When people think of mentoring, they typically picture a senior employee as the mentor and less experienced workers as the mentee. The mentor is there to act as a positive role model, guide the mentee in their learning process and offer support when the mentee faces challenges in their careers. Companies often rely on experienced mentors to nurture leadership skills amongst potential leaders, as well as provide opportunities for the mentee to hone their interpersonal skills.
However, mentoring comes in many different formats, each serving a distinct purpose and playing a vital role in furthering a specific goal. One non-traditional format that you might want to consider is peer mentoring.
An Overview of Peer Mentoring
Peer mentoring programs pair mentors and mentees at similar career stages and seniority levels. There are many benefits of peer mentoring, and peer mentoring programs can be an effective strategy to accomplish multiple objectives. For example, you may pair a potential mentee interested in learning about a different function with a peer working in that function. Part of that program design might involve the mentee job-shadowing the mentor and taking low-risk assignments while the mentor provides support.
Another example of peer mentoring is where a group of employees gather to learn a specific skill or share their experiences dealing with particular challenges in a mentoring circle format. Peer mentoring can also be an informal network of employees who help each other on an as-needed basis, as they further their professional development, personal growth and work towards career success.
Why Choose a Peer Mentorship Format?
There are several reasons why an organization might want to introduce peer mentoring in the workplace. Below are some of the common benefits that companies can expect to reap by incorporating a peer mentoring program into their overall strategy.
A Two-Way Street for Growth
Successful mentoring relationships, no matter what format, should provide plenty of opportunities for growth for both the mentor and mentee. However, peer mentoring relationships in particular provide an excellent two-way street for growth and career development. This applies to formal and informal mentors.
A 2021 study showed that peer mentoring is especially beneficial for knowledge sharing and learning because participants often share personal experiences and learnings that formal organizational programs don’t cover. The studies also show that peer mentoring programs can, in some cases, compensate for the lack of traditional mentors in an organization, since it is “less dependent on status, power and access to organizational resources.”
A Faster Path to Connection
Peer mentoring also provides a faster path to connection since there is less power imbalance between the mentor and the mentee. The best mentoring relationships develop organically and it’s much easier for that to happen in peer relationships where they’re at a similar stage in career and often in life.
Mia Keinanen, a dancer turned leadership consultant, told Slate in a 2024 article that she and her peers mentored each other when she was coming up in the modern dance world. Years later, they continued to stay in touch even as they went on to pursue other paths, peer mentoring each other in the process. Part of what made them so close, she explained, is that they felt comfortable discussing everything from family life to job-related knowledge.
A traditional mentoring relationship doesn’t always lend itself to this kind of closeness, but a peer mentoring relationship where participants can provide positive reinforcements on an as-needed basis.
When is Peer-to-Peer the Right Format?
There are a number of instances when it makes sense to implement a peer mentoring program. In organizations where there aren’t enough senior employees to act as experienced mentors, a good peer mentor can help.
Peer-to-peer mentoring can be worth incorporating as part of an onboarding routine for new employees. Peer mentoring relationships can lead to friendships, which goes a long way in improving employee engagement and creating a positive work environment. A 2024 report for KMPG found that 83% of the professionals they surveyed felt that work friendships help them feel more engaged and 81% reported that it contributed to them feeling satisfied on the job. 80% said that it helped them feel more connected to their workplace.
The report also found that workplace friendships are especially crucial to hybrid workers, who placed “the highest value on workplace friendships.” Because hybrid (and remote) employees don’t get as much opportunity to form organic friendships, implementing a peer mentoring program can help them connect with employees outside of their immediate team.
Lastly, one of the biggest benefits of peer mentoring is the positive impact that it can have on company culture. The KMPG report found that workplace friendships can enable a greater sense of resiliency and also “foster a stronger sense of connection and belonging.”
Setting Up a Peer Mentoring Program
If your organization is ready to set up a peer mentoring program, follow the step-to-step plan below:
Set Clear Goals
Start by understanding what you hoped to get out of peer-to-peer mentoring. Is it to expose employees to a different part of the organization to show them potential career paths and opportunities for career advancement? Perhaps you’re noticing that your company has become siloed and you want to introduce peer mentoring to improve cross-functional collaboration and expose employees to different perspectives while honing their communication skills in the process. Do you want peer mentoring to provide psychological support to employees who are just beginning their career journey, or do you want to provide networking opportunities that encourage network sharing and new ideas? Setting clear goals will also help you establish some ground rules and guardrails around your program.
Once you’ve identified your peer mentoring goals, then it’s time to figure out what your peer mentorship program might look like. For example, if you want to expose employees to other functions and improve cross-collaboration, a peer mentoring program that incorporates job shadowing might make sense. If you want to encourage learning and collaboration, then launching mentoring circles around a common theme provides an opportunity for mentors and peers to learn from each other. If you want to make new employees feel welcome, a peer mentoring program that pairs employees with someone who performs a similar role might make the most sense.
Mentee-Mentee Matching
The next step is matching the mentees together. Because peer mentoring programs can serve many different goals, the protocols and ground rules around matching may be different. Matching two mentees in a job-shadowing initiative, for example, will have a different set of considerations than matching mentees who are interested in learning and cultivating unique skills together. With the former, you may need to consider physical location, skill level and experience, but the latter is all about putting together peers who share similar interests and creating the right environment for peer relationships to develop.
Investing in a mentoring platform like Chronus can help you ensure that you get the right mentoring pairs and match whatever your peer mentoring goals might be. Chronus mentoring software allows you to set the criteria that are relevant to your mentoring goals and its AI-powered algorithm ensures quality matches. The software can work with different mentoring formats and organization sizes. Utilizing Chronus allows you to be efficient with matching without compromising your results.
10 Mentorship Program Best Practices
Before starting a mentoring program, make sure you do so with the following mentoring program best practices in mind:
- Define your objectives and secure leadership support and buy-in for your company’s mentoring programs
- Find a strong mentoring program administrator who is passionate about the program’s success
- Build flexibility in your mentorship programs
- Promote your mentoring program so that participants are aware of it
- Emphasize the impact that mentoring programs can have
- Take the time to organize peer mentor training to prepare mentors and mentees for success
- Ensure proper matching of mentors and mentees
- Track and measure the success of your program, and adjust accordingly
- Bring closure to individual mentoring relationships
- Showcase the success of your mentoring programs
Whatever Your Program Goal, Chronus Can Help
If your organization is ready to experience the benefits of peer mentorship programs, consider partnering with Chronus to design, implement, manage and scale the appropriate mentoring program for you. Whether you want to start small, or whether you want to launch multiple peer-to-peer mentoring tracks across your entire company, Chronus can help you ensure that you get the best out of the mentoring programs without needing to dedicate hours and hours of labor, by taking care of administrative tasks such as scheduling mentoring sessions and events.
In addition to matching quality mentoring pairs, the software can also take care of enrollment and provide a standardized experience that you can tweak based on your needs. You’ll also get real-time data and metrics that can inform whether or not your peer mentoring initiatives are on the right track, enabling you to measure progress and make tweaks to your program as your business reality evolves.
Peer mentoring programs can lead to many positive outcomes for your organization. Get in contact with Chronus today to start reaping the rewards of a successful peer mentoring program.
