What is the point in mentoring training and what should you cover? Can you not just ‘lump’ the mentors in with your coaches, or dispense with the training, as “everyone understands mentoring”?
This blog explores the importance of mentoring training, its key components and the similarities and differences with coach training.
Being a mentor during the Covid-19 Pandemic is different. Everything we do currently is different. From working remotely for many, to how we socialise and shop. Most people, both at work and home, are experiencing a far greater level of stress than normal. Mentees can adopt a different practical emphasis, both to maximise the impact of their learning and to support them to thrive through the chaos. Mentors need new behaviours to support their mentees in more innovative ways. And organisations need the benefits of mentoring more than ever!
During National Inclusion Week 2020, can you put your hand on your heart and say that, your organisation takes a holistic approach to inclusion? Is it embedded into organisational values, people management practices and employee behaviours? Does your organisation give your employees fair opportunities to contribute and develop?
A good question and one that Paul Stokes and I were chewing the cud over earlier this week. We have been asked to update our chapter for the second edition of Coaching and Mentoring Supervision and Practice on this very topic. We found the absolute paucity of new research and interest in mentor supervision very disappointing.
As coaches and mentors, we encourage those we support to write their journal, diaries, or thoughts of the day that has gone or thoughts on the day to come. Susan Dennis explores a simple technique to introduce people to the benefits of journaling.
What do languishing lettuce, ‘side hustles’, career transition and the catalyst of Covid-19 have in common? Read on and find out how the current pandemic may be the trigger to reassess your working life and future post lockdown.
We are now into the fourth week of Covid-19 lockdown in the UK, but already it is obvious our old ‘normal’ has gone and will not return. I have previously explored how mentoring interventions can support the transitions that individuals’ experience as they engage with this new world. However, in this article I will consider how internal coaching and mentoring can actually improve individual’s ability to reinvent and adapt both themselves and their organisations to thrive in the future. Continue reading
A quarter of the world’s population is now in lockdown. Lis Merrick explores the situation and offers a perspective on what employers can do in this extraordinary chaos. Exploring mentoring through the lens of William Bridges’ Model of Managing Transitions1, she proposes the greatest gift an employer can give at this time is a mentor to support through these incredulous changes in our lives caused by the Covid-19 virus.
In the first of our series of blogs for International Women’s Day 2019, here are some ideas to use in briefing male mentors to mentor in a female mentoring programme. Research shows there are pros and cons to using female and male mentors when mentoring your female talent. Some male mentors are just naturally brilliant when mentoring a woman. Others need a little more support to really blossom. Here are some ideas to support them: Continue reading
There are a number of factors to consider when matching mentors and mentees in a programme. Matching can get complicated at times when stakeholders in the scheme have very clear views of who the mentoring pairs should be. Matching criteria need to be in alignment with the purpose/business objective for the programme. If a senior leader wants to choose their own protégée to mentor, you may need to be tough and reinforce your matching criteria. So make sure you are clear what they are! Continue reading
