Flexible, simple and individually led: these are the hallmarks of learning disability charity Mencap’s mentoring scheme. Head of learning and development, Alton Hobbs, talks to Liz Hall
Mencap’s mentoring scheme is one of the largest for an organisation the size of the charity, which employs around 8,500 staff and some 800 volunteers, most of whom work to support people with a learning disability to live their everyday lives.
The mentoring initiative, now in its third year, forms a key part of the organisation’s top talent programme, designed to help staff fulfil their potential and reach their aspirations. It has seen 45 per cent of its participants gain promotion, more posts filled internally, is considered the most important aspect of the talent programme, and 80 per cent of mentors continue from one year to another, head of learning and development, Alton Hobbs, told delegates at Coaching at Work’s annual conference on 2 July.
The talent programme was developed following the introduction in 2011 of a new internal performance appraisal process based on a more “person-centred approach”, explains Hobbs.
Called Shape Your Future, the new approach had several innovative aspects. Each job was given a new profile describing its five key roles, and included clear descriptions of the expected performance levels within each.
In addition, staff were put in the driving seat, appraising their own performance to discuss it with line managers.
“We try to put things as much as possible in the hands of the mentees who, after all, are our rising stars. The whole talent programme has been built around the aspirations of the individual; it’s up to them which bits they want to do,” says Hobbs.
“It’s [now] much more driven by the employees themselves, exploring how they meet the requirements of their roles, all based on having good conversations with their managers,” he continues.
The new process saw staff receiving an end-of-year rating based on their performance against the following agreed standards: Does Not Meet; Achieves; Exceeds and Top Talent (2.5 per cent).
“Once we had that appraisal process, we wanted to design a talent programme to support these top people. A big part of this is the mentoring programme.”
Once on the talent programme, high fliers are offered a mentor for a year. In addition, they are offered other opportunities, including internal and external coaching, shadowing and also placements internally to try out different roles.
More than 80 internal mentors have been recruited and trained, mentoring some 150 top talent.
Hobbs says: “We kept the criteria pretty open. We wanted keen and interested people who wanted to learn as much as they wanted to help other people learn…we wanted to go where the energy was.”
However, as guidelines, the following key mentor attributes were identified:
Someone who is focused on developing themselves and others
A real curiosity about people and human behaviour
Good communication skills
Confident in one-to-ones
A reputation for honesty, integrity, authenticity (ie, demonstrating Mencap values in practice)
Willingness to make time
(even when busy)
Both specialist and life experience.
The mentoring scheme was designed with the help of Clutterbuck Associates. Hobbs explains that if we consider a mentoring spectrum, with sponsorship mentoring on the right: (mentor as sponsor; mentor directs mentee and sets agenda; no two-way learning; mentor promotes mentee fully by publicising and ‘pushing’ them; relationship supports mentor and mentee’s career development); and on the left, developmental mentoring: (mentor as guardian/role model; power parked in mentoring relationships; two-way learning occurs; mentor supports mentee through own network and ‘signposting’ activities; relationship focuses on developing mentee’s capability and potential), Mencap’s scheme sits in the middle, leaning towards the left.
“We chose the middle because we wanted [the scheme] to be part of our talent management programme, but it is moving to the left-hand side into more
of a developmental approach,” says Hobbs.
Clutterbuck Associates delivered training to both mentors and mentees. It also offered a support call to mentors once every two months.
The training covered: the concept of mentoring; roles and responsibilities; putting the concept into practice; how the relationship develops; required behaviours; what happens in
the first meeting, and what happens next.
“David Clutterbuck was very generous with his time and very keen on getting us to the point of being self-sufficient. In Years 1 and 2, we had lots of support from Clutterbuck Associates, but the idea was to upscale by Year 3, so we were doing lots of the training ourselves,” says Hobbs.
Hobbs started working for Mencap in 2005 as a trainer. He has since held a number of posts within learning and development, moving into his current role in 2013, in which he is responsible for all staff and volunteer learning and development. Prior to Mencap, Hobbs worked as a learning and development specialist for NHS Direct and has also worked in the field of sexual health promotion.
The talent programme was set up by Sara Sheard, head of organisational development, and is now managed by Hobbs.
A range of communication and tools were sent out beforehand, including mentoring contracts and first and final meeting agendas.
Hobbs says a number of guiding rules were developed for matching, including:
Mentor always more senior
Mentor does not need to work in same department as mentee
Mentors and mentees complete a questionnaire
Each mentee matched with a choice of three mentors and asked to choose preferences
After final matching, training for both parties was combined with the launch and celebration day for the talent programme (delivered by Clutterbuck and Hobbs)
Mentees were then offered their choice of three mentors.
Evaluation
Reports were produced after each set of meetings, which helped to evaluate and monitor the programme. An online survey was carried out at six months, a focus group at eight months and a final online survey at the end. In addition, HR data is analysed.
Learning points
The organisation has learnt to be more flexible and informal as time has gone on.
“In the first year, we mandated that everyone had to have a mentor. We found that some people got real value out of it, while some people met a couple of times at the start then perhaps didn’t need to meet. So in the second year, we had a more informal approach,” says Sheard.
Administrative support has been shown to be important: “One of the things we’ve learnt is that you need lots of administrative support and chasing, particularly with a programme of this size….you get issues such as mentors leaving the organisation, so we need to help people get a different mentor,” says Hobbs.
“Another big learning was how we matched. In Year 1, we did it by the book and gathered lots of information, but we had too much of it. We’ve learnt to be flexible.”
In the first year, people were travelling up to 100 miles to meet their mentoring partner; now they travel locally because matching is more flexible.
Communication has been a challenge, but “if managers don’t understand the programme, this can be detrimental to the mentee”, says Hobbs.
“Communication is always a fun topic in large diverse organisations and we still struggle with it to an extent. We wanted everyone to understand in Year 1 [what was on offer] so we sent out lots of communications to people. Some read it, some didn’t, which was frustrating. So we put together one document showing everything – as less is more – but you can’t do it once and think it’s done,” says Hobbs.
“As in all organisations, there are always new people coming and going so it’s about trying to be heard above the noise,” he says.
The organisation tried using LinkedIn to promote the programme, but that didn’t really work. Twitter is proving more effective. Feedback at mid-point during this year’s programme is that managers are more aware of it.
Next steps
Mencap now plans to get some external volunteers from the corporate world to act as mentors.
“It works well if the mentor doesn’t do the same job. [Like coaching] it’s about asking questions and helping the mentee find their own answers. I had someone last year that wanted to work in the same field as me and it was difficult to avoid the trap of giving advice. I had a finance person saying, how can I mentor someone from the care side – but it works really well,” says Hobbs.
“Like many organisations, it’s been difficult financially over the last year, but we’re still investing in leadership. We’ve done some work on reducing costs – in this tough climate we look at this as a nice-to-have – but we’re definitely continuing,” says Hobbs.
The programme is helping with succession planning, says Hobbs. Some 50 per cent of those who want to become managers have achieved that, he says, while it also helps with retention: “We’re quite often recruiting people. Everyone pays the same rates and anything that can make your organisation the place to go [is helpful],” says Hobbs.
This year, Hobbs jazzed up the launch of the programme, involving more senior managers too, and inviting people from previous schemes to talk about their experiences.
“It’s like the end of school year”, says Sheard. “[It’s] a celebration event and lots of fun, with people walking on ‘broken glass’ and juggling. Alton has given it a different feel, really buzzing.”
Key learning (from Year 2)
Be flexible around mentoring standards, eg, mentors can be in the same line management structure as mentee
Travel distance was an issue – this led to closer matches in Year 2
Matching process was too complex and took more than a day – better to base it on the knowledge of the people involved
Offer choice when matching is too complex. Year 2 offered one match, but also a way to ‘reject’ the pairing
More than one mentee is too much for most mentors
Too much paper-based communication. In Year 2, Mencap produced one guide, and ran telephone ‘webinars’ for managers of mentees and mentors
Training needs to be in smaller groups for mentors
Mentee training needs to be in small groups and separate from other events
Ongoing support needs to be more flexible, ie, support calls not mandated
Need to be more flexible about the number of meetings. It will vary depending on mentee and their needs
Monitoring and chasing needs a lot of administrative support
Providing a structure for the first meeting worked really well
Mentoring someone in a different department works best
Flexibility is needed between asking questions and giving advice – you need a bit of both
Face-to-face mentor meetings work much better than telephone calls
Meeting away from work is better for developing a good relationship
Mentors will leave the organisation or other things will happen during the year, so you need to be able to deal with this
Mentoring has proved very popular with Mencap’s mentors and mentees!
COACHING AT WORK, VOLUME 9, ISSUE 5