Tab Content: Becoming a mentor

Becoming a mentor

The primary requirement of a mentor is to have a desire to support and develop others to benefit themselves and the University. Be honest with yourself – is this something that you want to do and can commit to doing?

It is important that both parties are clear of what the other expects. Different or unrealistic expectations can be the cause of the mentoring relationship failing or problems arising, so the clearer you both are at the start the better.

Role of the mentor

As a mentor your role is to help your mentee to find their own solutions rather than tell them what to do. You need to commit to regular meetings and encourage the mentee to drive the relationship by planning meetings dates and topics to discuss, so that the relationship is productive.

What makes a good mentor

A good mentor, has certain experiences and qualities, ask your self “Do I …”.

• have a strong desire to help others to grow and develop?
• understand the University and how it works (formally and informally), know and understand the key players.
• have any Leadership and Management experience and success.

Time commitment and practicalities

You also need to consider the practicalities of being a mentor. You will be the experienced one in the mentoring relationship, and there are some practical considerations required in order to optimise the return on your and the mentee’s time. Before you agree to mentor anyone, make sure that you can:

• Make yourself available and accessible to your mentee. You will contract to meet every so often and you should ensure that you can honour that commitment.
• Provide some initial structure to the mentoring relationship, particularly where the mentee is relatively inexperienced. For example, you may ask them to identify some objectives which they wish to achieve and ask them to suggest a review and evaluation process to monitor ongoing progress.
• Follow through on any actions you pickup in your meetings, thereby demonstrating to the mentee your commitment and your professionalism: ‘do as I do’ is a good motto for the mentor.

The duration of the mentoring relationship is determined by the mentor and the mentee and it is a good idea to be clear of the expected duration at the outset. A mentoring relationship should only remain in place while it remains fresh and useful, to the satisfaction of both parties. As a guide, mentoring relationships are established normally for a minimum of 6 months and usually last for 12 months, after which a decision is made as to whether or not to continue. In exceptional circumstances, mentoring relationships can last throughout a career.

The exact type of support and frequency of meetings between a mentor and mentee is again something for both parties to determine at the outset. As a guide, a monthly interaction between mentor and mentee of approximately an hour is common but may change during the course of the relationship and may vary depending on the aims of the relationship.

It is important to discuss this with your line manager or PDR reviewer, as part of ongoing PDR discussions, and to decide together whether this is an appropriate activity for you to be involved in.

Tab Content: Becoming a mentee

Becoming a mentee

Mentoring has the capacity to support you with a variety of scenarios, i.e. career planning and development, learning and developing new skills, coping with a significant change, gaining a wider perspective of the University to name a few.

Before you embark on a new mentoring relationship it is important to take some time to consider why you need a mentor and what you hope to achieve through a mentoring relationship.

Choosing a Mentor

Once you and your line manager have agreed what your development needs are and that mentoring is the best activity to achieve these needs, you then need to select an appropriate mentor.

You may already have someone in mind, in which case you can approach them directly or simply ask your line manager to make an introduction.

When a potential mentor has been identified, it is a good idea to contact them and arrange to have an informal meeting to explore whether they can support your development needs. This will give you both the opportunity to discuss your expectations of the mentoring relationship. You should also discuss how a mentoring relationship might work in terms of frequency of meetings, expectations (yours and theirs) and how long you anticipate working together overall.

Try to be open to working with someone who has a different style and approach to you. You might feel most comfortable working with someone who you feel is similar to you, but ask yourself how much you will learn from them.

Starting the mentoring relationship

It is important that you spend time at your first meeting to agree mentoring guidelines. This is a set of ground rules which cover how you both agree to engage in the relationship as well as what you want to achieve overall. (A blank template is available.) The clearer you and your mentor are about each others’ expectations, the more likely the mentoring relationship will be successful.

The contract is confidential and not shared with anyone else, and the template provided is just a guide.

As the mentee, it is your responsibility to ‘own’ the relationship. This means arranging regular meetings and preparing for them by thinking about what you want to discuss and achieve overall and at each meeting. Be specific rather than generic about issues that you are currently facing. The aim of the meetings is to agree action that you will then carry out rather than to have a chat or moan!

Practicalities and time commitment

The duration of the mentoring relationship is determined by the mentor and the mentee and it is a good idea to be clear of the expected duration at the outset. A mentoring relationship should only remain in place while it remains fresh and useful, to the satisfaction of both parties. As a guide, mentoring relationships are established normally for a minimum of 6 months and usually last for 12 months, after which a decision is made as to whether or not to continue. In exceptional circumstances, mentoring relationships can last throughout a career

The exact type of support and frequency of meetings between a mentor and mentee is again something for both parties to determine at the outset. As a guide, a monthly interaction between mentor and mentee of approximately an hour is common but may change during the course of the relationship and may vary depending on the aims of the relationship.

It is important to discuss this with your line manager or PDR reviewer, as part of ongoing PDR discussions, and to decide together whether mentoring is the most appropriate activity to support this development need or whether some other form of development would be a better option.