The Challenge
- Segment: Large enterprise
- Industry: Information services
- Location: Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific
- Programs: Locally run one-to-one mentoring, mentoring circles
A global information services company wanted employees in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific to build relationships beyond their immediate teams. One-to-one mentoring supported individual development. Mentoring circles brought larger groups together around shared interests and experiences.
Supporting these different programs took coordination. Local leaders owned their programs and cohort decisions, while a central program administrator handled the platform, communications, data and metrics. The team wanted to keep that local ownership and cut the work of collecting and moving participant information.
Separate forms, spreadsheets and uploads added steps to every enrollment. The administrator wanted people to apply inside the mentoring platform, so those running admissions could review applications together, weigh them against mentor availability and decide who joins before matching. With participants spread across regions, matching also had to reflect development interests and whether two people could realistically meet.
The team also wanted to know what happened after enrollment. A registration count could not show whether conversations were useful or how people felt about the program.
Why Chronus
Applications stay inside the mentoring environment, with shared visibility for everyone responsible for admissions. Administrators manage intake against the mentors available and can spot access needs early.
Structured cohorts with administrator-supported matching suited one business team's mentoring program. After that track moved from open mentor selection to a more structured approach, the administrator saw satisfaction rise. Each audience can have the matching approach that fits it, rather than one method for everyone.
Circles serve a different purpose: they let employees learn from a wider group of peers instead of relying on a single mentor. Across both formats, meeting feedback shows the team how individual sessions go.
I can see a lot more about how individual sessions go, and how people feel about the whole program. It's been phenomenally helpful.
Mentoring program administrator
The Solution
Local programs, central support
Program leaders continue to run their own mentoring programs, and the central administrator supports the platform and communications around them. A daily HR data feed keeps participant information current. The team prepared one recent cohort with around 40 mentors and as many mentees.
Circles led by their members
Circle leaders meet every quarter to trade ideas. Some circles have grown to close to 100 members, with around two dozen people at a typical meeting, depending on schedules.
Applications in the platform
One business team's mentoring program now takes applications directly in Chronus. Enrollment works as intended, and administrators see incoming participants together instead of chasing separate forms.
That worked really well. It was easy, and we could all see in the system when people were coming in.
Mentoring program administrator
The administrator now wants to reuse that setup for another mentoring program.
The Impact
The company's annual program review shows participants staying and advancing at higher rates than the broader workforce:
- 88% retention among program participants, against 86% across the broader company
- 9% of participants changed job level, against 7% across the company
- More than 1,800 active users across its programs, up more than 10% on the year before
- 87% satisfaction across survey questions
Circle participants rate their conversations highly. In one summer review, every circle meeting-feedback response, about 30 in all, rated the session helpful, and about one in seven called it a breakthrough. Nine in ten midpoint respondents found the discussion topics very useful, and in the year-end review every circle respondent was satisfied or very satisfied.
Applications also saved administrative work for the business team that started using them.
It's all housed in Chronus now, because that worked really well for that team. It was a massive time saver for them.
Mentoring program administrator
Circle leaders are increasingly sharing ideas with each other directly, and survey feedback remains very positive. The administrator still brings circle leaders together each quarter, so each circle can learn from what works in the others.
