Course for mentor in the sector of eco-industry

Re. 1. Has the organisation had any experience within the scope of mentoring in the past?
Re. 2. What form (forms) of mentoring are preferred in your organisation?

If in the past the organisation had the mentoring programmes conducted, it would be worth to start from a deep analysis of documents (e.g. design documentation, evaluation reports) or from talks with persons who were implementing those programmes or who participated in them – a part of them is surely still in the organisation and they would constitute a valuable source of information.

STEP 1. As the organisation, do we have any experience connected with mentoring?
If yes, at this stage it is worth to answer auxiliary questions concerning the following issues:

• What mentoring purposes has the organisation determined, have those purposes been successfully accomplished (are we generally able to assess whether the assumed purposes are accomplished)?
• What was the mentoring form?
• Were the process participants (mentors and mentees) satisfied with the process? If not, what comments did they have?

Thanks to (documentation and human) resources analysed in such a way, we will acquire information on what was a success and what were weak points of previous mentoring.

If not, it is worth to think why mentoring has not been implemented in the organisation so far and what has changed that currently the mentoring process is about to be started.

STEP 2. Mentoring form
Nowadays, mentoring has usually several forms, each of which has its specificity, strengths and weaknesses. The table below sums up the main mentoring forms.

Mentoring form	Short description
Individual mentoring	It is defined also as traditional mentoring The most popular mentoring form One mentee works with one mentor In this approach, mentoring is based on a deep relationship and related to programming of the mentee's success
Group mentoring	One mentor works with several persons Meetings have the seminar form Learning in a bigger group allows for the exchange of knowledge and experience
Intermentoring	A type of mentoring, where free exchange of the master's and the learner's role occurs, allowing for the full use of resources that employees have at their disposal – employees learn from each other, support each other and develop themselves Here, the mentor is also the learner, while the learner – the mentor in a specific area of knowledge and skills It may take place in the one-to-one relation, but also in the group Balance between providing and receiving support constitutes a great value of this mentoring type
E-mentoring	Nowadays, most mentoring relations have at least partially the e-mentoring form, however it is important that this form is not exploited Contact between mentors and mentees occurs with use of IT tools It allows for a wide exchange of experience among the programme participants (even globally), without time limitation (platforms of this type may be applied any time from any place) For the organisation, it is a cheaper and more comfortable mentoring form than the traditional one

Source: own development based on: Mentoring w praktyce polskich przedsiębiorstw. Analiza danych i dokumentów zastanych (desk-research), Polskie Stowarzyszenie Mentoringu, 2013, https://badania.parp.gov.pl/files/74/75/726/19443.pdf, p. 7-12

An analysis of available mentoring forms should end with indication of mentoring forms (or form, if we decide that it shall be just one) to be implemented in the organisation.