After the initial excitement: keeping mentoring relationships alive through the cohort

Most mentoring programs start strong. Introductory sessions happen, goals get written down, everyone is eager. Then workloads grow, one session gets postponed, and the next one never gets scheduled. This guide explains how to spot that mid-cohort silence early and how to keep relationships alive.

Why pairs go quiet

The cause of the silence usually isn’t reluctance. The reasons are more ordinary:

• Time: In a US survey reported in ATD’s TD Magazine, about 4 in 10 people with a mentor say they struggle to find time with them. In-person meetings average less than once a month.
• No agenda: The first session covers introductions and goals. In the second, the question “What are we going to talk about?” comes up. If there’s no answer, the session gets postponed.
• Poor fit: In Lillian Eby’s research, 70% of mentees and 54% of mentors reported at least one negative mentoring experience. Eby notes that mismatches in personality and work style are more common in formal programs.
• Unclear expectations: If session frequency and length aren’t in writing, everyone acts on their own assumptions.
• Invisibility: If no one asks, mentoring slides down the priority list.

Most of these causes can be prevented by design.

Early warning signs

Silence doesn’t start all at once; it gives signals first. Watch for:

• A planned session being postponed twice in a row
• Session notes getting shorter, or not being entered at all
• The mentee still describing their goal in the same sentence as in week one
• One side replying to messages late, or not at all
• Replies to the coordinator like “No problem, we’re just busy”

The mentoring training guide from Monaliiku, a Finland-based association, suggests a practical threshold: if two or more signs persist across several sessions, hold a short restart conversation. Don’t panic over a single postponement; look for the pattern.

The coordinator’s calendar: days 30, 60 and 90

The coordinator doesn’t hold sessions on behalf of the pairs, but they keep the rhythm. MENTOR, a US organization that publishes mentoring standards, sees monthly contact with all parties as the foundation of supporting matches. In a corporate program, you can apply this as follows:

When	Method	Question to ask	Sign to watch for
Day 30	Short 3-question form	How many times have you met? Is the next date set? Is the goal clear?	If there’s no date on the calendar, call right away.
Day 60	10-minute call or message	Are the sessions useful? What would you change?	Dissatisfaction on either side
Day 90	Midpoint survey	The six questions below	No progress on the goal

The same Monaliiku guide recommends that every check-in end with one concrete action and a date. This simple rule keeps check-ins from staying just a chat.

Reminders and conversation starters

Reminders work when they tell people not what to do, but when and how to do it. In a 2012 field experiment by Katherine Milkman and colleagues, employees were asked to write their appointment date on a note. This small step raised the colonoscopy completion rate from 6.2% to 7.2%. The more concrete the plan, the more intention turns into behavior.

Adapt this to mentoring as follows:

• At the end of every session, have the pair put the next session’s date on the calendar.
• Send a reminder three days before a session, and include a conversation question.
• Give each month a theme. For example, month 2 “receiving feedback,” month 3 “visibility,” month 4 “preparing for a difficult conversation.”
• Share three questions and a short reading that fit the theme.

According to ATD’s 2023 research, the large majority of organizations with mentoring programs provide tools and support to participants. The most common tools include a program guide, conversation starters and a mentor–mentee agreement. The free session card and goal card were built for exactly this. If you use Mentor360, the Program Pulse screen shows pairs that haven’t logged a session in a long time, along with reminders, in one place.

Rematching without blame

Some matches don’t improve even with support. In that case, the worst option is to leave the pair quietly waiting until the end of the cohort.

1. Announce at the start of the program that rematching is possible. That way, a request doesn’t come across as a complaint.
2. Talk with each side separately. Don’t ask “Who’s right?”; ask “What didn’t work?”
3. Decide quickly. The Monaliiku guide also recommends not delaying a rematch, and using language that recognizes both sides’ effort and blames no one.
4. Launch the new pair with a clear start date and a ready-made agenda for the first session.
5. Don’t remove the mentor from the program; try them with a different mentee profile in the next cohort.

Bring the manager in

The mentee’s direct manager can be mentoring’s biggest supporter or its biggest obstacle. If the manager doesn’t know about the program, the mentoring session is seen as a “non-work meeting” and becomes the first thing to be postponed.

• At the start of the cohort, send the manager a short briefing note with the mentee’s goal headline and the session frequency.
• Share only attendance, not session content. Confidentiality must be protected.
• On day 60, ask the manager a single question: “Are you seeing any change at work related to the mentee’s goal?”
• If there’s a task or project opportunity that fits the goal, ask the manager to open it up.

Make progress visible and celebrate it

Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer studied nearly 12,000 diary entries kept by 238 employees across seven companies. The event that showed up most often on employees’ best workdays was making progress in meaningful work. The lesson for mentoring is clear: when progress is visible, motivation lasts.

• At the end of every session, ask “What changed this month?” and record the answer.
• With participants’ permission, share short, anonymous success stories each month.
• Hold a 45-minute get-together mid-cohort. Pairs see each other, and mentors share experiences.
• Recognize mentors visibly. According to ATD’s 2023 research, only 46% of organizations reward or recognize participants; that’s a gap that’s easy to close.

The midpoint survey: six questions

On day 90, send the survey to each side separately. Keep it short enough to finish in five minutes.

1. How many times have you met in the last 30 days?
2. How useful are the sessions for you? (1–5)
3. How much progress has there been on the mentee’s goal? (1–5)
4. How satisfied are you with your pair? (1–5)
5. What’s the biggest obstacle to your sessions? (time / agenda / fit / other)
6. What would you like to change in the second half of the program?

Follow up one by one on scores of 3 or below and on large gaps between the two sides. These answers also make good interim data for your end-of-cohort measurement.

You’ll find the flow of the first 90 days on the 90 days of a program page, how to reduce mismatches from the start in the matching guide, and the measurement framework in the guide to measuring impact.

Sources

• ATD, Only One in Three Employees Has a Mentor (TD Magazine, 2019) — The difficulty of finding time with a mentor, and session frequency.
• ATD, press release on the Mentoring for Success research (2023) — Tools provided to programs and the rate at which participants are recognized.
• University of Georgia Research Magazine, on Lillian Eby’s research into negative mentoring experiences — How common negative experiences are, and mismatches in formal programs.
• Monaliiku, Mentor on the Move – Monitoring, support and rematching — Check-in timing, warning signs and blame-free rematching.
• MENTOR, Monitoring and support — The recommendation of monthly contact with all parties.
• Milkman et al. (2012), Following Through on Good Intentions: The Power of Planning Prompts — The effect on behavior of asking for a concrete plan.
• Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, The Progress Principle (Amabile & Kramer) — The effect of making progress on motivation.