At a National Insurance Brokerage, the Corporate Mentor Pool Grew From About 45 to More Than 80 in Two Days

At a glance

• Segment: Large enterprise, national insurance brokerage with offices across many regions
• Industry: Insurance brokerage
• Location: United States
• Programs: Early-career mentoring, plus separate programs for account operations, sales, corporate services and a specialist business unit

The Challenge

At a national insurance brokerage, who got a mentor depended on where people worked and whom they already knew. Informal mentoring went on in its offices, but some employees found more support through local connections than others did. The talent team needed a deliberate way to make development relationships available across the company.

The early-career track raised the stakes. Every year, more than 200 graduates join a structured pathway of more than a year that prepares them for account management roles. They are the brokerage's future account managers, and every class needed the same development experience, whichever office they joined.

The need went well beyond early talent. Employees in account operations, sales and corporate services needed conversations that fit their jobs. Even a shared topic like workload means different things in different roles: meeting predictable finance deadlines, setting priorities as a leader, or coordinating work across departments. Programs built around each function would need their own pool of mentors who knew the work, and mentors had already asked for more material to guide their conversations.

Why Chronus

The brokerage runs mentoring in Chronus because it gives every relationship a shared structure and lets the team build a separate program for each function.

• Every pair gets a rhythm. The step-by-step plan each pair follows includes conversation guides, goal tracking and a mid-cycle review, so a relationship keeps going after the first introduction.
• Mentors get the material they asked for. Guided Conversations give both people a prepared starting point for each meeting.
• Programs follow the work. Each function gets its own participant pool and conversation content, built around what people do, not only where they sit.
• Data the team can study. Mentoring records feed the team's own analysis of how long early-career pairs stay together and how long those associates stay with the company.

Creating a space where everybody had access to mentoring was at the core of it.

Mentoring program manager

The Solution

A refreshed program with a steady rhythm

The team refreshed its existing mentoring program with a plan of about six months for each pair, a purpose assessment and training for mentors. A workshop then tied each person's assessment to the mentoring experience and the resources available to each pair.

A separate program for each function

Next came function-specific programs, each built through workshops, profile reviews, matching preferences and conversation content. A specialist business unit of roughly 600 people, most of them in account management and operations roles, moved first, because its work is distinct enough to need its own program. Account operations, sales and corporate services followed.

Central ownership, regional reach

A central program owner works with HR partners in each region. Regional presentations and program communications explain how to take part and help recruit mentors. When the corporate program needed more mentors, the team paired regional awareness efforts with an invitation campaign sent from Chronus.

The Impact

Participants stay longer

• 15% vs 17% turnover among mentoring participants against nonparticipants over a full year

If they stay paired with a mentor for about three months, even class over class, we normally see more of the people in that group stay with us longer.

Mentoring program manager

Mentors stepped forward

• About 45 to more than 80 corporate mentors within two days of an invitation campaign
• More than 750 people in mentoring, more than 400 of them mentors: more employees signed up to mentor than to be mentored

Conversations that fit each function

• 4 function-specific programs now running, with sales participants already using the conversation guides in their meetings
• More than 150 participants completed the purpose assessment ahead of the training workshop