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Planning your mentoring programme Tania Lyden, University of Reading Gemma Witts & Liz Foden , University of Kent. Planning your mentoring programme. Defining the purpose/goals/outcomes sought Decide the format/parameters
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Planning your mentoring programmeTania Lyden, University of ReadingGemma Witts & Liz Foden, University of Kent
Planning your mentoring programme Defining the purpose/goals/outcomes sought Decide the format/parameters Secure the funding: what can you afford to do? Consider risk and legislation Plan management/team Pilot/implementation Who’s your Champion?
Purpose Purpose: why broadly does your scheme exist? What is the need? University of Reading: To enable students to raise their employability and begin their transition into the world of work. Why establish a clear purpose? • To focus your direction on your stakeholder needs • To justify investment of funding • To create a clear sense of direction for all activity and underpin major decisions. • To give scope, manage expectations and retain control! • To enable mentor/mentee self-selection Is the • To focus branding • To form the basis of your evaluation
Goals Goals: What are you aiming to achieve? Who is accountable for what? University of Reading: Improved graduate outcomes Increased student employability Improved student experience A certain take up of the scheme from undergraduates and WP students Why set goals? To give you a more precise overview of where you are trying to get to. To form the basis of your measurement of scheme success Tips Be realistic: don’t overpromise. Relate them to university strategy and TEF(Graduate Outcomes and Student Experience) or other important measures such as WP/OfS Access plans Consider stakeholders and continued investment
Outcomes: your specific targets Outcomes should: Be precise Appeal to heart and head (Quantitative and qualitative) Tick all the boxes on necessary reporting Be simple. Be robust: get advice from a statistician (Beware variable control, correlation versus causation and statistical significance issues)
Outcomes for University of Reading University of Reading. Over the duration of the scheme students should self-report employability improvements: • Increased career clarity • Increased self belief in the ability to secure graduate level roles • Increased propensity to network • Increased ability to interact with professionals • Increased exposure to graduate level work roles • Increased knowledge of the graduate labour market Number of recruits: • To recruit ‘YYY’ part 2 undergraduates in 2019/2020 and ‘XX’% of these should be from a WP background recognised in the Office for Students access fund plans for the institution Graduate outcomes: Mentees to secure a higher level of graduate level employment and higher level of employment compared to peers in their discipline.
Format/Parameters Design with purpose/goals in mind (identify stakeholders) Who are your mentees? Who will your mentors be? What will the nature of the scheme be? Is it really mentoring? Integrated into other activities e.g. placements or stand alone? How long will the scheme be? Frequency of meetingsand timing of meetings? Where will mentors/mentees meet? What is your contact plan between scheme and mentors/mentees? What will your approach be to: promotion/recruitment, matching, IT, training, engagement, supervision, closure, evaluation, when/where mentoring take place, problems and complaints? Establishing processes, procedures, standards (accreditation) What is your detailed timeline for this year and for the next 3 years?
Funding Sources:OfS/WP funds, Schools/Departments, Careers, Alumni offices/funds, employer or other sponsorship Level: Staff FTE, scheme size, decisions relating to IT etc. Continuity:one year funding cycle tough. Push for rolling 2 or 3 year minimum Financial year planning: how does year end fit with scheme timing? Costs: Staff costs highest. Biggest non staff costs are: catering, venues and IT systems. Paying mentors? Travel costs? Merchandise? Benchmarking: Don’t underestimate time and cost, compare to other Unis and financial benefits to rationalise spend Place financial value on benefits: Mentors x hourly rate = money brought into the University in kind.
Risk and legislation • What might go wrong? What are your tolerances? • Which legislation will be important? • Equal opportunities? Who to offer to, how to justify. • GDPR? Mentors and mentees • Safeguarding? Age and vulnerable adults • Health & Safety? Work visits.
Plan management/team Skills needed for activities? Staff costs? Development and training?
Survey highlights: Planning your mentoring programme • Target student audience – these include a focus on: • Transition into employment • Tailored one to one support • Widening participation • BAME students • Insight into sectors • Business start-up • Funding • Careers department budgets aremain funding source – subject tovariability • Other includes central university,academic depts… and no funding at all!
Piloting A great way to learn and get the bugs out of the system. University of Kent case study Gemma Witts and Liz Foden
Over to you… What do you think is good practice in planning a career mentoring scheme? Use this session and your own experiences to draw out your thoughts. Flipchart per table: feedback one key area of good practice at end.
