Planning Mentoring Program Homework 2 Answer

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Question :

Assessment TaskEssay: Planning a mentoring program
ScheduleTBC
Learning Outcome Alignment2 & 3
Competency Element Alignment2 & 3
Length2000 words maximum, excluding attachments
Value (% of 100 overall unit marks)30

Description and requirements

1.     Establish and explain a process that an organisation or entity may use to effectively plan, implement and evaluate a mentoring strategy.  Explain how import it is, from both the business and the individual participants’ perspectives, that the strategy creates the opportunity for mentoring relationships to build rapport, mutual trust and teamwork.

Note:  Be sure to use academic and professional sources to establish current thinking, practice or tools that may apply to each stage in the process you have chosen to use. The essay may be based on a real or simulated organisation and their mentoring needs.
On approval from your course coordinator or unit lecturer this topic may be extended to cover coaching instead of mentoring.
 

This is an academic essay.  See the essay assessment criteria sheet on the following page for information about the criteria and the standards by which your work will be judged. You should use at least twelve relevant academic references when addressing this assessment. At least half should be new references beyond those provide with your Study Guide and readings.

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Answer :

Introduction 

Mentoring is considered a process of helping the other person develop relevant skills and attributes to achieve their respective goals and objectives. It is found to be a selfless process that acknowledges an individual's potential to work more effectively (Hansford et al., 2012). In this regard, this essay aims towards echoing a process that an organisation can use to plan, implement, and evaluate a mentoring strategy effectively. It will also include segments based on learning styles, roles and responsibilities of mentor and mentee, and a plan of effective communication. Lastly, this essay will conclude with strategies to establish effective teamwork and mutual trust between the mentor and mentee. 

What is mentoring?

Mentoring is defined as a process of training participants to develop them into a better version. While this process is selfless, it also helps the mentee to seek advice whenever required. That is why it is often echoed loud that the mentee's skill and knowledge set flourishes when it gets aligned with the mentor's skills and experiences (Menges, 2016). In this regard, the mentoring processes and programs are aligned with the individual's developmental areas who are taking participation. Thus, mentoring ensures that employees can reinvent themselves in areas associated with respective loopholes. 

Overview of the mentoring plan 

The mentoring program and processes focus on developing and helping participants who are seeking help. In this regard, the Effective Mentoring Program (EMP) will be opted to align mentoring sessions for the participants (Jones and Goble, 2012). An EMP program encourages the participants to develop various skills that might help them achieve their professional goals. It also helps to process relevant knowledge and information learning methods that might help the professional reinvent their characteristics. 

The mentoring program in this regard will be designed so that the people associated with it will get exposure to advanced skill sets and knowledge transfer processes. This will follow a two-way process that will include both the mentee's responses, communication, and mentor (Reagan, 2013). Through this EMP mentoring program, various areas will be acknowledged.  These will include guidance as per the performances, transfer of information and knowledge, support for learning, motivation and inspiration, and career advancement support. In this context, the mentoring session will guide the expected results. It will also provide organisational principles that might help the participant seek what the culture requires. The EMP program will also include a specific segment for acknowledging the mentor's skills and experiences (Eller et al., 2014). For this purpose, the program will include a timeframe for interaction between mentee and mentor as well. 

Additionally, it will include expected outcomes such as specific goals and visions, operational structure, and smooth working of the program with effective feedback systems. In this regard, the EMP program will include the organisation, mentors, mentees, team coordinators, staff members, competitors, affiliating organisations, target niche, and other similar facilitating partners (Callahan, 2016). The EMP mentoring program will also require certain tools and resources to sanction the mentoring session's effective working and output. The tools and resources in this regard will include brochures and pamphlets, rules and regulations, online and offline support, plan of action, duration and timeframes (DuBois and Karcher, 2013). Lastly, the multiple modes and methods to effectively pull out the session will include interactions based on a day-to-day basis, weekly basis, bi-weekly basis, and monthly basis. 

Components of the mentoring plan

Concerning the proposed mentoring plan, the components will include six major elements. These include the purpose, communication, trust, processes driven, progression, and feedback system. The mentoring session aims to influence the participants to work and develop certain skill sets to support career aims and objectives. That is why communication as a component will play an essential role in the EMP program (Allen and Poteet, 2010). Communication is perhaps essential whenever a mentoring session comes into action because it opens breaches to develop certain characteristics. That is why the mentoring session should be a two-way process and effective communication so that the possibilities of misconception could be potentially avoided.

Similarly, trust as a component for the mentoring plan will play an essential role in developing understanding between the mentee and the mentor (Eller et al., 2014). No relationship could be developed if the component of trust does not exist. Trust leads to effective input and output of the mentoring session and, thus, helps dignify both the individuals' roles and responsibilities associated with the process. 

Further, the process-driven as a component of the mentoring plan will ensure that both formal and informal approaches lie under the same roof. While the formal approach helps maintain dignity, the informal approach helps build an effective relationship between the mentee and the mentor. Similarly, the progression as a component will reflect effective vision derived from respective periodical programs (Connor and Pokora, 2012). This will help in achieving potential outcomes and progress of the participant through the mentoring sessions. Lastly, the feedback system will help both the mentee and the mentor evaluate areas where the loopholes require modifications. This enables the participants to develop constructive criticism and relationship with the mentor. 

Introduction to the learning style 

Experimental learning style should be acknowledged as the learning style of the ESP mentoring program. This suits perfectly for effectively planning, implementing, and evaluating a mentoring strategy. In this regard, the concept of an interpersonal learning program will also be acknowledged. For this purpose, Kolbe's learning cycle will help developing mutual trust and teamwork during the mentoring program (Smith, 2016). During this process, the roles and responsibilities of both the reflection from the mentor and mentee's end become essential so that the inputs and outputs could be driven more effectively. Through this way, an effective mentoring program could be processed so that the participants can achieve potential results in terms of developing skill sets. 

The requirement of an executive support 

Executive support is required to be acknowledged during the ESP mentoring session so that the evaluation of the leaders' roles and responsibilities can be evaluated. This is often used in the case of a coaching session scenario because it helps develop effective leadership skill sets (Shoukry and Cox, 2018). While coaching is a complex process, mentoring provides a gateway to develop leadership skills more effectively. This way, the chances of acknowledging effective teamwork could be achieved. The directions in which the executive support will be provided are associated with some crucial areas. These include the areas associated with managerial abilities, leadership abilities, and organised working abilities (Vikaraman et al., 2017). Through this way, the participants will get an opportunity to explore the chances of ensuring perfection, dedication, and goal-oriented working in the entire mentoring program.

Roles and responsibilities of a mentee 

Mentees are potentially supposed to receive proper guidance and feedback for their professional areas and career objectives. For this purpose, mentees' roles and responsibilities also become essential to seek active participation in the mentoring programs. In this regard, the mentees' responsibilities include staying in touch with the mentor regularly for receiving proper feedback and guidance (Byington, 2010). It also includes a responsibility to take active participation in all the sessions that the mentoring program offers. Simultaneously, the mentee is supposed to respect and value all the efforts putting forward by the mentor. In this regard, the mentee must maintain a healthy relationship between themselves and the mentor so that transparency could be achieved and processes more comprehensively (Phatak and Kao, 2018). Lastly, the mentee must take notes of all the things echoed by the mentor so that future guidance could be acknowledged anytime, even after the mentoring program ends. 

Roles and responsibilities of the mentor

The mentors are supposed to provide effective instructions to the respective mentees so that confusion could be achieved. This might help the participants seek effective learning. For this purpose, the mentor must possess active listening skills and respect the mentees' opinions and suggestions. This might help the mentor establish an effective benchmark for the industry standards as well (Reeve, 2014). To fulfil the mentoring objectives, the mentor must possess an effective understanding to maintain motivation and inspiration throughout the mentoring session. The mentor is supposed to motivate and encourage the mentees to develop performance efficiencies while being mentored. In this regard, it becomes essential for the mentor to provide the required assistance whenever required. Thus, it becomes the mentor's primary responsibility to make the participants about their self-abilities and attributes. This is because managing the self-confidence of the mentees is crucial (Peters, 2015). For this purpose, the mentor must always take active participation to help the mentees with their problems and issues. Lastly, the mentor must also celebrate the achievement to develop an effective relationship between both individuals (Mobius et al., 2014). Hence, while the mentee's roles and responsibilities depend upon the human being's characteristics, a mentor must seek potential skill sets to drive the mentoring programs effectively with relevant feedback.  

What is the mentoring strategy important?

Mentorship plays an essential role in providing relevant guidance to the participants. Thus, it becomes essential to potentially train and guide the mentees to develop their performances more comprehensively. This opens a breach for future possibilities of success and a well-being reputation of the mentor (Boyle et al., 2014). This way, the popularity of the mentoring session could be echoed loud and hence, process more mentees. Nowadays, employees are more careers conscious and require mentorship programs to get guidance in the right direction. Thus, if the mentoring strategy went well, the chances of getting more enrollments for the mentoring session gets boosted (Orth and Robins, 2014). This way, the organisation might use the processes to plan, implement, and evaluate the effective strategies effectively. 

Plan of communication

As discussed in the previous segment, communication plays an essential role in the mentorship sessions. For this purpose, the organisations must proceed with effective communication plans (Sanfey et al., 2013). To achieve this goal and vision of the communication plan, some areas are required to be fulfilled. These include areas such as maintaining regularity in the process of communication, establishing relevant agendas and objectives, focus on performances, clear observations and evaluations, receiving feedbacks via positive manner, communicating in a free-flow manner, addressing the priority areas first, and responding to the questions put up by the participants (Hong, 2011). This way, an effective communication plan could be set-up that might help both the mentor and the mentees receive effective feedback. For this purpose, the bonding between both parties has to be maintained so that either of them does not feel awkward to share what they feel.  This is essential from both the business and individual perspectives. It helps to evolve a potential outcome in terms of work-life balance and productivity at the workplace. 

Budget plan

Processing an effective mentoring session requires to limit the expenses under a particular amount. This amount could be echoed loud as the budget of the EPM mentoring session. It will help the organisation to keep an eye on daily activities as well. Through this way, the unnecessary expenses could be controlled. Concerning the budget required to be established in regards to the EPM session, various areas will be covered (Garringer et al., 2017). These include materials, sound appliances, musical devices, uniforms, entry fees, and cost for mentors and salary for the staff members and other necessary items. As per a general estimation, the cumulative budget can be counted somewhere around 11,480 dollars for the organisation and around 5,840 dollars for the participants. 

Conclusion

To conclude, this essay aimed towards echoing a process through which organisations can plan effectively, implement, and evaluate the mentoring strategies. It has also included segments such as the learning styles, roles and responsibilities of mentor and mentee, and effective communication. Further, the essay concluded with strategies required to establish effective teamwork and mutual trust between the mentor and mentee. For this entire process, the budget is lying somewhere between 5,840 and 11,480 dollars for both the mentor and mentee.