Mentoring

The benefits of having a mentor are:

• Mentors, as well as acting as a sounding board and offering impartial feedback, are experienced professionals who are willing and able to help others and who use their own professional experiences to help steer and support the mentee.
• Mentoring helps the mentee to explore their ideas, problems and opportunities; it can be particularly useful in situations where people feel there is a block to progress, a problem that keeps recurring or an opportunity they cannot work out how to exploit.
• Mentoring is of particular value for staff who are developing in new roles or who wish to develop themselves beyond their current role. Mentoring can also be beneficial for those in need of some expert insight and help during times of change or challenge.
• Mentoring has been identified as a key tool in providing a supportive environment to staff, in particular, it is recommended to improve engagement with under-represented groups.
• Becoming a mentee should be included as an objective and recognised in staff PDRs.

As a mentor, you will have the opportunity to:

• Share valuable knowledge based on your own experience
• Develop your coaching, communication and leadership skills
• Improve your understanding of issues and barriers experienced by staff
• Motivate and support someone to fulfil their potential
• Help someone in your field put their skills and experience to work.

As a mentor, you are able to help your mentee by:

• Improving their knowledge and skills
• Providing advice as a guide to successful job preparedness
• Acting as a confidante – a personal and professional sounding board
• Sharing your networks and professional contacts
• Supporting your mentee to develop and maintain greater confidence and well-being
• Helping them to realise their full potential and progress their career
• Providing improved performance and productivity.

The mentor and mentee should respect each other’s time and other responsibilities, ensuring that they do not impose beyond what is reasonable. The frequency, length, and venue for meetings are mutually agreed, along with the level and means of contact between meetings.

It is suggested the partnership last for an agreed time period, whereupon both parties can review the relationship and objectives to take a decision whether to continue or to terminate the arrangement. Both mentor and mentee have shared responsibility for winding down the partnership once it has achieved its purpose. 

We would recommend that mentoring relationships do not exceed 6-12 months.

New mentors should book on and attend the earliest possible University Mentoring skills training.

Mentors: If, for any reason, you are not able to attend this session before you meet your mentee, please ensure you use our resources on this page, and the mentor videos and resources within PLD, before you have your first mentoring meeting.

Mentees: You should access a host of resources within PLD to ensure you get the best out of your mentoring experience.

Resources

• UOE Staff Mentor Handbook
• Top Tips for Mentoring 
• Mentoring Skills Skillbook
• Alternatively, search the numerous resources on LearnSmart.

Additional Reading

• Heron's 6 categories of intervention
• Plous, S. (1993) The Psychology of Judgement and Decision-Making. London: McGraw-Hill.
• Berne, Eric. (1964). The games people play. Penguin.
• Transactional Analysis
• An example of foundation NLP: Molden, D. (1996). Managing with the power of NLP. London: Pitman.
• Navarro, J. (2008) What every body is saying. Harper Collins.
• Brown, D. (2007). Tricks of the mind. Channel 4 books.
• Golman, D. (1995) Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam books.
• Howard-Jones, P. & McGurk, J. (2014). Fresh thinking in learning and development Part 1 of 3: Neuroscience and learning. CIPD: Research Report. London.
• Watkins and Mhor (2001), Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination. Jossey-Bass, Pfieffer.
• Richardson, L & St Pierre, E. (2005). Writing: A method of inquiry In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed., pp. 959-978). London: Sage
• Megginson, D. and Clutterbuck, D. (2014). Techniques for coaching and mentoring. London: Routledge.
• Alred, G. Garvey, B. and Smith, R (1998). The Mentoring Pocketbook. Management Pocketbooks.
• Allen, J. (2004). Revealing the power of mentoring. The Centre for mentoring

Although PLD is primarily a scheme focused on enhancing staff development, as a mentoring relationship progresses it may become apparent that engaging with other sources of support would be beneficial. Below is a list of resources and services available to support staff wellbeing in addition to their mentoring relationship.

Wellbeing

The University of Exeter has a wealth of internal resources aimed at supporting staff wellbeing, which mentors can signpost to, or engage with themselves:

• Spectrum Life - A confidential counselling and support service for the University of Exeter. This free service is offered to University of Exeter staff members, postgraduate students and family members who live at the same address as staff members and postgraduate students.
• Staff Wellbeing Resources
• Occupational Health
• Flexible working for Education & Scholarship and Education & Research employees
• HR Business Partners and Advisors

Protecting Staff Dignity and Respect

• Dignity and Respect Advisors
• Trade Union representatives
• Gender Equality
• Athena SWAN
• The University also has a Mediation Service. Mediation is an informal, structured process in which an independent, impartial, third party (a mediator), helps people in a disagreement to create for themselves a way forward in a dispute or other conflict situation.

Supporting Parents and Carers

Key internal resources available to staff who are, or are about to become, parents and/or carers:

• Key information for parents and carers
• Parents and Carers Networks
• Teaching time restriction applications

Please note there is a set of FAQs once you are logged in to PLD but here are some useful points before you log in for the first time.

What is the maximum number of people I can mentor ? Mentors can mentor up to 3 people. You can mark yourself as unavailable at any point if your preference is lower than this though and you may decline mentee requests at any time should you wish.

What is the maximum number of mentors I can access as a mentee at the same time?

Mentees can access up to 2 mentors simultaneously on the system should they wish.

What email address should I use to create my PLD account?

Please use your university email address as the weblink to the platform will use SSO in order to log in.

What happens if I was a mentor/mentee in SUMAC our previous system?

We no longer have SUMAC. The two systems are entirely different, therefore we are unable to transfer profile information to the new platform. We politely request that you register for PLD using the link on this page. Registration and profile completion is very quick and easy and we hope you enjoy the new system.

I am an academic staff member, how does mentoring fit into my SWARM hours?

The academic workload principles are that activities such as mentoring are included within the Leadership and Citizenship time allocation. The amount of time used in mentoring will very much depend on the agreed mentoring relationship and staff should manage their level of commitment alongside other activity in leadership and citizenship.