Course for mentor in the sector of eco-industry

Re. 10. How training needs of the mentoring participants shall be defined?
Re. 11. What is the role and responsibility of mentors and mentees?
Re. 12. Are there principles in the organisation and are respective policies introduced to support the programme implementation? How the confidence policy is implemented?

Training needs of the mentoring participants may be defined e.g. with use of the following tools:

• diagnosis of needs conducted by an external party (department staff, e.g. HR or external expert) based on the competence test (with possibility of comparing to the competence model for a given position in the organisation, if developed)
• self-diagnosis of needs conducted by a potential mentee based on the competence test or with use of SWOT analysis (with possibility of comparing to the competence model for a given position in the organisation, if developed)
• with use of the GROW model (goal/goals is/are defined at the first stage of this model).

GROW model is a tool applied in mentoring to plan the process both for the organisation and for individual mentees.
Its name GROW constitutes an acronym indicating four significant elements of the model. At work on development (among others with use of mentoring), the following elements should be considered:

• GOAL – define a goal
• REALITY – diagnose reality
• OPTIONS – define options
• WILL / WHAT'S NEXT? – make a decision and establish a plan

GOAL is a purpose, vision of the desired state for which the mentee wants to head. The mentee's support in the establishment of valuable, ambitious and achievable goals constitutes one of the most important and difficult tasks of the mentor.
A well-formulated mentoring goal (goals) should meet the SMART filter requirements: it should be specific, measurable, agreed, realistic and time-bound (more about filters and methods of goal establishment in the context of learning outcome assessment in the module M2_JM_05)

REALITY – current situation of the mentee, in its assessment the SWOT analysis may be useful, particularly in the context of diagnosing internal and external barriers.

OPTIONS – review of possibilities of action, which shall make goal accomplishment possible. There may appear many possibilities of action and this stage results in generation of the highest number of alternative solutions. At this stage, a number of possibilities is more important than quality and feasibility of each of them. A specific method of action shall be selected from among this wide base of creative possibilities.

WILL / WHAT'S NEXT? – development of an action plan. At this stage actions that must be taken to achieve the assumed goals should be phased. So it should be defined from what we shall start, what would the following steps be, whether there may appear some barriers (what?), what help we expect and need? who can support us at pursuit of the goal? At this stage, strengthening the mentee's motivation constitutes the mentor's long-term task.

Boths goals and thr role and responsibility of mentors and mentees should be included in the mentoring contract. Contract means an agreement (oral or written) concluded by and between the mentor and the mentee that governs their mutual expectations and concerns principles on which their relationship is to be based. The mentor shall be responsible for the contract initiation.

In the mentor-mentee system, three areas of contract may be regarded:

• organisation, procedural (principles related to a "technical" aspect of meetings – determination of their place and dates, duration, use of phone and e-mail contact forms)
• content-related, professional (appointment of goals and subjects of meetings according to the mentor's specific competencies)
• psychological (establishment of principles developing the sense of security of both sides – mutual respect, honesty, confidentiality of the course of meetings, right to have different views, etc.)

Contract should be included in the following items:

1. Explanation of a purpose of mentoring and the mentor's role
2. Motives followed by the mentor
3. Explanation of work methods (e.g. reference to the Kolb's cycle)
4. Establishment of the principles of cooperation (organisation of the process, principles of communication)
5. Information on significance of feedback
6. Provision of confidence (including reference to the confidentiality policy and legal requirements within this scope) and ethical issues (reference fo the organisation's code of ethics, if developed).

Apart from the organisation's codes of ethics, mentors' codes of ethics are also important. They include principles and rules within the scope of tasks performed within the scope of implementing mentoring programmes. Codes of ethics govern the mentors' work usually on three layers: customer care, personal principles, professional relationships.

The developed contract should be approved by both sides, it should be concluded at the beginning and verify on following meetings (mentoring sessions) whether at the beginning and on following meetings the established principles require modification.
At the process planning stage, it should be indicated who is responsible for the contract preparation (there happen mentoring processes, in which the first task is for the mentee and their result is discussed with the mentor). There may occur a situation when the organisation, in which the mentoring process is conducted, develops the contract model. It is either the contract model for individual mentees or the contract model composed of two parts – the first one is constituted by goals of the organisation that are to be accomplished in the mentoring process, the second one is an individual contract model (templated) to be completed by mentees.

The role and responsibility of mentors and mentees depend also on a method of selection of the mentor-mentee pairs. Pair selection may occur as follows:

• the mentee selects the mentor on its own – responsibility for a good match rests on participants, HR Department supports the process within the administrative scope, selection process is quick and corresponds with the mentee's real needs,
• selection based on the compliance of competence, application of this method guarantees that the mentor has appropriate competence and experience compatible with the mentee's developmental goals, the need for involvement of third parties (sometimes external experts – necessity of taking care of ensuring confidentiality and application of legal regulations concerning confidentiality, especially if a person from outside the organisation is hired for the pair selection process),
• selection based on character compliance and needs of the mentee, in this case responsibility for pair selection entirely rests on a responsible person (project coordinators), it is a time-consuming process, but ensuring match on the level of values and beliefs, allows for quicker accomplishment of goals.