How to onboard a mentee

Like me, you have probably mentored someone in your career. If you are lucky, you were a mentee and had a mentor or several who helped you along the way. Physician entrepreneurs need not just education, but resources, experience, networks, mentors, peer support and non-clinical career guidance as well.

Remote and hybrid work has upended many traditional mentorship arrangements, leaving up-and-comers in search of more seasoned professionals to learn from and help their career climb.

In the absence of in-person mentoring opportunities, people in their 20s and 30s are going online to pitch themselves as remote mentees, sometimes engaging in behavior once considered gauche, such as sending cold-call emails and sliding into the social-media direct messages, known as DMs, of stars in their field.

As the Gen Z cohort enters the workplace, the young professionals are prioritizing mentorship, real connections and flexibility, according to Axios. An Adobe survey shows that having a mentor is key for Gen Z — 83% of respondents call it crucial for their career — yet just over half say they had one. Meanwhile, nearly-two thirds say they are more likely to apply for a job with a flexible schedule, and more than 35% want a job that’s evenly split between in-person and remote work.

But you probably have no clue how to be a mentee, and the result was a failed relationship and a missed opportunity. I sure didn't and no one taught me how to do it.

So how should organizations sponsoring mentorship programs or those seeking a mentor be onboarded, particularly when it is increasingly being done virtually?

1. Establish guidelines for mentors and mentees
2. Provide data driven information to the mentee to help them understand whether they are realistic about their goals, e.g. matching in to a highly competitive residency
3. Have a process for saying goodbye to your mentor or mentee if it is not a good fit or you have accomplished your goals
4. Talk to other mentees and compare notes to learn the hidden curriculum via peer nudges
5. Create a virtual onboarding process that is mediated by a third party to start
6. Address the issues of women having men mentors
7. Create a mentoring program to promote diversity
8. Have a better process for matching mentees with mentors
9. Showcase successful outcomes and lessons learned
10. Encourage mentees to become mentors
11. Bridge the millennial-boomer generational gaps
12. Create a series of educational videos and a help line to prevent unwanted outcomes

Have you tried reverse mentoring? In reverse mentoring, a junior team member enters into a "professional friendship" with someone more senior, and they exchange skills, knowledge and understanding.

In a mentorship, having clear boundaries — along with responses to share when those limits are transgressed — is important for safeguarding your mental health, your privacy, and your productivity. To establish them, have a conversation with your mentor, preferably at the start of the relationship. You can start by flipping the script and asking your mentor about their boundaries first: “Since this is all new, though, I wanted to ask: What boundaries do you want to have around our mentoring relationship?” Listen to their answers, taking the opportunity to weigh in about your own boundaries as they share. If your mentor says, “I really like to keep the details about my personal life out of work,” you can weigh in, “Okay, that’s good to know. I’m an open book, so I don’t mind sharing if you have questions.”

Onboarding a remote employee or student is more challenging than doing it in-person. The goals, however, remain the same: To help the employee/student get off to a fast start, build relationships, understand the culture, and recognize expectations.

Inevitably, there will come a time when you should end the mentee-mentor relationship. This also applies to some advisor-client realtionships where the roles of advisor. teacher and mentor get blurred. Here are some tips on how to break up with your mentor.

If you continue to deplete your energy to mentor, no matter how good your intentions, you will eventually be unable to mentor or help anyone at all. Here are some ways to identify and overcome mentor burnout: Know the signs and routinely evaluate your burnout risk factors and involve someone to help you identify when you’re showing symptoms. Conserve your mentoring efforts by finding ways to maximize your time while broadening your reach. Change your approach to make mentoring fun and energy generating. Finally, talk about burnout openly to model self-awareness and self-care.

Here are some things I've learned about mentoring There is a difference between a mentor and a sponsor, and I regret that I didn't learn sooner about being a good mentee because I think it would have made me a much better mentor and my sponsors would have gotten a much bigger return on their investment.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack