have a mentor also have a 23% higher retention rate.

But how can companies go about starting mentoring programs? Who’s responsible for managing it? How much time and administrative effort will it take? 

These are great questions. Mentoring programs are usually an additional responsibility on HR, L&D, DEI, or operations professionals. For that reason, using established mentoring apps to connect employees is a saving grace.

The rise in mobile app downloads further underscores the potential of leveraging mentor apps to enhance the effectiveness and success of mentoring programs. Recent statistics demonstrate a remarkable increase in global app downloads, with a 63.5 percent rise from 2016 to 2021. In 2016 alone, 140.68 billion app downloads worldwide, soaring to 230 billion by 2021.

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What is a mentoring app?

A mentoring app handles the registration, pairing, managing, and reporting of a mentoring relationship. Employees can access mentoring resources, like session agendas, schedule meetings with their mentors, and leave notes on their sessions. 

Mentoring apps are also used by human resource managers to monitor mentoring programs. They can see who’s meeting, who’s matched with who, and what the feedback is.

A key characteristic of a great mentoring app is that it is accessible from all devices; mobile and desktop. 

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Why do you need an app for mentoring?

Having an app or platform to manage your mentoring program streamlines the administrative aspects of managing a mentoring program. Rather than manually matching participants using tools like spreadsheets, mentoring platforms have pairing algorithms that instantly match mentors with mentees with a high degree of relevancy.

Mentoring apps also improve connection and communication between mentors and mentees because they don’t have to be in front of their computers to schedule meetings or access mentoring resources.

A mentoring program that is successful can produce a variety of benefits for the participants and the company, including:

• Develop communication and listening skills
• Increase knowledge
• Create personal satisfaction
• Enhance onboarding process
• Reduce employee turnover rate
• Improve employee engagement statistics
• Increase productivity and organizational profits
• Boost the organization's reputation

Statistics show that employees who are mentored often receive more promotions. They are more committed to their jobs, are more satisfied with their work, and are more positive in their thinking regarding their future career options.

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Benefits of mentor apps for employees

For employees, mentoring apps are a great place to keep everything about their mentoring relationship in one place. 

Workplace mentoring programs have become a large part of an organization’s attraction and retention strategy. Employees who are mentored have proven to have better careers, receive more pay and be more positive regarding the company and their futures. This presents a win-win for everyone involved.

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Benefits of mentor apps for managers

Through mentoring apps, human resource managers keep track of employee mentoring relationships at scale. Mentorships have often been defined as a work-related relationship that develops between a more experienced or senior member of the company and a younger or newer employee. 

However, workplace mentoring programs today do not always follow the traditional path. Mentoring programs have become a place to promote diversity, encourage interns and attract new talent to the organization.

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Together: Free mentor-matching tool & #1 easiest to use mentoring software

G2: 4.7/5

Capterra: 4.9/5

Together is the number #1 mentoring app for seamless mentorship and professional development that empowers organizations to drive performance through relationships.

With its user-friendly interface and robust features, Together revolutionizes how organizations foster mentor-mentee connections and drive employee growth. 

Let's explore the core features that make it the number #1 platform.

Registration: 

The feature makes registration fast and seamless for your employees. Plus, you can personalize their invitation via email, Slack, or Teams. The HRIS integration makes it easy to collect information from employees.

Matching: 

Provide you with the experience of the power of intelligent matching algorithms combined with customizable preferences to ensure optimal mentor-mentee pairings. Our system pairs mentees with mentors based on goals, skills, and preferences. 

Thanks to our platform's seamless integration with tools you already rely on, such as GSuite and Outlook — and with popular HRIS systems such as UltiPro, Workday, SAP Success Factors, Oracle, and more, for efficient data synchronization and streamlined operations.

Develop:

With our platform's real-time notification support system, no mentoring programs go unsupported. The platform sends notifications to mentors and mentees when their matches require assistance, whether providing guidance, answering questions, or offering encouragement.

And if, due to a low score session, our app notices that a particular mentoring program might fail to meet the set expectation and goals, the Health Monitor tool is handy to enable quick intervention.

Measure:

Use Together's intuitive progress-tracking feature to measure and monitor mentee progress effortlessly. Mentees can set goals, track their achievements, and receive feedback from their mentors, ensuring continuous growth and development.

Facilitate effective mentorship interactions through Together's comprehensive communication tools. Connect through messaging, video calls, and virtual meetings.

A step-by-step breakdown of how to use Together from the sign up stage

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Signing up and getting started

• Registering involves creating an account, setting up a profile, and accessing the platform's features.

Creating a mentoring program

• The platform enables all mentoring models, including defining program goals, establishing program parameters, and customizing program settings.

Mentor-mentee matching process

• Walk through the mentor-mentee matching process, highlighting how Together's advanced algorithms analyze mentees' preferences and skills to identify the most compatible mentors.

Engaging in meaningful mentorship

• Check out Together messaging, goal setting, progress tracking, and resource sharing for an experience drive mentorship.

How mentor-mentee matching works

Previously, HR and program managers relied on their intuition to match employees. While this might work for a small-scale program, managing the various pairing combinations as the program scales can be increasingly challenging. This is where using the Together app for pairing comes in handy.

Ways of using software for pairing:

Mentee-led match

Mentee-led matching allows participants to choose possible fits based on their skills, goal, and preferences.

As a mentee, you register for the program and receive a list of potential mentor matches. However, before the pairing process begins, the mentee can shortlist up to five potential mentors.

An automated message is sent to the first mentor choice for approval. If unavailable, messages are sent to the next options until a mentor accepts.

This approach gives control to both the mentee and mentor, allowing them to agree to be matched together. It promotes a sense of common ground and comfort for mentees.

Administrative-led pairing

This approach allows admins to control the pairing process, making it suitable for executive mentoring programs. And it's suitable for organizations with multiple mentoring programs.

From the Together dashboard, the admins can choose between auto-matching, where the software suggests pairings for review, or manual matching, by reviewing registrants' details.

Software algorithm paring

With the Together software app, you can effortlessly pair mentor and mentee irrespective of your program models and objectives. The software uses algorithms for mentor-mentee matching based on their goal, skills, preference, and interests.

The admins can finely tune the algorithm matching criteria until a perfect mentor-mentee match is achieved. Yet the admins have to approve before a pairing is confirmed.

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Customer success stories

Cooley:

When faced with onboarding challenges, Cooley, a global law firm, partnered to establish the Cooley Academy Mentoring Program (CAMP) using our mentoring app.

Through this program, mentors and mentees were rated on a scale 4, with an average of 3.9. Additionally, 95% of employees expressed that Cooley is a great workplace.

To learn more about how we assisted Cooley in creating a memorable onboarding experience, please read our case study on Cooley:  case-studies/randstad

Randstad:

Randstad, a Dutch multinational human resource consulting firm headquartered in Diemen, Netherlands, aims to provide each employee with an exceptional mentoring experience.

Although they had other options available for mentoring apps, they ultimately chose the Together mentoring app due to its seamless integration with Google GSuite.

The result? Our program significantly increased their retention rate, as 49% of participating employees were less likely to leave Randstad than those who didn't participate.

For complete details on how we achieved this outcome for Randstad, please read our case study on Randstad: case-studies/randstad‍

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Ready to launch your mentorship program with Together’s mentoring app?

If you are looking for mentoring software that is available on all devices, Together’s platform has been custom designed to be responsive. This means no matter what piece of technology your participants use, they will always be able to stay connected with Together. 

Our platform has an extensive library of resources, ideal for HR, people leaders, L&D teams, managers and anyone who cares about learning and development through mentorship. 

It is integrated with an email and calendar system, there is no need to learn a new system. All your needs are in one place so you can focus on what matters—mentorship. 

For the best mentorship app on the internet, check out the Together mentoring platform today and contact our hands-on support team if you need help along the way.