Mentoring Skills

Overview

Mentoring is a confidential one-to-one work relationship to help someone make the most of their talents by providing guidance, encouragement and support on practical issues, setting goals and achieving results within a specific timeframe.

The benefits for the mentee broadly include:

• A better understanding of the formal and informal structures of the organisation
• Identifying opportunities within their organisation and the experience, skills and competencies required to take advantage of those opportunities
• Developing their own career aspirations into realistic objectives
• Reflecting on their career progression and resolve any problems identified
• Planning their own development
• Expanding their own professional and personal networks within the organisation.

Additional benefits can also include:

• Greater self-confidence
• Enhanced interpersonal skills
• Increased acceptance and effective use of feedback
• Improved job motivation.

Format

The mentoring skills programme is in three parts:

• A pre-workshop assignment
• A one-day practical workshop
• A post-course activity involving preparation for and delivering a mentoring session.

Programme Aims

The aim of this programme is to:

• Develop participants’ skills, knowledge and insights to enable them to act as mentors for colleagues in their own organisation.

Programme Objectives

On completion of this programme, participants will be able to:

• Explain the key principles of mentoring and the benefits to the organisation, the mentee and mentor
• Describe the roles and responsibilities of mentor and mentee
• Describe the key elements of the mentoring process
• Demonstrate practical mentoring skills and behaviours
• Identify unconscious bias and other issues that might jeopardise a mentoring relationship
• Identify the support available to mentors for continued development
• Explain the organisation’s mentoring process
• Identify the next steps on the mentoring journey.

Content of the Pre-Workshop Assignment

• Principles and benefits of mentoring
• Mentoring in comparison to other forms of 1:1 support
• Developing a mentoring scenario

Content of the Workshop

• Review of pre-workshop assignment
• Essential mentoring skills
• Mentoring skills – managing the relationship
• Mentoring skills – questioning and listening
• Getting started
• Mentoring issues
• The GROW model
• Mentoring practice
• Individual learning review

Content of the Post Workshop Activity

The post work activity involves planning for a mentoring session with a colleague, conducting the session and then reflecting on it using the Gibb’s Reflective Model.