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Mentorship 101

Start strong with the tools, knowledge, and support designed to help your mentorship succeed.

Introduction to Qooper Resources

Qooper offers a plethora of resources to help guide you through your mentorship process. Whether you want guidance on the interpersonal side of mentorship or the technical side of using Qooper to the fullest capability, you have come to the right place.

Below is an introduction of the Knowledge Base. Here you will find articles on all things Qooper to make your journey easier than ever.

Qooper's Knowledge Base Overview

Welcome to Qooper's Knowledge Base. This is a repository of countless articles and resources to make sure that you have an easy and successful journey using Qooper.

So just scrolling through this site for a minute. First, we have an FAQ section. This is just our most frequently asked questions from our users.

How do we navigate Qooper? How do we schedule meetings? So on and so forth. We have different user guides. We have several articles to help you create your account.

We also have different areas to help you integrate your Zoom or your calendar to make sure that scheduling meetings are as easy as possible.

We also have resources on groups, events, and lessons, how to update your profile. If you have any mentor preferences, some information about the app as well, we absolutely recommend that you take some time to download the app.

It is free in the App Store and Google Play. So there's no reason not to take advantage of this and take Qooper on the go and mentoring on the go with you.

All the time. We also have information regarding our badges and certificate notifications, pretty much anything that you need to be successful within the program, you can find right here at your fingertips.

Another really great resource that we have for you is the search bar. So let's say, man, I really don't want to have to scroll through and see all of these different resources.

That's a lot, right? So instead of scrolling, you can simply type in, maybe I want to know how to schedule a meeting.

And then you can see all of the different articles that we have. of the that are specific to scheduling a meeting.

Now that you have all of the necessary resources to be successful in Qooper, let's explore the interpersonal side of mentorship!

Why Mentorship?

We at Qooper Mentoring Software are so excited that you are joining us for your mentorship program. Through this training we will discuss what mentoring is and why it is so important for your professional growth.

Why Mentorship

Welcome to Qooper, we're so excited that you have decided to join a mentorship program.

Why mentorship? What is mentorship? What do I stand to gain from this program?

All of these questions will be answered through this presentation. Mentorship is an opportunity for development that involves people connecting to share knowledge, experience, advice, and support.

There is something so powerful about leaning into others' experiences. Mentorship gives you the opportunity to take lessons learned from others and start with the new baseline.

This negates the learning curve and allows you to focus on taking initiatives, projects, and skills to the next level, without having to learn the same difficult lessons from your predecessors along the way.

Mentors and mentees learn valuable skills to help guide their career and professional growth. We will talk about some of these areas on the next slide.

And mentorship connections are partnerships that benefit everyone involved. So, no matter your role, you stand to get something out of this program.

Benefits for Mentors

For mentors, you will have the opportunity to expand your leadership capacity. Maybe you're already a manager and you are used to leading meetings and leading people, but maybe mentorship is more of that one-to-one connection and challenges you to lead in a new way.

It will also help you gain communication skills and confidence. You'll have an opportunity to expand your network and you will receive satisfaction from giving back.

You will also potentially be exposed to some fresh perspectives from your connection. So this is a great opportunity for you to get some new ideas and challenge yourself to think in a new way.

Benefits for Mentees

Minties will have exposure to new leadership styles. You will have an opportunity to connect with someone at a higher position than you and see how they effectively lead.

So this is a great way to kind of fine tune and pick out some of the things that you enjoy from their leadership style and adopt it into your own.

You'll also have an opportunity to develop so many skills and share the knowledge that your connection has built over the course of their career at your company.

You will have an opportunity to set goals and complete them, making this a perfect opportunity for professional development.

You may also feel an increase of a sense of community and inclusion within your position and hopefully you will experience increased job satisfaction knowing that you do have a connection and someone who's on your side from the very beginning.

You'll also have an opportunity to explore a new wave of collaboration through this connection.

We 're so excited for your journey with Qooper and we can't wait to hear all of the success stories to come.

Skills Mentors Can Expect

  • Expanded Leadership Capacity

  • Communication

  • Confidence

  • Network

  • Satisfaction from Giving Back

  • Fresh Perspective

Skills Mentees Can Expect

  • Exposure to Leadership Styles

  • Skill Development

  • Knowledge Transfer

  • Goal Setting and Completion

  • Community and Workplace Inclusion

  • Increased Job Satisfaction

  • Collaboration

We can't wait to hear your success stories throughout your program!

Happy Mentoring!

 

Roles and Expectations

Defining and understanding your role in a mentor program can help to ensure the best possible mentorship experience.

In this lesson, we will explore mentor and mentee roles and expectations for a successful connection.

Please note that these items are Qooper recommendations. If you receive program specific information from your Mentoring Program Administrator, be sure to follow those guidelines.

Roles and Expectations

Before diving into your connection, we should first define some roles and expectations within the mentorship connection. As a mentee, you have three predominant roles that we will explore today.

Mentee Roles

Planner
The first is a planner. You will be taking initiative to schedule meetings and create action plans within your connection. We do recommend that you connect at least once per month just to make sure that the connection continues and has the most potential.

As you are scheduling meetings, you're giving your mentor more space to focus their time and energy on what matters most, investing in you. So it allows them to spend their time preparing for your meetings and locating and providing resources for you.

Investigator
The next role that we will explore is the investigator. As the investigator, you're asking open-ended questions to get the most out of these conversations.

Your mentor probably doesn't realize just how much knowledge they have around your company, especially if they've been there for an extended period of time. It becomes just kind of common knowledge for them, and they can share that common knowledge with you.

Be sure to ask intentional and open-ended questions that can flow into conversations. We will have another session on how to formulate some of these meaningful questions later in the mentorship library.

Student
And finally, always approach every conversation as a learner or a student.

You will have an opportunity to absorb or soak in the knowledge that's provided by your mentor. You will be able to understand more fully the company's culture, leadership's values and skills that you could gain throughout this program and the skills that your mentor has to offer support on.

This time is yours. So approach every conversation as a learner and you may be surprised how a new perspective on a familiar topic will challenge you.

Mentor Roles

As a mentor, we will explore three different roles for you as well.

Coach / Advisor
As a coach, you will provide guidance, feedback, and advice, and you'll be able to share your own experiences and insights.

Don't worry. Experience makes you qualified. You can share your experiences and everything that you've gained so far. you've been with the company for enough time that they trust you to invest in others otherwise you wouldn't have received this nomination as a mentor.

They see your value and so now it's your time to lean into your strengths and look for opportunities to fine tune and develop your skills as well.

Resource
You will also serve as a resource for your mentees so that means that you can identify resources to share with them for their personal and professional development.

But at the end of the day, you are the greatest resource your mentee could have. As a mentor, you're not expected to have all of the answers.

You are human. It's perfectly reasonable to schedule a call with a colleague of yours that you think may have helpful insights for your mentee.

You may also send your mentee company resources, websites, maybe even a podcast or other content related to your conversations. The sky is the limit here.

Support System / Cheerleader
And finally, you are their support system and cheerleader.

You and your mentee are a team. Their success is your success. So look for opportunities to push your mentee outside of their comfort zone and be there to guide and support them through the way.

Provide a safe space for them to ask questions and, of course, celebrate their progress, successes, and overcome barriers.

Program Expectations

Finally, we will cover some expectations for a full list of expectations, always contact your program administrator as there may be specific program requirements and expectations for your specific program.

Some general expectations that we have for our participants is to make sure to prepare for your meetings, always arrive on time.

Life is going to happen. When it does communicate, you may have PTO, you may have to take a sick day.

Make sure to send a quick email and keep your connection in the loop. Also share and set some appropriate boundaries within your connection.

That could include some communication expectations and limitations. For more information, make sure to see the boundaries video and the challenges in mentoring.

and finally be sure to abide by all company policies for appropriate workplace nice conduct.

Let's Review

As a Mentee, your key roles are:

  • Planner

  • Investigator

  • Student

As a Mentor, your primary roles include:

  • Coach / Advisor

  • Resource

  • Support System / Cheerleader

Our expectations for program participants regardless of their role:

  • Prepare for your meetings

  • Arrive on time

  • When life happens, communicate

  • Complete and follow through with action items

  • Set and share appropriate boundaries with your connection

  • Abide by company policies for appropriate workplace conduct

Developing Meaningful Connections

Here at Qooper, we know that mentoring connections can be impactful and honestly transformative to your professional experience. For this reason, we put a lot of emphasis on building meaningful connections with your mentor or mentee.

How do we start building that connection?

From the very beginning, you must be authentic, from answering your profile questions to your first meeting with your connection be authentically and completely yourself.

Make sure to celebrate your unique skills and assets, anything that you bring to this connection.

Best Practices for Developing Meaningful Connections

Here we're going to explore four different hallmarks to develop meaningful connections with your mentor or mentee. In the module below, you'll see a list of questions under each section so that you don't have to start from scratch.

You can use any or all of these questions within your conversations.

One tip before we get started exploring all of these different sections is to make sure that as you're asking questions you're looking for opportunities to make it conversational and not like an interview.

No one loves being drilled with question after question, so make sure to make this conversational and not just question one, question two, question three.

Prepare for Your First Interaction

You want to show your mentee or mentor that you're invested in them and this connection, so like any other meeting, you should prepare an agenda, have some action items ready to go and a focus whenever you come into the meeting of what you want to accomplish.

You can define what you want out of the connection as well and prepare to find out more about your connections goals.

You'll be able to see a list of questions underneath this video to be able to explore few areas of discussion under preparing.

Establish Rapport

Next is to establish rapport with your connection. You must first build trust within your connection.

The first meeting should be dedicated to building this rapport, learning about each other and discussing personal and professional history, maybe even identifying commonalities.

Anything to kind of solidify this beginning of a connection that you have.

Set Expectations

Next up is to set expectations. This is a crucial part of establishing rapport and the gating conflict before it can arise.

Here you can discuss any expectations or hopes you have about the role of a mentor mentee and your connection.

Follow Through

And finally, you want to follow through with everything that you start within this connection.

So you have all of the information possible to achieve this meaningful mentoring connection. Now set your reminders, schedule your next meeting, and deliver on the things that you say you're going to.

And don't worry, Qooper will also be sending you reminders and steps to make sure that you're staying on track.

Now take some time and explore some different questions that you can ask within each of these different sections and happy mentoring.

 

Mentorship Meeting Question Guide

You will find a list of questions below to supplement your first meeting agenda provided to you by the program administrators and Qooper.

You can use one or all of these questions to get to know your connection as time allows.

Prepare

The following questions are designed for internal reflection before meeting with your connection for the first time.

Define your own expectations, goals, and what you want out of the connection.

  • What does my connection need to know about me?

  • What should I know about them?

Consider how much time you can commit to mentoring. Ensure that your availability aligns with the expectations and goals of your connection.

Establish Rapport

Be sure to check your connection's profile. Some of these questions may already be answered there. This is a great opportunity to ask follow up questions that lead to a deeper and more meaningful conversation.

  • Current role

  • Current workload and favorite projects

  • Likes and dislikes within their current role

  • Professional background

  • Professional goals and aspirations

  • Hobbies and interests

  • Specifics areas of interest for mentoring sessions

Set Expectations

Conflict is simply a gap in expectations. Communicating and setting these expectations in the beginning of your connection could negate conflict and lead to increased satisfaction throughout your program.

  • What do you expect from a Mentee or Mentor?

  • What are the key objectives you wish to achieve?

  • When and how will we interact?

  • Who will initiate these interactions?

  • How do you approach conflict?

  • How do you best receive feedback?

  • What would make you want to terminate the mentoring relationship before the program end date?

Follow Through

An easy way to establish trust is to follow through on the action items that you agree to. If you say you will schedule an appointment, be sure to do so. Here are some tips to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

  • Take notes

  • Schedule your next meeting

  • Set reminders

Don't worry, Qooper will also send you steps notifications to keep you on track!

Effective Mentoring Sessions

Welcome to Effective Mentoring Sessions. In this lesson, you will learn best practices in how to maximize your time and facilitate effective and meaningful mentoring sessions with your connection.

Introduction

One thing that I love about mentoring connections is that from cohort to cohort and year to year your experience is going to look completely different just based on you as a mentor or your connection and the skills and goals that they bring to the table.

This leaves a lot of space for creativity and individuality in every meaning. So today in this training we're going to explore for different hallmarks for effective mentoring, how to get the most out of these sessions that you have with your connection.

So first, we're going to explore personal connection and how to build that. Then we'll talk about structure, goal setting and defining our next steps.

Personal Connection

Have you ever been to a networking event where you instantly connect with someone? You have a shared experience or connection that just makes the conversation flow effortlessly?

That feeling creates space to build a lasting impression and impact for you and your connection. Within mentoring connections, you have a purpose and an objective to complete.

You do have goals to accomplish, but a spark of personal connection will make the meaning more meaningful, impactful and more fun along the way.

So in these meetings look for opportunities to connect your experience with your connections experiences that can be based on interests, passions, professional projects, even restaurants in the area, anything to kind of start a conversation and get the ball rolling.

People feel connected when they have space to talk. So also be sure to allow equal space for communication and conversation back and forth.

A great way to kind of explore these areas and start conversations is through an icebreaker question and conversation.

Suggested Icebreaker Questions

  • What would the title of your autobiography be?

  • Who would play you if your life became a movie?

  • What are three items on your bucket list?

  • If you had to choose one cuisine to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Follow-Up Prompts

  • Why is that?

  • Have you seen this actor/actress in another movie playing a similar character to you?

  • How did you find that cuisine?

Structure

As much as we love talking and engaging about these fun icebreaker questions that we talked about in our last section, it's very important also to have a structure for your meeting and to ensure that they are productive and valuable.

Meetings can be structured to meet these goals and objectives within your program that are outlined by your program administrator.

So open your meeting with a few minutes to catch up and get to know each other, then fine tune and and focus your conversations.

Preparation is key to ensuring an effective meeting. Make sure that you have an agenda ready or follow your organization's provided agenda to help you stay on track.

Pro tip: check those steps. Most of the time, the emails that are sent from Qooper will give you an outline of an agenda.

Items to Include in Your Mentorship Meeting Agenda

  • Ice Breaker question

  • Program announcements and updates

  • Questions from your connection

  • Goal setting or check-ins

  • Discussing action items

  • Scheduling your next meeting

Remember to check your steps from Qooper for other agenda items to include in your meetings. You can find these in Qooper under the Steps section, Notifications tab, or your email inbox.

Goal Setting

In your initial meeting with your mentee, this is a great opportunity to create goals for your time together. How do you know where you're headed if you don't have an end goal in sight?

What does your connection want to accomplish during the program, and even after the program has completed? How do I get started?

Goals can be complex, they can be complicated and kind of difficult to actually articulate. So where do we start? Great question.

Qooper offers a goal setting guide and a full resource around goal setting. Feel free to use this resource to guide your conversation, but don't forget to transfer your final goals into the Qooper platform.

This helps you and your admin track your progress in your goals. Within this activity we focus on the grow method.

So basically, we have four questions to focus in on:

  • G stands for goal. What do you want?

  • R stands for reality. Where are you now?

  • O stands for options. What could you do?

  • W stands for will.

You can find a full guide to goal setting in your learning section library. Don’t forget to add your goals and milestones to Qooper for ease in tracking and managing your progress.

Where Can You Find Your Goals in Qooper?

Log in to your account > Mentoring > Goals > Set Goals

Defining Next Steps :

Our last hallmark for effective mentoring sessions is clearly defining your next steps. To make sure that communication lines continue to stay open, always finalize your meeting with a clear distinction of action items and next steps.

Here are some questions that you can ask at the end of your meeting. What items should you send your connection?

What items will they send back to you? Maybe this could be resources or activities, whatever the case may be. Do you have a specific deadline or is everything due prior to your next meeting?

When will you meet for your next meeting as well? So pro tip here is just to have a recurring calendar invite, so you don't have to think about it.

Choose a day and a time of day that works best for both of your schedules and then of course if something comes up you can always shift that meeting time as needed.

It's also good practice to send a follow-up email and confirm and solidify those expectations. We at Qooper strongly recommend a Minty lead program and so as a Minty we do recommend that you follow up with this and then mentors you can just follow up and send any resources, guides or activities as needed.

These items will ensure that communication is open and effective throughout your mentoring sessions.

Prompts for Next Steps

What items should you send your mentee?

What items should they send back to you?

Do you have a specific deadline or is everything due prior to your next meeting?

Schedule for your next meeting.

Identifying Gaps and Connecting to Resources - For Mentors

Take yourself back in time. You are new to your company. What were some of the secrets that you learned along the way? Things that others shared with you? Lessons that you learned in your years of working here. Your mentees don’t know what they don’t know until an experience shows a gap in their knowledge. As a mentor, you can guide them to success by showing your lessons learned along the way.

Whether your mentee has been at the company for 1 year or 1 day, It is possible that they won’t know what questions to ask, what resources are available, or how to navigate this mentorship connection.

Here are a few questions to consider:

  • What do I wish someone told me when I started at this company?

  • What are some recurring problems, or gaps, that I am seeing with new hires, or with employees in general? Are there repetitive questions or concerns that keep coming up? If so, how can I close this gap in a more efficient way?

  • What resources are available within the organization?

Identifying Gaps :

As a program administrator, nothing was more helpful than hearing from my mentors what gaps existed within the program and within the system in general.

This training is going to focus on a few questions that you can ask to identify those gaps and potentially share that information with your program administrators.

And in the meantime, be connecting your mentees to various resources that exist not only within than your company, but also outside of the company with some national resources and other areas as well.

From the Minty perspective, it can be pretty complicated to figure out exactly what questions to ask. One thing that you can do as a mentor is if you've seen multiple Minty struggling within the same area, this could be a sign of a pattern.

Information provided may not be clear If there's any information provided around that topic at all, this could signify a need for additional resources or provisions to ensure success for your mentee.

Now let's quickly take a look at some resources that your company may have to offer.

Please note that this is not a one-size-fits-all list and for more information about these specific programs that your company has to offer, make sure to reach out to either a manager, someone in senior leadership, or go directly to your HR department. Your HR department may have various programs and resources that you may be able to use for your mentee.

Be sure to check in with them and see what offerings they may have for you. Your program administrator for your mentorship program may also have resources for you based on different activities that other mentors have offered in the past or various resources that they have seen be helpful within the program.

It may also be helpful for you to review the employee handbook so that you can see any policies and procedures that may be in place within your company.

Sometimes mentees are struggling with work-life balance And so addressing any employee assistance programs that your company may offer or perks and benefits could be very helpful as well.

In our next module, we are going to be talking about external resources as well. So stay tuned for additional information.

What resources does your company have to offer?

HR Programs and Resources

Before creating resources and activities for your mentee, be sure to check in with your HR department. There may be resources available to meet your needs.

Mentorship Resources

Your Program Administrator may have resources available to you regarding different departments and activities that you can complete with your connection.

Employee Handbook

Does your company have a handbook outlining various policies and procedures for staff? Reviewing these can be very helpful in your journey.

Employee Assistance Programs

Some companies have EAPs where employees are entitled to a number of Mental Health support sessions per year.

Perks and Benefits

Work-life balance can often be a conversation that arises in mentorship. What programs does your company offer? I.e. gym memberships or reimbursements, special discounts, rewards programs for being active? Does the company offer certifications, professional development allowances, etc.?

Identifying Gaps 2 :

As a mentor, it may be necessary for you to refer your mentee to various resources outside of your company. A few recommendations that we have that you may use within your connection are the 988 crisis lifeline.

As a mentor, many are not trained in psychology, so this is a great resource to send to your mentees if they need support in mental health or are in a personal crisis.

There are representatives available 24, 7, 365, and they do speak both English and Spanish.

In addition, we recommend often that you use some different assessments and career tools within your connection.

We do have resources within Qooper for personality assessments. Definitely check out that resource. and a quick Google search can give you countless assessments and other tools to aid you within your connection.

We also see a lot of our customers using LinkedIn learning. LinkedIn offers over 21,000 courses to fine tune and develop your skills.

Most of the time you can also access this with a free trial. We do see a lot of companies offer this as a perk as well.

So definitely check in, see if your company does offer this and even if they don't, check it out on your own.

Take advantage of that free trial and fine tune a few skills along the way.

What resources can you offer outside of your company?

988 Crisis Lifeline

As a mentor, you are not trained for mental health and crisis preparedness. Trained professionals are available 24/7 speaking both Spanish and English.

Assessments and Career Tools

There are countless assessments and tools available online. Qooper even has a Personality Assessments Module for your reference.

LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn offers over 21,000 courses to fine tune and develop skills. You can start your first month with a free trial.

Concluding Mentorship Connections

Congratulations! You have made it to the end of your Mentorship Program!

We are so thankful that you have gone on this journey of mentorship with us. In this module, you will find steps to successfully concluding your connection.

Concluding Mentorship-1 :

Congratulations on making it this far in your program and through your connection. If you're watching this video, it's because it's likely time for you to conclude your connection.

There could be two reasons why you are looking to conclude your connection, either your program duration is coming to an end, or maybe this connection just really isn't working for you, maybe it's stagnant, continually unresponsive, or for whatever reason.

may not be a safe environment anymore. If this is the case, we always recommend talking to your program administrator before taking any action to conclude the connection.

Most of this module is going to focus on the first point that your program is coming to an end and it's time to conclude your connection.

Concluding Mentorship-2 :

There are four steps that we're going to explore today to successfully conclude your connection. First, we're going to reflect on your overall experience, then share your findings with your connection, then we'll express gratitude, and define our next steps.

As you're reflecting, this is your time to really take an inventory of your experience. Think about where did we begin?

What did I want to to accomplish in this program, how far did I come? What in this program helped me?

And then what skills did I develop? Overall, we also want you to consider, do you feel a greater sense of belonging in your organization?

These reflections are very personal, so we want you to take your time in thinking through these and answering these questions.

And then you can choose what you want to share with your connection, What insights are relevant to them and you can ask them some of the same questions as well.

Once you share those insights you can also celebrate your successes and the different areas in which you've grown. You can also tell them about the different ways that they have grown and what you have witnessed through your journey on their end as well.

After giving a little bit of feedback of how far you've come and the different areas that you've grown within the program, it is vital that you take some time to express gratitude and say thank you for their time, energy, and everything that they put into the connection.

And finally, what are your next steps? Where do we go from here? Could you potentially include them as a reference for any internal searches within the company?

Do you want to stay connected? Maybe it's time if you haven't already connected on LinkedIn to do that. Maybe you'll continue to meet informally for coffee chats, maybe quarterly, maybe a couple times a year.

Are there any committees that maybe you two can join together or task forces? and if it is something that you both see as relevant, timely, and beneficial for the two of you, maybe you can continue your mentorship connection outside of the official organization capacity.

I always like to use these examples. I have included two photos below of huge mentor influences in my life. on the left, you see Dr.

Carey Ruiz. She was my supervisor and has continued to be a mentor years after I left that organization. And on the right, you see Dr.

Wendy Wood. This was actually my academic advisor back in my undergrad. And now she has kind of become, I call her my Kentucky mom because she has just had this amazing impact on my life.

It started as an academic advisor to student mentorship, and before you knew it, we're here 10 years later, and we still talk at least three times a week, oftentimes we're talking most days.

So, you never know. This connection could start as something instituted by your organization, and then grow into a lifelong connection.

That's not something that you have to do, but always know that those options are available if both sides agree. Thank you so much for joining and we hope to hear all of your success stories.

Thank you.

Final Meeting Reflection

Before meeting with your connection for your final meeting, here are some questions for you to reflect on:

  • Where did we begin?

  • How far have we come?

  • What in this program helped you?

  • What skills did you develop?

  • What skills did you see growth and development in your connection?

  • Do I feel a greater sense of belonging in my organization?

You can determine which areas you want to share with your connection. Some growth through this program could be personal. Depending on your relationship with your connection, you can decide which answers are relevant for them.

Finally, when expressing gratitude to your mentor or mentee, be specific with areas in which they had impact. This feedback will help them identify their strengths and continue to grow and develop their skillsets.

From the entire team at Qooper, thank you for allowing us to be a part of your Mentorship journey.