Getting Mentoring back onto your organisation's agenda - in three easy chunks #3

In Parts 1 & 2 we talked about mentoring having slipped off the agenda in some organisations and some key principles that may help you get mentoring re-introduced in a way that is more likely to add value than just be a futile exercise.
 
Part 1 covered:
1. Genuine  leadership buy in
2. Nominating an Internal coordinator
3. The Matching process
 
Part 2 covered:
4. Training for both the mentors and mentees 
5. Confidentiality and trust
6. Communication
7. Success factors
 
We’ll complete our look at this topic with three more items. Again we’ll use examples from Leith Gordon Ltd’s recent experience with Cabot Specialty Fluids (CSF), Aberdeen.
 
Have a think about:
 
8. Ongoing and specialist support – whilst it would be great to think it’s all plain sailing, there may be some issues that come up that need other or more specialist support than a mentor can offer. So you need to be clear with both mentors and mentees what the boundaries are and if/what/how ongoing or specialist support will be available. 
 
9. Follow up – once the partnerships are underway, follow up regularly. Demonstrate that the organisation is committed to the success of the programme and is genuinely interested. 
 
10. Evaluation – Of course, any organisation will want to know ‘was it worth it?’. You invested effort in identifying your success factors up front, so after about 6 months, you should evaluate your programme’s achievements and make adjustments as necessary..  CSF  asked Leith Gordon Ltd to undertake a mid-programme review against the identified success factors ; the feedback was extremely positive and minimal adaptation was required. Then again at the end of the programme, gather feedback and make changes as necessary.
 
So, with a few simple, thought through steps you could successfully get mentoring back onto your organisation's agenda and glean some great benefits.
 
Feel free to contact me for a no obligation discussion on putting a mentoring program into your organisation, no matter the size.

Otherwise, good luck, I hope it goes well.
 
Susan Gordon
 
www.leithgordonltd.com
 
 
 

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