T HE

FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE NORTH WEST MENTORING SCHEME

THE

MENTOR NEWLSETTER FOR THE

(www.nwmentoring@nhs.uk)

The Case for Mentoring

Mentoring is a proven, cost-effective way of developing employees, offering benefits for mentee, mentor and organisation. In the book Everyone Needs a Mentor (Clutterbuck 2004), the range of successful schemes described include; e-mentoring in British Telecom, reverse mentoring in Procter & Gamble and mentoring as an aspect of a leadership programme in the Civil Service. In a later report (Clutterbuck Associates 2009) some of the benefits of mentoring are identified as: retention recruitment succession planning diversity management

It concludes that mentoring provides benefits to mentor, mentee, line manager and organisation for relatively little cost.

A study exploring benefits of formal mentoring for female leaders (International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 2009, Vol.7, No.2) revealed that as a consequence of involvement in a formal mentoring scheme participants experienced increased job satisfaction, career planning and perceived leader behaviour.

There is strong evidence of the positive benefits of mentoring within the NHS. The Challenging perceptions programme (The Modernisation Agency Leadership Centre, 2005) for female mental health nurses found that 90% of those mentees promoted within the duration of the leadership research programme attributed their promotion directly to the mentoring relationship, and 100% of the mentors believed their organisation would benefit from mentoring.

Evidence of success is based principally on the recipients own perceptions of the benefits rather than through empirical proof of changed behaviours. Despite this there is a growing awareness and support for mentoring. In an article for Healthcare Manager (coaching the leaders of tomorrow, 2010, issue 6) which featured the North West Mentoring Scheme, the staff development potential for mentoring in the NHS is recognised and the growing interest acknowledged. In the Health Service Journal (something to aspire to, 15 July 2010 page 22) the benefits to the wider organisation are explored, with advice on the best way to set up a scheme and the importance of establishing objectives. Measurement, against clear, set objectives is probably the most meaningful way such supports systems can be evaluated.

The CIPD 2009 report Taking the Temperature of Coaching identified coaching and mentoring as a tool for performance management, change and leadership development, along with talent management and employee engagement. However, while 80% of the 593 respondents surveyed evaluated their coaching and mentoring provision, only 3% use return on

investment (RPI) measures and 9% return on expectation (ROE) methods. Evidence gathering tends to be qualitative in nature due partly to the difficulty of separating mentoring from other influencing factors when measuring outcomes and the costs associated with the timescale required to conduct an effective study.

The body of circumstantial evidence that mentoring and coaching benefits an organisation is persuasive, but obtaining tangible proof is far more challenging. The advantages to the individual cannot be denied, which in itself should provide sufficient justification for a mentoring scheme. After all, if your employees are happier in their work there is inevitably a knock-on effect to service users.

Mentoring encourages, develops and fosters emotional intelligence which some psychologists claim contributes far more to general life success than cognitive ability or traditional academic intelligence. Higher levels of emotional intelligence are relevant in the workplace; people with a high EQ (emotional quotient similar to IQ) communicate more successfully, understand and build more effective teams and increase organisational commitment. High EQ leaders are more likely to inspire and generate optimism and enthusiasm in their organisations.

With the challenges facing the NHS, the case for mentoring is increasingly justified.