Mentoring Needs of New Staff Members: Insights and Strategies

J. Donald Cossairt, PhD, CHP – Distinguished Scientist and Senior Radiation Safety Officer DOE Accelerator Safety Workshop 2018 held at SLAC 22 August 2018 How do our newer staff members want to be mentored?

Background and 2017 Workshop Discussion • Look around you today and project 10 years or even 5 into the future – what do you see? • Most likely a clear need to replace those who will retire or move on otherwise in their careers. • Nearly all of us are aware of the importance of succession planning! • 2017 Workshop at TJNAF: Two excellent talks looking at managing succession planning from the management view point. • John Anderson, Jr. for Fermilab • Ed Lessard and Gail Mattson for Brookhaven • It is clear people are planning for succession planning. • It will not happen by itself. • There are many management tools people are using. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Approach This Year: Mentee’s Eye View • Confession: I am very clearly a “late career” professional. • My retirement is due, perhaps “overdue” (wife agrees!). • Goal: solicit input from “early career” staff. • “Early” career could be “years since college”, or “new to accelerator safety” • Used the monthly DOE accelerator call to solicit “volunteers”. • Failed to get a very large sample, only 10 volunteered. • Conducted a Survey MonkeyTM poll to get input. • Got only 7 responses: poor statistics, results are qualitative. • Have kept and will keep responses anonymous. • Some respondents had “concerns” about “going public”!  • Next slides go over results of the survey, question by question. Beware: I summarized this, not all input included. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 1 What activities has your organization provided to help you “learn the ropes” of accelerator safety? Please comment on how effective these were, or if ongoing, how effective they are. • Attendance at ASW and professional meetings (e.g., HPS) • Participation in SAD and USI reviews • Participation in Accelerator Safety program reviews and revisions • Encouraged to read ASO and Guide • Assigned a mentor on fail-safe interlocks • Took course on Safety Integrity Levels (SIL) levels • Took courses in radiation safety J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 1 – cont. What activities has your organization provided to help you “learn the ropes” of accelerator safety? Please comment on how effective these were, or if ongoing, how effective they are. • Assigned specific “mentor”, however “other demands” have ended up allowing almost no time to actually do it. • Assigned required readings, facility walk-thrus, formal training sessions. • Readings were somewhat effective, but not much sticks on first pass. • Formal training gave better focused information. • Walk-throughs after readings and formal training were of enhanced effectiveness. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 2 What types of mentoring opportunities at your own facility has your organization provided to get you involved in “big picture” aspects of accelerator safety? Please describe these in brief narratives, complete with your view of their usefulness. • Participate in ARRs, review of RPP and local RadCon Manual • Stepwise approach (One responder): • Attend ASW • Address ongoing corrective actions • Led external review • Revamped local USI process. • No mentoring, learned it “all by themselves”. • Assigned a specific mentor on radiation detectors and instrument/interlocks. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 2 – cont. What types of mentoring opportunities at your own facility has your organization provided to get you involved in “big picture” aspects of accelerator safety? Please describe these in brief narratives, complete with your view of their usefulness. • “Walking histories” done with the radiation physicist while being brought into emergent issues. • Mentored by someone else authoring a USID and other safety documents/processes. • One-on-one discussions that transitioned to “Q&As” with subject matter experts. • Brought into various meetings • Establishes connections with important points-of-contact • Familiarizes mentee with tasks at hand, “who is doing what”. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 3 Describe any ways your organization provides special job-relevant learning opportunities beyond just “sticking you with job tasks”. Examples would be attendance at special courses, participation in internal reviews at your own facility and/or external reviews elsewhere, etc. • Attend ASW, US Particle Accelerator School (USPAS), HPS, the monthly Accelerator Safety “community” call (all had > 3 responses) • Participates in internal reviews with cross-pollination of ideas. • Management assures person attends all radiation-based internal safety design reviews. • Participate in biannually certification of safety systems. • 3 months after starting, involved in arranging triennial accelerator safety committee meeting. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 4 Has your supervisor supported your participation in professional activities by attending meetings of professional organizations? If so, please describe. Otherwise, please indicate that no such support has been provided. • Most responders reported support for attendance at ASW, USPAS, HPS, etc. • Some reported no such support provided. • There were several “no answers” to this one. What does that mean? J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 5 If you were assigned a supervisory role of other personnel, aside from the usual human resources training classes and programs, were you effectively equipped and supported by your organization to do that part of the job effectively? If so, please describe how this was done. If not, what do you wish would have been done? • Outstanding support from both supervisors and mentors. • Planned with the purpose to smooth move to new leadership. • Several management courses were available, early career people are encouraged to participate. • Assigned Control Account Manager (CAM) role for accelerator upgrade • Learned how to do this on their own. • Would have appreciated interlock engineering training. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 5 – cont. If you were assigned a supervisory role of other personnel, aside from the usual human resources training classes and programs, were you effectively equipped and supported by your organization to do that part of the job effectively? If so, please describe how this was done. If not, what do you wish would have been done? • From a ‘non-supervisor’ who was assigned lead roles in project completion: • Could have used a “critical conversations” course (an HR course?) that was not made available. • Respondent was led to have unrealistic expectations of knowledge of technical systems by responsible individuals. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 6 What methods has your organization used to give you access/exposure to senior management of the facility beyond your immediate organization? If this has been done, please describe these and give a brief assessment of its effectiveness and value of each type of such access/exposure. • Participation in various reviews and lab committees • Effectiveness would perhaps have been better if participated in these at a higher level. • Not done (2 stated responses). • Access to senior management done via scope of work, QA effort on major projects, final design reviews. • Participation in review process of USIDs with leadership. • Assigned responsibility for addressing emergent events when senior people were unavailable, including follow-up actions. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 7 Assess on a 10 point scale (1=“awful” to 10=“excellent”) the overall success with which your organization has cultivated an atmosphere conducive to development of your capabilities. Please comment as you see fit on this question. • Numerically: 3 “8’s”, 1 “6”, 1 “5”, 1 “3” • Lack of fully staffed group was a detriment. • Training needed beyond “HR” classes. • Allowed to take professional development but then provided no time to pursue work in that area. • Lack of support to expand career and generally poor use of large experience in areas outside of accelerator safety. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 7 – cont. Assess on a 10 point scale (1=“awful” to 10=“excellent”) the overall success with which your organization has cultivated an atmosphere conducive to development of your capabilities. Please comment as you see fit on this question. • Person was given ample opportunities to establish self as independent and useful contributor. • However, when given a task to lead “independently”, did not feel they have authorization to truly lead it without running everything by senior staff. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 8 Please describe any well-intended attempts to promote your development that were failures or near failures. • Only 2 responses • Organization over-promised on mentoring and an opportunity with radiation physics and then did not allow any time to work in that area. • During an external review organized 3 months after starting • Gave a presentation on USIDs performed since last review. • Not a failure but the person had not been involved in any of the evaluations so the new person was put in a position where could not answer questions. • Well-intended but not of much value. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 9 Characterize the success on a 10 point scale (1= “awful” to 10= “excellent”) or lack thereof, with which your organization has balanced assigning you perfunctory tasks with other tasks that serve to significantly promote your career development. Please comment as you see fit on this topic. • Numerically: 2 “8s”, 1 “7”, 1 “6”, 1 “3”, 1 “2” and 1 “1” • New person can run out of “time” to handle all “perfunctory tasks” dumped on them. • Assigned sufficient responsibilities and opportunities,but more “cross-functional” training and involvement with folks doing design and operations would have been helpful. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Question 10 Please offer suggestions of additional ways in which your organization could improve in its development of early career staff members. • More travel to other labs to participate in ARRs and see how other programs work. • Experience has been “pretty good”. • Would recommend a two-year mentoring program to train and expose early career staff to accelerator safety. • Managers should have a more realistic understanding of the time it takes to turn over significant understanding and history of a facility needed by the new staff member. • Improve documentation that describes the various systems and operations with sufficient detail to facilitate discussions. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Major Take-Aways • Travel and “outside” opportunities are important, get the early career people to: • Other facilities • Professional Society Meetings and Workshops • Educational opportunities (degrees, USPAS, short courses) • USPAS, a DOE accelerator-related educational program appeared, unsolicited, on a surprising number of responses. • Mentoring arrangements should be set up and then given adequate support. • Allow adequate time for mentoring activities • Strive to avoid “dumping” of too many perfunctory (i.e. “junk jobs”) assignments on the new person. • A lot of this appears to be generally well-done. • Support the early career people! J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Wisdom from Charles Schulz and Discussion Charlie Brown receives false promises and Snoopy is poorly prepared. J. Donald Cossairt | How do our newer staff members want to be mentered?

Mentoring Needs of New Staff Members: Insights and Strategies