Lis Merrick explores how a lack of trust can ruin mentoring relationships in formal programmes and how good design can prevent it

Over the past year, several mentoring programmes I have been working on have experienced real difficulties with trust among their participants. What is going on? Since the 2008 recession, many organisations have been forced to take steps to reduce costs, including redundancies, reduced working hours, cuts or freezes in pay and other benefits and restrictions on recruitment and promotion. This job insecurity has...