When executed strategically, workplace mentorship can drive key business priorities like employee development, performance, and profitability.

There are many ways to measure mentorship program  ROI, including mentor surveys. Surveys are a great way to collect qualitative data and feedback by diving into the experience of mentors and mentees. But much like a mentorship program itself, surveys also need to be designed in a way that uncovers the wider impact on the business.

In this guide, we’ll cover the importance of mentor surveys, share some best practices, and provide some actionable ways you can demonstrate ROI in your mentorship program through surveys and employee feedback.

What is a mentor survey?

A mentor survey or mentorship program survey is a questionnaire used to gather feedback and insights from mentors and mentees. 

Surveys can be used at various stages of the mentorship process. From gathering participant insights at onboarding to evaluating end results, surveys are a critical tool for program managers and organizations looking to measure and showcase the impact of a mentorship program. 

Why you should use mentorship program surveys 

Surveys are critical for gathering data on your mentoring program in a more consistent and systematic manner. They provide a robust data set that allows organizations to evaluate mentoring programs with the same level of rigor as other critical business initiatives.  

The information collected from surveys can be incredibly valuable for:

• Measuring program effectiveness: Are participants achieving their goals? Are they satisfied with the experience?
• Identifying areas for improvement: What aspects of the program are working well? What could be improved?
• Gathering feedback on the mentor-mentee matches: Is the relationship strong and supportive? Are there any challenges or concerns?
• Tracking progress and outcomes: Are participants developing new skills and achieving their objectives?
• Understanding the program impact and ROI: How is the program influencing participants' personal and professional development? How is it impacting business priorities?
  

When to send out mentor surveys

We often think of surveys as a post-program tool. However, the most effective mentorship programs use survey questions to collect information and feedback at various stages of the program to elevate the experience and drive business outcomes. 

Ongoing surveys and feedback collection create a continuous loop of improvement that builds a stronger program experience for participating mentors and mentees. Here are a few points during the mentoring process that can be bolstered by surveys: 

Before matching 

The first mentor survey should go out before the program even begins—usually during the program’s onboarding process. Surveys are an effective way to collect insights around participant goals and expectations, which inform mentor-mentee matches and tailor experiences to each mentor and mentee.

This also allows you to collect data that can be used as a benchmark for surveys later on in the program. 

After matching 

Mentoring relationships can take a while to blossom. But once you’ve made the match and mentors and mentees have had the opportunity to meet, take a moment to collect early insights into how the relationship is progressing. 

Early feedback isn’t always indicative of program success. But the sooner you can collect feedback, the easier it is to make adjustments. 

During the mentorship program

For any mentorship program to succeed, the mentors’ and mentees’ goals need to be continuously met through their ongoing interactions. 

Milestone surveys or pulse checks during the program (after every meeting, halfway through the program) can help you collect feedback and optimize your program in real time. It’s also a great way to get insights into specific interactions and experiences to pinpoint the parts of the program that make the biggest impact. 

After the mentorship program 

Once the program wraps, post-mortem surveys can help you gather overall feedback on the program. It provides an opportunity for participants to look back on their experience, reflect, and share those thoughts with you.

Post-program surveys are also an opportunity to revisit some of the questions that you may have asked beforehand to compare results and showcase the progress from start to finish.

How to prepare your mentor surveys 

Let’s look at a few best practices and steps for preparing a successful mentor survey.

Creating a survey framework

Whether it’s a short pulse check or a longer feedback questionnaire, it’s important to take time to think about how to best approach your survey. Some questions you may want to ask yourself while creating your framework include:

• What are your goals? To design an effective mentor survey, you need to know what information you’re trying to collect. Do you want insight into their experience? Are you trying to determine what skills they’ve developed? What questions can you ask that will tie your mentorship program to long-term organizational objectives? Keep in mind that mentors and mentees may require different surveys since they usually have different goals and desired outcomes.

• Do you want the survey to be anonymous and confidential? Confidential surveys allow participants to answer honestly without fear that colleagues, managers, or leaders will see their responses. But they may not be as helpful if you need insight into specific matches.

How long should the survey be? You need to strike a careful balance between getting all the information you need and overwhelming your participants. According to Survey Monkey, the more questions asked, the less time the respondents spend answering each question. The length of the survey may also depend on the stage you’re deploying the survey at. For instance, a mid-program survey may be shorter than a post-program survey.

Drafting survey questions

Your survey questions can make or break your responses. Even a slight change in wording can impact how a question is perceived. If you’re targeting specific goals in your program, consider how to tie survey questions to the outcomes you’re measuring. 

Some tips to consider when drafting survey questions include:

• Only ask one question at a time.
• Ask direct questions that are easy to provide clear answers to.
• Avoid overlapping answers or ambiguous wording that can be difficult for respondents to decipher.
• Choose a careful balance of open- and close-ended questions. Limit the number of open-text questions, which can take a long time to answer and can be difficult to analyze.
• Use consistent scale points and structures (such as 1-5) throughout the survey.
• Avoid multiple-choice answers that are too specific and may not capture all potential outcomes.

Using technology to send surveys and obtain mentorship program data 

Manually creating multiple surveys and sending them out at the right time can be a labor-intensive process. Not to mention the effort it takes to organize and parse out the responses. 

Technology can streamline the process of conducting mentorship program surveys. Mentorship software like 10KC can automatically send out surveys at key points during the mentoring experience. It can also centralize and help you visualize survey responses in real time by reflecting feedback into a robust data dashboard.

How to tie mentorship survey feedback to business outcomes

Surveys are only valuable if you’re able to act on the data. Far too often, surveys are completed and then forgotten about.

Having a process in place to analyze the qualitative data and tie it to talent and business outcomes is key to closing the loop on your mentoring programs and communicating ROI. However, this starts before the survey is even sent.

The first step? Making sure your survey questions ladder up to your target outcomes. 

While your goal may be to elevate employee productivity or profitability, those are impossible objectives to measure in an immediate program survey. You need to ask the questions that point to the leading indicators that drive overall business objectives.

‍Example 1: Boosting employee retention: To address retention, ask participants about their intent to stay at the organization and their feelings of connection. Then, track actual retention rates down the line.

‍Example 2: Developing leaders: To measure leadership development, include questions about participants’ confidence in delegation, decision-making, and providing feedback. Later, track promotions or leadership roles taken on by those mentees.

‍Example 3: Increasing collaboration: To assess improvements in teamwork, ask about the quality of communication, willingness to help others, and the ability to work effectively with different personalities. After a period of time, observe if there's an increase in cross-departmental projects or improved team performance metrics.

‍Example 4: Promoting skill development: If you aim to enhance specific skills, your survey should ask about confidence levels in those areas both before and after the program. Follow up by assessing the application of those skills in the workplace, perhaps through performance reviews or project outcomes.

And while part of connecting survey feedback to larger priorities is looking at the overall picture, sometimes it’s also worth breaking down the data into more specific cohorts, such as seniority level, geography, department, or even demographics. 

Slicing up your survey feedback can help you hone in on more specific areas of opportunity or success. 

For example, you might notice that mentoring improved overall feelings of employee connection, but the improvement was significantly higher in senior employees compared to their junior counterparts. This provides an opportunity to explore why that is and how you can make adjustments. 

💡 READ MORE: How to Measure the Success of Corporate Mentorship Programs

14 mentor program survey questions to ask

The questions you’ll want to ask in your mentorship survey can vary widely depending on the nature of your program and the insights you want to uncover. 

Here are some examples of questions you can ask in a mentor survey based on target outcomes.

Program Satisfaction

Questions about participation and the mentor or mentee experience can help you better understand their level of engagement beyond attendance and completion. Positive feedback and responses can be early signs that your program is hitting the mark for participants. 

Examples of questions that offer insight into participation and engagement include:

1. Did this program or session meet your expectations? [Open-ended question.]

2. I would recommend this program to a colleague. [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.]

3. What were the most valuable aspects of this program? What could be improved? [Open-ended question.]

Employee engagement and retention

Asking questions about how participants feel before and after completing a mentorship program can help measure changes in belonging and if they feel valued. With belonging closely tied to job satisfaction and lower turnover rates, when mentorship improves employee connection it can be a leading indicator of increased employee engagement and intent to stay. 

Examples of questions that measure a sense of value and employee connection include:

4. I feel more connected to my colleagues as a result of this program. [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree]

5. I believe this is a company where I can have a successful career. [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree]

6. I feel my organization is investing in/recognizing me by providing this opportunity. [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree]

Development

Mentorship can help drive employee skills development and equip them with the knowledge they need to thrive in their current roles and their careers. Asking participants how they feel about their knowledge and abilities before and after the program can help provide insight into the impact of mentoring on employee performance.

Examples of questions that measure employee knowledge and skill sets include:

7. I feel better equipped to succeed in my role. [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.]

8. I have deepened my understanding of our business, vision, and/or goals. [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.]

9. I have improved my ability to network. [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.]

For mentors or senior leaders, you might consider tailoring questions like: 

10. I was able to practice and/or develop my leadership skills as a result of this program. [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.]

11. I feel more confident in my mentorship abilities as a result of this program. [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.]

Internal Mobility

When employees are matched with mentors in the organization, it provides insight into potential career paths and opportunities for career development within your organization rather than outside of it. While the impact of mentorship on employee promotion can take time to realize, questions about how employees feel about their career progression can help measure bench strength and future mobility.

Examples of questions that offer insight into employee career development and progression include:

12. I gained insight into the job(s) I’m interested in pursuing. [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.]‍

13. I received and/or shared valuable career advice.  [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.]

14. I feel more confident I can achieve my career goals here. [Multiple choice scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.]

Other ways to assess mentorship program health

While automated surveys are an essential tool in your mentorship program toolkit, they aren't the only way to gauge program health and ROI. For a truly comprehensive understanding, you need a holistic approach that combines surveys with other assessment methods. Here are some complementary strategies:

Track program adoption and completion

Mentorship is often linked to retention, performance, and even revenue. However, these are lagging indicators that can take months—if not longer—to come to fruition. Looking at leading program health metrics like invites claimed, participation, sessions attended vs missed, and program completion can help paint a more holistic—and more real-time—picture of program performance.

Interview mentors and mentees who give interesting survey responses

Surveys help create consistency in participant feedback, which makes it easier to take a data-driven approach to program implementation and optimization. 

But one of the biggest benefits of social learning strategies, like mentorship, is that there’s a very human aspect to the experience. This often isn’t captured in more formal feedback channels, such as surveys. 

Interviews are a great way to dive even deeper into unexpected or insightful feedback. 

For example, if a participant mentions how mentoring helped them with a client interaction, an interview can reveal the specifics of that impact and uncover any further applications of the learning. How did it impact their work? What other applications do they think mentoring could have? Do they have any other suggestions for improving the mentoring experience?

Facilitate ongoing channels for feedback

Here are some additional ways to create a continuous feedback loop and keep your finger on the pulse of your mentorship program:

• Offer “open door" office hours: Create a regular, informal (yet structured) space for mentors and mentees to drop in (virtually or in-person) and chat with program administrators. This allows for casual conversations, real-time problem-solving, and relationship-building.

• Provide an anonymous suggestion box: Sometimes participants might hesitate to share openly. Offer a "suggestion box" (physical or digital) where they can anonymously submit ideas, concerns, or suggestions for program improvement.

• Integrate feedback into program milestones: Don't wait until the end! Use key program milestones or gatherings as opportunities to gather input. For example:

1) Mid-program check-ins: Hold brief pulse checks to see how things are going and identify any immediate adjustments needed. 

2) Peer learning circles: Facilitate small group discussions where participants can share experiences and offer each other support.

3) Capstone events: Wrap up your program with a celebratory event that also includes dedicated time for sharing feedback, recognizing successes, and honoring the contributions of mentors and mentees.

Track mentor survey questions and manage your mentorship program with 10KC 

In an ROI-driven business landscape, even the best mentorship program needs to prove its value. It’s clear that surveys are a powerful tool for gathering feedback but for best success, mentorship surveys need to link your mentoring program to  larger business outcomes.

Mentorship platforms like 10KC help your organization implement, manage, and measure mentoring programs at scale. From dynamic smart-matching and personalized learning pathways to automated surveys and real-time data, 10KC makes it easy to shine a spotlight on the impact of mentorship.