Is mentoring a remedy for all? Judie Gannon and Rhianon Washington report on the initial results of their research into formal mentoring schemes
A previous Research Matters article in this magazine (The Forgotten Custodians, Vol 2, issue 3, 2017) we identified and lamented the absence of research on the role of mentoring scheme and coaching programme coordinators and managers, despite the growth in formal programmes of these developmental relationships.
In relation to organised formal mentoring specifically, several studies have suggested formal mentoring relationships are less efficacious than informal mentoring (Inzer & Crawford, 2005; Desimone et al, 2014; Menges, 2016). The studies purporting the limited effectiveness of formal mentoring compared to its informal mentoring counterpart, suggest a realm of reasons for this outcome.
These reasons, however, focus specifically on the characteristics of mentors or mentees and seldom draw on the nature of the mentoring advocated, the ways mentoring schemes are managed, or the knowledge and skills of those managing them. Our lack of understanding of the nature, scale and management of formal mentoring schemes is a crucial oversight. This omission prompted the research undertaken.
The limited focus on coaching programmes or mentoring schemes instigated the development of the STAMINa Mentoring Network (http://bit.ly/2ouTXFh), led by one of the authors (Gannon) at Oxford Brookes University’s International Centre for Coaching & Mentoring Studies and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Account Award scheme.
The network aims to understand more about formal programmes of mentoring and coaching and generate case studies and resources that could be shared to support the work of coordinators and managers. Securing subsequent funding has encouraged us to undertake research on formal mentoring, specifically with the aim of understanding how prevalent formal mentoring is, the forms of mentoring adopted and how mentoring schemes are designed and managed.
Using the seminal work of Penny Abbott and colleagues in South Africa (Abbott, Goosen & Coetzee, 2010) the Formal Mentoring Scheme survey has been available for completion by mentoring scheme coordinators and managers since February 2019 and remained open on the STAMINa Network website until late July 2019.
Results snapshot
The initial results have been fascinating and indicate how formal mentoring is evident in a wide range of guises. Across a variety of organisations and sectors, formal mentoring is used to support the following: personal, business or leadership development, diversity and inclusivity agendas, socialisation and induction, career transitions, rehabilitation, retention, workplace culture enhancement, return to work, community engagement, social enterprise and entrepreneurial activity, retirement and employability.
In open responses to the survey, the challenges of prioritising one purpose for schemes was mentioned, where coordinators felt their initiatives covered multiple rationales. For example, supporting career transitions for specific ethnic groups disadvantaged within a profession or young people facing educational and employment challenges.
The interim results also indicate that more than half the formal mentoring schemes responding have a long heritage, though this level of endurance might have been challenged along the way. The oldest scheme dated back to 1995 and nearly 50% had been operating more than five years. Overall duration of schemes was just under seven years in these interim results.
However, the open questions indicated some of the challenges behind these suggestions of longevity, including comments regarding occasional gaps in provision due to funding or resourcing issues, and reboots to bolster schemes. Nearly one-third of respondents mentioned the value of piloting their mentoring schemes ahead of full launches.
When respondents were asked to select their main form of mentoring, traditional one-to-one dyadic mentoring was clearly the most prevalent form of mentoring relationship adopted, with nearly two-thirds selecting this option. However, peer mentoring and e-mentoring were selected by nearly a quarter of respondents.
Group, reverse and speed mentoring were all represented too. Once again open responses to the survey highlight the complexity and nuance in forms of mentoring where respondents pinpointed that different forms of mentoring were used at different stages of their schemes. For example, speed mentoring may be used as a precursor to one-to-one mentoring, or the latter can be mixed with e-mentoring and group mentoring. The emergence of diverse forms of mentoring appear from these interim results to suggest that mentoring scheme coordinators are mixing and matching forms to engage their participants across the duration of their schemes.
Securing funding
The funding sources for the formal mentoring schemes were diverse and ranged from secured parts of budgets in human resource management or learning and development departments to membership fees, mentee fees, corporate donations or sponsorship, EU and government funding to no funding, where schemes were run on entirely voluntary resources and services.
Nearly half of respondents mentioned struggles with securing consistent funding and resourcing for their schemes and recognised the contribution most mentors made in providing pro-bono support. Funding insecurity alongside the challenges of managing volunteer mentors perturbed many respondents and the research team is following up on these insights with semi-structured interviews to glean more about how different coordinators manage these pressures.
Virtual mapping
Alongside the data collected we’ve also compiled a virtual map of formal mentoring schemes so that mentoring scheme coordinators can connect with like-minded practitioners – maybe those running schemes in similar sectors, for example, with young people, or in specific occupational or professional settings.
It also offers the opportunity for coordinators and managers to reach out to others who are geographically close and who may be keen to share ideas or resources, or even tackle mentoring recruitment issues in their location.
This snapshot of the interim results provides valuable insights into the world of formal mentoring schemes, and the complete report from the study is available this month (September).
The full report delves into further details on formal mentoring scheme management, including training, matching and evaluation as well as exploring the nature of the mentoring scheme coordinators who juggle mentoring scheme management.
About the authors
Dr Judie Gannon is a senior lecturer at Oxford Brookes Business School
jmgannon@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Rhianon Washington is a researcher at Oxford Brookes Business School
rwashington@brookes.ac.uk
References
- P Abbott, X Goosen and J Coetzee, ‘Developing and supporting coordinators of structured mentoring schemes in South Africa’, in SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 8(1), 2010
- L M Desimone, E D Hochberg, A C Porter, M S Polikoff, R Schwartz and L J Johnson, ‘Formal and informal mentoring: Complementary, compensatory, or consistent?’, in Journal of Teacher Education, 65(2), 88-110, 2014
- L D Inzer and C B Crawford, ’A review of formal and informal mentoring: Processes, problems, and design’, in Journal of Leadership Education, 4(1), 31-50, 2005
- C Menges, ‘Toward improving the effectiveness of formal mentoring programs: Matching by personality matters’, in Group & Organization Management, 41(1), 98-129, 2016