10 Best Mentoring Activities for Adult Skills Training

Last updated July 31, 2024

Mentoring is a great way to upskill employees whilst also building trust and respect between employees and it can often be an affordable way to provide training in-house. With this in mind, here for you are 10 mentoring activities and exercises to use in training.

What Are Mentoring Activities?

Mentoring activities are training exercises that are used by training facilitators and corporate trainers to teach skills that are useful for anyone who will be a mentor or mentee.

These activities help, for example, to provide training in active listening skills, good communication skills, strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and problem-solving.

Using mentoring activities in training helps to make training and learning more fun for participants in that they help learners learn from interaction, using visuals, and they can also act as icebreakers to bring participants together in a relaxed learning environment.

Mentoring Activities for Training

These activities below can all be used for in-person classroom teaching but most of them can also be used as e-mentoring activities for online training.

1. Mentoring Circle Role Reversal

Number of Participants: 6 participants in each circle (but adapt as needed).

Time Needed: 60 minutes.

Purpose: Mentoring circles are one of the most popular types of mentoring activities as they help participants build the skills needed to be more effective in their future role as a mentee (the person being mentored) or mentor.

How to Run the Activity: Begin this activity by dividing everyone into groups of 6.

Now allocate the role of mentor to half the group and mentee to the other half of the group.

Next, provide each group with a mentoring scenario (that you will have already prepared).

Some example scenarios are:

• A mentee has serious time management issues and wants to improve and get help.
• An employee is unsure of how to develop their skills and how to develop their career plan and wants help.
• An employee (the mentee) has started to feel overwhelmed in her job and is starting to feel anxious and seems to be suffering from work-related stress and is at risk of burnout.

Allow 10 minutes for a discussion to take place, with the mentors and mentees, as a group, to role-play the situation. If you wish to you can pair participants up rather than have them do this activity as groups.

Participants will discuss the scenario, with mentors providing guidance and mentees asking questions or seeking advice.

After the 10 minutes is up, ask the participants to change roles, with the mentors becoming mentees and mentees becoming the mentors. Allow another 10 minutes for this second stage.

I suggest then allowing another 20 minutes to run the activity again using a different scenario for each group.

It can then be worth giving participants 15 minutes for a group discussion on how the activity went.

As the training coordinator, you can suggest they consider questions such as:

• Did they enjoy the roles of mentor/mentee and how did it feel?
• What was difficult about each role?
• Did you learn anything that might help you in the future if you are giving/receiving mentoring?

What I love about this type of mentoring activity is that it helps develop an understanding of the roles both as a mentor and mentee, creating a better understanding for both parties involved in workplace mentoring.

2. Mentoring Pitfalls Discussion

Number of Participants: Small group of 5 or 6 participants.

Time Needed: 35 minutes.

Purpose: Whilst there are numerous benefits of mentoring in the workplace, there are also many potential pitfalls if not organised and planned correctly. This mentoring skills activity is aimed at helping managers and employees understand potential pitfalls and to try and avoid them.

How to Run the Activity: For this activity, I recommend starting off slightly differently to a normal activity in that I would first show a slide explaining the common mentoring pitfalls (see the 8 pitfalls below and the image at the end of this activity) for ideas. Allow 5 minutes to introduce these pitfalls.

Next, divide participants into groups of 4 or 5 and give them 15 minutes to discuss these pitfalls as a group.

They should discuss any experiences they have of these pitfalls and what strategies they think could be used to overcome each of the 8 pitfalls.

After the 15 minutes is up, bring the whole class together and ask each group to choose one pitfall and explain a solution that they came up with for that pitfall.

Using as an Online Virtual Training Activity: You can use for e-mentoring training by using breakout rooms on Zoom or MS Teams and run this activity in the same way as you would offline.

3. Job Shadowing

Number of Participants: Minimum of two (to have a mentor and mentee).

Time Needed: No set duration but one day can be a good option.

Purpose: This is one of those mentoring skills training activities that is more hands-on in the sense that you really get a true insight into how another person’s job is done.

You get to see the workload, strategies, people, and processes for the role you are observing and it can be extremely insightful.

How to Run the Activity: As the HR manager or person in charge of facilitating the mentoring, I would recommend first making sure beforehand, that you have analysed the skills gaps and the available skills.

Then carefully match up mentors and mentees that you believe could work well together, factoring in the professional interests, goals, and experience of both parties.

The next stage is to bring both parties together to discuss the viability of the job shadowing and to see if both parties agree and are comfortable for the job shadowing to take place.

4. Mentoring Goal Planning Session

Number of Participants: 6 people per group (but adapt the size as needed).

Time Needed: 60 minutes.

Purpose: The next in the list of mentoring activities is the mentoring goal planning session and this is important because for a mentoring program to work and to be effective, clear goals are needed.

How to Run the Activity: There are various techniques for teaching goal planning but one of the best and proven techniques is to use SMART Goals (see the SMART Goals training materials).

SMART is an acronym for the words Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals and this system uses a framework for planning and setting goals.

In essence, for this activity, the participants will need to think about the mentoring and evaluate their answers to the SMART goals for themself as a mentor or mentee and write down their answers.

Using as an Online Virtual Training Activity: You can also use this for online teaching, i.e. as an e-mentoring activity. Use a platform such as Zoom in the normal manner and then place participants into groups in breakout rooms.

5. Mentor-Mentee Agreement Exercise

Number of Participants: 2 or more participants.

Time Needed: 30 minutes.

Purpose: Before any mentoring program goes on, it is an extremely good idea for clear expectations and responsibilities to be set for both the mentor and mentee.

It can be a great idea to have a written agreement before the mentoring starts and this can include:

• how confidentiality will be dealt with
• how will feedback take place
• how long the mentoring will be for
• and how often, and the goal/s of the mentoring.

So this activity, when taking place in a training session, such as for managers, is all about just getting used to writing a mentor/mentee agreement.

After the training, the participants in this mentoring activity can keep their written agreement as a template for the future.

How to Run the Activity: Pair everyone up into twos and have one person agree to be the mentee and one the mentor (although in truth they will help each other anyway).

The pairs will write down a scenario (or you can provide them with one) and they will then spend 20 minutes discussing and then writing out an agreement in detail.

After the 15 minutes is up, run a full class discussion where each pair can explain one of the points they included in their agreement. At the end of each explanation, the class can discuss it.

After allowing 10 to 15 minutes for a group discussion, allow participants 5 to 10 minutes to further refine and edit their agreements based on anything brought up in the class discussion.

In the agreement, the following should be included:

• Goals and Objectives (Mentor Goals and Mentee goals)
• Roles and Responsibilities: who will book the meeting room, when will the mentor provide feedback etc.
• Meeting Schedules – such as frequency, duration, and format (i.e., e-mentoring?)
• Confidentiality considerations
• Communication methods to be used – exchange numbers or use email etc.
• Feedback (when and how it will be given)
• Duration of the mentoring program
• Review and Evaluation – who and when will the agreement end and be considered successful or not?

Using as an Online Virtual Training Activity: Use in the same manner for virtual training using breakout rooms, as you would if running as a classroom-based activity.

6. Mentor-Mentee Matching Exercise

Number of Participants: 8 or more participants.

Time Needed: 60 minutes.

Purpose: This is one of the best mentoring skills activities for managers to train them in how to match up skills and mentees.

How to Run the Activity: Participants will need a notepad (or paper) and a pen for this activity and space to walk around will also be useful.

Start by asking participants to spend 5 minutes alone writing down skills they would be interested in developing at work including certain types of work, specific soft skills, and anything they would like to learn or feel they need to learn.

For this activity, you will ask participants to walk around and spend a few minutes with one other person to start with. They will ask that person about their skills and try to find out about skills that they might not otherwise normally talk about. List any skills that you think might be useful.

Ask probing questions to find out things such as their time management skills, anything that people always compliment them on being good at, etc.

Also, ask the other participants what skills they want to learn.

They also get to ask questions about your skills.

Have participants continue around the room, as they talk to as many people as they can in the allotted time. Ideally, 30 minutes will be allowed for this part of the activity.

Now have participants work alone as they map out the skills they listed that everyone has against the skills they themselves would like to learn and the skills that others would like to learn.

Who could mentor who and for what skills? Participants should try and draw some kind of diagram to show this visually.

End this activity with a class discussion for 5 to 10 minutes by asking for volunteers to explain their list and if their needs matched the skills of any other participants.

You might also want to finish by explaining that the aim of this activity was just for the participants to begin thinking about skills matching, especially if they are managers.

Meetings they hold with their team in 1-to-1s are a great opportunity to learn about existing skills that team members have.

Using as an Online Virtual Training Activity: Use in the same manner for virtual training using breakout rooms as you would in-person, but using breakout rooms and the online teaching room.

>> Mentoring Training & Teaching Materials

7. Speed Mentoring

Number of Participants: 12 + (the more the better).

Time Needed: 1 hour.

Purpose: This is a handy activity for helping participants have the chance to find possible matches for mentors or mentees, whilst also having the chance to gain some instant advice and guidance.

How to Run the Activity: Choose half of the participants to be mentees and half to be mentors and provide each with a sticker or badge to signify which of the two they are (you could just provide a blue badge to the mentors and this would suffice).

Now ask the participants to walk around the room and, if they are a mentee, they must choose a mentor to have a 5-minute conversation with.

This is repeated so they have numerous conversations occur during the 45 to 60 minutes with other people.

(Note: If you want everyone to have the chance to be a mentor and mentee then you can split this activity into two half-hour sections).

To make it easier for participants you might want to suggest they use:

• 1 minute: To quickly introduce themselves to each other, ie. their first name and their work and background.
• 3 minutes: Mentees can ask specific questions or seek advice on topics that matter to them such as to do with career advice, how to get into a certain work role or industry, advice on acquiring certain skills etc.
• 1 minute: Exchange office contact information as needed and end the conversation by thanking each other.

It can be worth allowing 15 minutes at the end of the session for a full group discussion/chat to discuss any interesting thoughts and things to come out of the conversations, from the speed mentoring.

8. Strength-Based Mentoring

Number of Participants: 6 or more.

Time Needed: 60 minutes.

Purpose: This is one of the best mentoring training activities for thinking about our own strengths that we can use in mentoring, while also learning about other participants mentoring strengths.

How to Run the Activity: Start by dividing participants into small groups of 4 or 5 and then ask them to share their biggest strengths and an example of how they have used one of these strengths effectively in the workplace. Allow 15 minutes for this.

(Note: You could ask participants first to complete a Strengths assessment test such as the ones offered by VIA or High5Test, if you wish, and then use the results as a discussion point for the participants as the starting point for this activity).

Now ask the participants to get together into pairs and have a 10-minute discussion on how they would use their strengths if they were a mentor. The exact questions you could ask them to answer are:

• What strengths do you have that could make you a good mentor and a good mentee?
• What skills might you benefit from to improve being a mentor/mentee?

Example Strengths:

To give some examples of strengths in case you wish to print off an example of some options:

1. Strategic Thinking

• Strategic thinking is a valuable skill specifically as a mentor as it can help you to help mentees develop a clear and actionable plan, that helps them achieve their goals.
• Can be used to think outside the box and help the mentee find innovative and effective solutions.

2. Empathy

• Being able to build trust with the person you are mentoring is essential and having strong empathy skills makes this far easier to achieve.
• A lot of helping people to move forward skills-wise can be about helping them work through the reasons why they have not already achieved certain things. For this, empathy will help you help the mentee uncover the things that they need to work on emotionally and mentally to drive forward.
• Being a mentee can sometimes be a highly challenging time so having strong empathy can be extremely helpful in managing the process from the point of view of the mentor.

3. Communication

• To truly be effective when guiding others, good communication skills are always going to make the process easier and more fluid.
• It is worth remembering that when talking about communication skills, this also involves knowing how to listen properly.

4. Adaptability

• You often have to expect the unexpected when acting as a mentor as once you get to the bottom of what the mentee really needs, the whole process can change, i.e. the goals can be shifted.
• You need to be flexible and respond to what the mentee needs (staying within certain pre-planned guidelines though also).

(You might find the adaptability training activities worth looking at).

5. Problem-Solving

• You will be helping to solve problems for the mentee to help them find ways to move forward.
• Creative thinking can be extremely helpful in dealing with the problems.

9. Reverse Mentoring Workshop

The Reverse Mentoring Activity we have already included in the Cross-generations training activities and it can also be extremely useful for use in mentoring training workshops and sessions.

You can find the ‘Reverse mentoring activity here‘.

10. Mock Mentoring Sessions

Number of Participants: 4 or more participants.

Time Needed: 60 minutes.

Purpose: Being a mentor can actually be quite daunting or overwhelming the first time as a manager or a boss who has been asked to mentor someone. This activity can help you get in some practice ahead of time.

How to Run the Activity: Begin by putting participants into pairs and then hand them a scenario on a handout. You need to create these but you can detail very basic scenarios.

In their pairs, one person will be the mentor and the other the mentee and using the scenario you have given them, they will act out the scenario BUT inform them that they need to focus on practising the following:

• actively listening
• asking open-ended questions
• offering advice that is actionable (rather than being just too general)

Mentoring Training

If you found these mentoring activities useful because you are providing employee or adult workshops and sessions, you might also find these Mentoring training course materials useful below:

Paul is Co-Founder of Symonds Research and is a qualified researcher with a PhD in wayfinding. Paul helps the team at Symonds Research build and focus on providing high-quality training materials packages and programs for trainers, classroom teachers and HR departments.

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