Earlier this year our Head of Technology, Thad, pitched the idea of creating a mentorship scheme at FuturLab with the ultimate goal of creating a space where people could learn from each other cross studio.
From there, our Senior Project Manager, Carla, worked together with Thad to explore how other companies approached mentorship, how we could run a small pilot, and what kind of structure would actually support our team!
Why we started a mentoring scheme at FuturLab
FuturLab is proud to be a remote friendly studio. Over 80% of our team are based across the UK, and that flexibility is something we genuinely value. But like most good things, remote work comes with trade-offs, and one of the trickier ones is connection.
Over the last year or so, we started noticing the same conversations cropping up. People looking for a bit of guidance or thinking about leadership for the first time, and people who just wanted to talk things through with someone who wasn’t their manager (…or their cat).
So we started asking ourselves: could a mentoring scheme help with that? And if so, what would it need to look like to actually work for us?
That question kicked off a collaboration between Thad and Carla with a shared goal of creating something genuinely useful, not just something that looked good on paper.
Listen first
Before we wrote anything down or made a single form, we did one of the simplest things: we did our homework.
We looked at how other mentoring schemes run, what works, what doesn’t, and what to think about when running something as a pilot.
What we wanted was to create a framework our team could use in different ways, depending on what they needed and how they prefer to work. If this started to feel like another layer of admin, or something that needed 'doing properly' to count, it probably wouldn’t last very long.
Keeping it small
Rather than opening this up to the whole studio straight away, we treated it as a pilot. We limited the scheme to 10–15 mentor / mentee pairs, with a six-month run time.
That gave us space to:
- Match people thoughtfully
- Support if needed
- Gather real, useful feedback
- Change things without it becoming a Big Serious Rigid Initiative™
The sign-up form was a large part of that, and we needed the right kind of data, so we touched on certain questions:
- What are you hoping to get out of this?
- What could you offer someone else?
- How much time do you actually have?
With that data it meant we could be thoughtful with matching and respectful of people’s capacity from the very start.
Matching people
Matching mentors and mentees was probably the hardest part!
People came with very different goals, levels of experience, and expectations. Some wanted someone in their discipline, others intentionally didn’t. Some signed up as both mentor and mentee, which meant being honest about time and energy on both sides.
We matched people manually and this came with a lot of discussion between us. Definitely not the fastest approach, but for a first pilot, it felt like the right decision to do it slowly and thoughtfully.
It was also important to us that our senior leadership team were involved as mentors. Not as a “nice idea”, but as a clear signal that learning, support, and development don’t stop at a certain job title or position.
Mentee and Mentor, James (Lead Programmer) and Dan (Design Director)
Launching, and then letting go..
Once we launched, there was the gnawing temptation to stay very close to our new project. But mentorship, and most new initiatives, only really work if the relationship belongs to the people in it.
So after the kick-off, and once the guidance packs were shared, we stepped back. We ensured all the matches were private and the conversations are theirs to own. We’re only there if people need support, clarity, or a nudge in the right direction, but not to micromanage how it works.
Because this is a pilot, feedback really matters. So, we built in a mid-point check-in and a final wrap up at the 6 month end point. We fully expect to learn things we didn’t anticipate, tweak the structure, and do things differently next time!
What it’s felt like so far
Early on, one of the nicest things to see has been the energy people have brought into the sessions.
Russell, one of our mentors, shared:
Jess shared this about her mentorship with our COO, Chris:
That kind of impact goes far beyond process tweaks and is incredibly personal, and it’s exactly why we wanted to create space for conversations like this in the first place.
What’s already been clear
Even early on, a few things have stood out:
- People really value having protected space to talk and think.
Kieron, one of our mentees, described it like this:
- Mentorship doesn’t need to be formal to be meaningful
- Mentorship cross team does help cross team communication and understanding long term
One thing that’s already stood out is how valuable cross-discipline mentoring has been.
James, our Lead Programmer, shared:
This of course isn’t a finished thing, and feedback in April will help us shape how the final 3 months of the scheme looks. We’ll keep listening and most importantly see where it takes us as a studio!