At a glance
300+
mentoring connections in six months, with no enrollment window to wait for
All 180+
meeting-feedback responses in a later review rated the meeting helpful
9 in 10
survey respondents likely or highly likely to recommend the program
- Segment: Large enterprise, global entertainment company with production-driven workloads
- Industry: Entertainment
- Location: Global, with teams in many locations
- Programs: Year-round one-to-one career mentoring, in relationships of about six months
The Challenge
Mentoring at the company opened twice a year, and for many employees it opened at the wrong time. Workloads rise and fall with production schedules, so an enrollment window could arrive just as a team hit its busiest stretch. Once matching closed, people who had missed it kept asking to join. In one two-week stretch after a window closed, the program lead fielded around 20 late requests, and each of those employees faced a wait of months for the next window.
The program also had to prove its reach. The company is spread across many locations, and mentoring was meant to connect employees with experience and knowledge beyond the colleagues they work with every day. The team needed to see whether pairs actually crossed the organization, and to explain that reach to colleagues and leaders.
Relationships needed a starting point as well. The company wanted employees to look for a mentor when they had the capacity, such as when they joined or set a new development goal, with enough guidance to get each relationship going and room to shape conversations around their own goals.
Why Chronus
The company already ran its mentoring in Chronus and moved to year-round mentoring on the same platform, because employees can find a mentor on their own while the team keeps a clear view of the program.
- Employees choose their own mentor. Self-matching lets people browse potential mentors and start a relationship whenever they are ready.
- Reporting shows how far connections reach. Dashboards show whether pairs cross job families, which the program lead uses to explain the program to colleagues and leaders.
- Outreach the team can measure. Campaign tools reach prospective participants and show how they respond to each announcement.
- Little day-to-day administration. An HR data feed keeps employee information current, so participant records stay up to date without manual work.
It's not a platform we need to be in every single day doing things, which is really helpful.
Learning and development manager
The Solution
From two enrollment windows to year-round
Ahead of the switch, the team refined matching settings, refreshed profiles and program pages, and reviewed participant resources. Then it opened mentoring connections throughout the year. Relationships still run for about six months, but employees can start one at any point. Resources and announcements were updated to explain the change and remove every reference to fixed matching windows.
Since we went year-round, it's been a pretty smooth program.
Mentoring program lead
Profiles that make choosing easier
The team refined what participants see on each profile, including business titles and job families, so employees can judge whose expertise and experience fit their goals.
Recognition at the finish
Completion certificates mark the work participants put into mentoring. Participants began sharing their certificates on their professional networking profiles, and the program lead described the certificates as generating excitement.
Run alongside other work
The program now sits with a learning and development manager who runs it alongside other responsibilities. Email and workplace chat raise awareness, and a reporting session with Chronus showed the manager where information lives and how to read it.
The Impact
Employees join when they are ready
- More than 300 mentoring connections in the first six months of the following year, with no enrollment window to wait for
Connections that cross the business
- About 7 in 10 mentoring connections crossed job families
- More than 4 in 10 crossed broad job-family groups
Meetings participants rate helpful
- All 180+ meeting-feedback responses in a later review rated the meeting helpful
- About 9 in 10 of more than 150 survey respondents were likely or highly likely to recommend the program
- 92% survey satisfaction in one quarter
A busy program, and participants who stay
- More than 2,200 mentoring activities recorded in a single quarter
- About 2% more likely to stay with the company: connected participants against employees who had not connected, in one program review
