Tap into the wisdom of your team with peer-to-peer mentoring
Mentorships don’t have to cross levels of seniority to be successful. We have a lot to learn from our peers, too. What is peer-to-peer mentoring? And how can it boost careers for junior employees? Let’s explore.
What do you think of when you hear the words ‘Learning & development’? Maybe a workshop, a training session, an online course or a webinar. How about talking to a colleague about a recent challenge you’ve been facing? It might not sound like a typical development programme, but peer-to-peer mentoring offers employees the opportunity to reflect, build connections and gain new perspectives.
With peer-to-peer mentoring, you can develop soft skills together with a colleague in a safe space, on equal footing. These skills are also key to becoming a great manager. Peer coaches get the chance to build essential soft skills:
- Active listening: rephrasing and clarifying to help the other person gain insight
- Perspective-taking: putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, without judgement
- Problem-solving: finding creative solutions and putting in place a plan of action
- Managing self: identifying and managing your emotions at work
These skills can’t be taught in a classroom — they need to be continuously built upon. Peer mentoring offers the perfect opportunity to practice.
Peer-to-peer mentoring boasts impressive benefits. People who regularly participate are 65% more likely to feel fulfilled at work and 50% more likely to stay in their jobs for more than five years.
What is peer-to-peer mentoring?
In peer-to-peer mentoring sessions, coworkers meet in pairs to have an open conversation where feedback flows both ways. You can use this time flexibly — to give and receive advice, to discuss work-related challenges, or to share skills and knowledge.
Imagine you received a piece of puzzling feedback from your manager — “I’d like to see more from you. I know you can push yourself further.” You’re not exactly sure how to interpret this. You’re hitting targets and completing your work on time, so why does your manager sound disappointed? What do they expect of you?
You bring the problem to your next peer mentor meeting and pick it apart. You talk about your recent performance reviews, discuss your current OKRs, and try to identify where you’re falling short. Your peer mentor actually faced a similar situation with their manager last year. They share their experience: “I was stewing over the vague feedback from my manager for a while, but once I went to get clarification on exactly what they wanted me to do to improve, I managed to make much bigger steps.”
What is peer-to-peer mentoring?
In peer-to-peer mentoring sessions, coworkers meet in pairs to have an open conversation where feedback flows both ways. You can use this time flexibly — to give and receive advice, to discuss work-related challenges, or to share skills and knowledge.
Imagine you received a piece of puzzling feedback from your manager — “I’d like to see more from you. I know you can push yourself further.” You’re not exactly sure how to interpret this. You’re hitting targets and completing your work on time, so why does your manager sound disappointed? What do they expect of you?
You bring the problem to your next peer mentor meeting and pick it apart. You talk about your recent performance reviews, discuss your current OKRs, and try to identify where you’re falling short. Your peer mentor actually faced a similar situation with their manager last year. They share their experience: “I was stewing over the vague feedback from my manager for a while, but once I went to get clarification on exactly wha
Talking through a problem with someone who isn’t evaluating your performance can help approach difficulties candidly and reach practical solutions. You don’t have anything to prove to your peer mentor. The important thing is to forge bonds and build mutual feelings of trust.
What can you gain from peer-to-peer mentoring?
Giving and receiving regular feedback can help us grow healthy habits. When you talk through problems with someone else, you see things from a new perspective and consider solutions that may have never crossed your mind. These moments of reflection prompt us to consider our own behaviour and what we can do differently in the future.
The benefits aren’t only on a personal level — peer mentoring can also contribute towards building a more inclusive team. Peer mentoring builds understanding across differences. Mentors may be matched with someone from a completely different walk of life. Talking to someone who faces different challenges to yourself can open your eyes — it becomes easier to understand the perspective of your peers and build empathy.
Research has shown that when people engage with others from different cultures and backgrounds more frequently, they behave more inclusively and feel more accepting of differences. That’s why peer mentoring can do wonders for inclusion in a diverse workplace, nurturing an environment of mutual trust and belonging.
Tip for remote or hybrid companies: Does your team sometimes feel weighed down by the isolation of working remotely? By dedicating time and resources for employees to connect with one another, you can help break the cycle. Just set up a remote peer-mentoring scheme.
How to set up peer-to-peer mentoring in your startup
1) Pair up peer mentors
You can pair partners totally randomly or across different teams or departments. They’ll have new perspectives and experiences to share and will approach things from their unique standpoint.
Just make sure partners aren’t in the same direct chain of command to avoid awkward power dynamics.
2) Share some guidance
Encourage peer mentors to meet at least once a month — the People Team can get the ball rolling and schedule the first meeting for them.
Peer mentoring works best when there are mutually agreed-on ground rules to build a safe environment. We recommend sharing the following with participants:
- Honour confidentiality in your sessions. What’s said in your meetings is for your ears only.
- Respect each other’s input. No one should feel embarrassed for sharing. These meetings are all about approaching problems in a non-judgemental, empathetic way.
- Give and receive feedback openly. Be open to new approaches, even if you don’t agree. Hearing a fresh perspective can help you tackle the problem from a new angle.
- Speak and listen for an equal amount of time. In these sessions, you’re both a mentor and mentee. Remember to switch roles!
You don’t need to provide a rigid structure to meetings, but here are some ideas to get the conversation flowing in the first meeting.
- What are you hoping to get out of our peer coaching sessions?
- What’s most important to you, right now?
- What goal(s) do you want to work towards?
- Where are you now?
- Where do you want to be?
This article has lots of great examples of day-to-day coaching questions.
3) Set some promises
Peer mentoring is a great way to set intentions and follow through on them. At the end of each session, make a commitment for 1 solid action. It could be to have a candid conversation with your manager, to suggest a different course of action in your next product meeting, or to read a new book your peer mentor suggested.
Keep a list of actions you take away from the meetings. In the next session, you can talk through the outcomes and share progress towards your goals.
Peer mentors hold their partners accountable and make sure they follow through on promises. According to one study, 80% of participants followed through on their plans. This is a great way to build healthy habits.
That’s everything you need to set up a peer-to-peer mentoring programme, and some pointers for participants too. Harness the wisdom of your team and build a workplace where support, belonging and empathy are the standard.
Backing it up
Hurst, A. (2020). Newly Remote Workers Need Peer Coaching. MIT Sloan Management Review.
Hurst, A. (2021). Developing Future-Ready Skills With Peer Coaching. Solving the Learning Dilemma, 5.
Friedman, S. D. (2015) How to Get Your Team to Coach Each Other. Harvard Business Review.