What Are the Benefits of Virtual Mentoring
(Versus Face-to-Face?)

For many of us, virtual mentoring presents a new element to the mentoring process. We’re far more used to meeting with mentors (or mentees) in person, grabbing a drink together, and discussing goals, challenges, and successes. Virtual mentoring doesn’t remove the human connection element; all it does is alter the meeting place. Outside of that, virtual mentoring has some unique benefits over traditional face-to-face mentoring.

No location limitations:

Virtual mentoring is not limited by location. Mentees can have mentors from within their organization anywhere in the world, something that’s nearly impossible for a distributed workforce.

No limitation on mentor/mentee pairings:

Having to meet physically significantly limits how many mentor and mentee pairings can exist. Accounting for travel time to and from meeting locations is always a factor, as is tracking. Virtual mentoring eliminates travel time, and when virtual mentoring software is used as a programmatic framework, the time required to track progress tracking is reduced.

Traditional mentoring is limited by time availability. You have to organize your schedules, meet in person, and make sure you dedicate that time to your schedule. However, leaning into a virtual mentorship program means mentoring can be asynchronous if you and your mentee want it to be. You can connect over chat, email, or record videos.

Multiple program types are easy to set up and manage:

Especially when mentoring software is properly leveraged, virtual mentoring allows organizations to quickly create and manage various program types, such as onboarding new employees or succession mentoring, or establishing group mentoring for diversity and inclusion.