Reporting leadership can act on.

Measure a mentoring program against the one goal you set before launch, like keeping people or getting new hires up to speed sooner. Track who took part and which pairs kept meeting. For each pair, record what they set out to do and whether they did it. Then compare participants with similar staff outside the program on numbers leadership already watches. Evensteer reports per-pair outcomes against the goals you set at the start.

Show finance numbers they can check, tied to a cost they already track, like staff turnover. Compare how many people in the program stayed with how many similar staff outside it stayed. Then put a cost on each person who left. For context, a Sun Microsystems study found 72% of mentees and 69% of mentors stayed, against 49% of staff outside the program. Evensteer builds a report for the budget review, in numbers finance can check.

A satisfaction survey tells you people liked the program. It can’t tell a CFO whether anyone stayed longer or reached a goal. Keep the survey if it helps, but report outcomes next to it, like goals met and the business number you picked at the start. Put the outcomes first in the report and the survey score last. Evensteer ties every result back to the goals you set.

Start before the first pair meets. Write down the goal, the measure, and where that number stands today, so you have a baseline to compare against. If you only think about reporting at the end of the cycle, the data you need is often missing or can’t be trusted. Keep tracking light during the cycle, so pairs actually log what happens.