Mentoring is a relationship between two people. As a mentor you pass on valuable skills, knowledge and insights to your mentee, in this instance an apprentice, to help them develop personally and in their career. It is highly beneficial to both businesses and the individual as it is designed to improve individual skills, knowledge and work performance through a series of development techniques based on one-to-one discussions.

When carried out well, mentoring not only provides the mentee with confidence and self-reliance, it helps to build strong teams, transfer valuable knowledge and prevent skills gaps.

Here are our top tips for effective mentoring in the workplace:

1. If you are tasked with choosing a mentor for the apprentice, select a mentor based on personal attributes. One study (Hirst, Short & Rinne, 2014) suggests that a mentor with such characteristics as openness, confidentiality and trust is more beneficial than selecting a mentor based on their position within a company.

2. Clearly define roles and responsibilities of the mentor and mentee. This can be achieved through a schedule which outlines goals, deadlines and regular meetings. This provides some ground rules for both the apprentice and the mentor.

3. Create a coaching environment and embed this in the organisational structure. This means, providing senior members of staff, HR and the mentor with essential coaching and mentoring skills, which can be understood and utilised when mentoring an apprentice.

4. If you are chosen to mentor, make sure you can actively listen. Taking a genuine interest in your mentee builds a rapport and creates a trusting working relationship. It will make the mentoring journey more valuable for both participants.

At Roundhouse Thinking we understand and value workplace mentoring. We offer a two day Mentoring your Apprentice in the Workplace course with provides any individual tasked with mentoring an apprentice, the tools required to develop an apprentice and help them unlock their potential.

For more information about this course, visit www.roundhousethinking.co.uk

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