When is mentoring used

Mentors listen objectively and act as a sounding board. They ask questions that encourage mentees to look at issues from a variety of perspectives and focus on problem-solving, decision-making, and solutions. Mentors can prepare their mentees for professional careers and assist with their workplace skills.

Mentoring can make a profound difference to the lives of mentees, and in turn strengthen our communities, economy, and country. Young people with mentors, especially at-risk youth, have more positive visions of themselves and their futures. They also achieve more positive outcomes in school, the workplace, and their communities. T he national hub for the youth mentoring sector in New Zealand. Exploring career mentoring and coaching Start this free course now.

Free course Exploring career mentoring and coaching. Long description. Activity 3 Which mentoring stage? Timing: Allow about 15 minutes. Nick has a mentor called Alison. She is in a very senior role and hardly ever available. Sue is very happy to have Louise as a mentor. They get on well and meet regularly. Although they are very clear on what they expect from each other in terms of the relationship, Sue feels she needs help to set some goals and progress.

Parminder has been working with her mentor, Andrew, for 12 months. To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required.

Sign in or register. Interactive feature not available in single page view see it in standard view. Comment a. Sue and her mentor have successfully completed Phase 1 — rapport-building, and now they need to move towards direction-setting Phase 2. This role includes helping the learner to clarify their goals, or their learning style. The mentor may also help the learner to reflect on their experience and draw out learning.

They may also be able to provide the learner with theoretical models to support their learning, such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicators and the Ladder of Inference.

As will be clear from our pages What is Coaching? Coaching requires a belief that the learner holds the key to their own problems, and a willingness to help them explore the issue including supporting thinking and experimenting with new ways of working.

The mentor may use counselling skills such as active listening , reflecting and clarifying to help the learner to gain insight into their own processes.

The mentor may also take on a counsellor role if it becomes clear that the learner is struggling with an internal block to their thinking. However, there are limits to how far this role should be taken, see our page Counselling Skills for more on the role of the counsellor. This is a role that is often used when someone is new to an organisation, during an induction period for example. The mentor helps the learner to develop their understanding quickly, or to support their ongoing career development.

In this case, the mentor becomes a valuable source of information, and not just a sounding board. The mentor may also share his or her experience to help the learner to understand a particular work situation.

This role, interestingly, is the one that requires least effort from the mentor, because it is usually about how they behave naturally. The learner may have been attracted to them as a mentor because of the way that they handle certain situations. The learner will therefore learn from watching how the mentor behaves, both in the mentoring relationship and beyond. Organisations can utilise mentoring for a wide range of purposes, and there are different types of mentoring that can help achieve different objectives.

So if you're looking to start a mentoring program , it can be hard to know where to begin. In this guide we'll explain firstly the different uses of mentoring, and then the different types of mentoring you can use to achieve them.

Immediately, we have the difference of formal and informal mentoring. Informal mentoring is a mentoring relationship that evolves organically, almost like a friendship. Colleagues, family members and friends can all be informal mentors; they are people you turn to for advice or to challenge you.

In contrast, formal mentoring is typically an organised program which matches people with mentors who can help them towards a goal or target. Formal mentoring in organisations is naturally more fair and inclusive, as it relies less on senior managers or teachers 'taking a shine' to individuals and favouriting them.

We know that mentoring has many benefits for both the individuals involved and the organisation themselves. Problems such as employee turnover, engagement and satisfaction can all be improved through an effective mentoring program. But as well as this, mentoring can be used for a wide range of purposes within organisations.