Calum Robson defines mentoring as a strategy for attracting and retaining finance staff.
ACCA places a strong emphasis on mentoring as part of the practical experience requirement for affiliates seeking membership. Mentors have an important role in providing development opportunities and appraising performance - but mentoring as part of a broader HR strategy requires more thought. And while affiliate mentors are often supervisors or line managers, generally those being mentored do not directly report to their mentors, who may be members of senior management or peers of the line manager.
The payback
'Mentees' often emerge from mentoring sessions with greater c onfidence in their ability to meet long-term goals, giving them extra impetus for undertaking their immediate responsibilities. Having an external source of guidance provides a different perspective for solving problems and handling difficult situations - and the opportunities for networking mean even more junior staff can gain insights into management thinking that can colour their day-to-day decisions.
Meanwhile, line managers will see improved performance levels, greater motivation and the application of new knowledge by mentees. Mentors themselves - particularly if they no longer have hands-on responsibility for staff management - get to stretch their people skills, while learning about the concerns of (usually) younger members of the workforce - concerns they might otherwise have been unaware of.
ACCA believes a structured approach to development not only helps employees to become rounded business professionals but also achieves a number of objectives:
- Increase skills - employees are more prepared to take on responsibility, increasing their capacity to help within the team
- Increase efficiencies - when mentors share their own knowledge and experience, employees are better able to see the context of their own position within finance and have the confidence to suggest innovative solutions
- Develop 'soft skills' - mentors, usually more senior individuals, have the distance and perspective to ask employees to think about more than just technical accounting issues related to their work - through real-life examples and gentle encouragement, they can help them develop skills in areas such as presentations, time management, report writing and project management
- Increase loyalty and motivation - where mentors are perceived as caring, employees are more likely to work above expectations, helping to foster a culture of generating ideas and striving for the best
- Increase self-esteem - self-assured, happy employees radiate positive feelings, a particular result of rubbing shoulders with, and receiving praise from, more senior and experienced colleagues
- Plan for succession - mentors often help employees by setting them certain objectives for virtually doing a job before earning promotion to it - eagerness to please the mentor and advance their own career mean employees can emerge as obvious candidates for promotion more visibly than if there had been no mentoring programme in place
Developing a relationship
Building a rapport is crucial to the mentoring relationship's success. Both participants should be confident that the other is willing to listen and able to give constructive judgement. It's important for the mentee to be able to see that the mentor is also a beneficiary of the relationship, and is therefore sufficiently self-motivated to provide a guiding hand and maintain confidentiality.
Because mentoring relationships should ideally have a set beginning and end, it shouldn't be difficult to set a timeline of milestones. These should include aspects such as actions needed to reach goals and how achievement will be defined (although this may be slightly subjective if, for instance, goals include improving relations with a line manager or becoming more of a team player). The employee's own motivation needs to be established - from short and long-term perspectives - in order to set goals that are relevant and inspiring.
Mentoring sessions should be organised at a frequency agreed by both parties. A 'mental obstacle' for many line managers considering a mentoring programme is that there will be lots of time spent ensconced with the mentor and not actually doing much work. Yet, most successful mentoring relationships rarely demand much more than an hour or so every fortnight, and often progress to one session a month as the mentee makes progress. The sessions themselves should have a clear agenda, with a review of actions from last time and recognition of learning points. Mentors should as much as possible encourage their mentees to introspect, in order to come up with answers themselves as to why certain objectives were or were not achieved satisfactorily. And part of the mentoring process is being able to give open and honest feedback - even if that requires the delivery of uncomfortable truths. Mentors are not there to lavish constant praise - if necessary, they should feel comfortable telling mentees where major or urgent improvement is required.
In many organisations, mentoring is kept strictly separate from the appraisal process - on the premise that mentors keep information given to them confidential. However, dialogue should be encouraged between mentee and line manager. In fact, often - as witnessed at KPMG (see boxes, below) - the role of the mentor is to give mentees confidence to approach managers with issues. Aware that feedback is likely to be relayed to the mentor, line managers will be conscious of responding appropriately.
This means that performance management, while not relying on the mentoring process to provide formal input, can frequently be indirectly affected by it in positive ways.
Reaching a happy ending - and starting all over again
Employers with formal mentoring programmes say part of their success is that each relationship has a recognised end - one at which both mentor and mentee can review and celebrate their achievements. And although the formal relationship may have drawn to a close, many mentors maintain links with their ex-mentees, meeting occasionally for drinks or lunch and continuing to provide a sounding board, even as the mentee progresses through successive promotions (or even after he or she leaves the firm).
Those who have memories of being mentored successfully are often more than willing to take on a mentoring role themselves - and discover that they've been subconsciously training as a mentor during the mentoring process. In fact, they will often turn to their former mentor for assistance as they take on their first mentee - completing a 'circle of mentoring' that carries on cascading knowledge and experience down through the ranks - and benefiting future generations of finance managers.
Focus on KPMG UK Mentoring is considered an important part of people development at KPMG, according to Stephen Cutler, head of the firm's infrastructure mentoring programme: 'The aim is to share skills, knowledge and experience within the firm,' he explains. 'The idea is that mentors offer a non-judgmental, objective view - and because it's separate from performance management, mentor don't have to make individual assessments, nor are they responsible for the whole team - so they can focus totally on the employee.' Cutler is keen not to encourage the image of mentoring as a remedial tactic for under-performers: 'On the contrary - we promote the idea that mentoring is something that successful people adopt,' he says. 'If someone was newly promoted to management, it may be useful to request mentoring from a more experienced manager who can provide guidance in the initial months. Similarly, if a member of staff aspires to a certain role, then someone who's already achieved that position might act as a mentor, illustrating how they got there and pointing out the right people to be networking with.' Performance management has no formal link with mentoring: 'Both parties should understand the mentoring relationship is confidential,' says Cutler. 'If there's something that would be useful for line managers to know, the mentor might encourage the employee to speak to them but it's not within their own remit to give direct feedback.' Formal mentoring has a finite lifetime. 'You'd expect the minimum to be about six months, lasting perhaps a year or 18 months - but there's always a beginning and an end,' says Cutler. 'Knowing when it's going to end gives an opportunity to review and see what both parties have got out of it.' In fact, becoming a mentor is seen as an important part of career development at KPMG, according to Cutler: 'We value the people agenda highly - it's part of how we do things and mentoring is regarded as a good thing to do. People can volunteer to do it and attend workshops to help prepare them for the role. It's certainly taken seriously.' Development of a sense of ethical awareness is seen as an area where mentors can provide strong support: 'It's important that mentors are professional and ethical - not just in terms of accounting standards but in their general outlook,' says Cutler. 'Someone with more experience of dealing with certain situations with clients can usually give examples of previous instances they've been involved on or been aware of. In questions where there's doubt or a lack of clarity - particularly if the person being mentored isn't keen on raising it with their line manager - mentors can steer their thinking.' |
Focus on KPMG Canada The Canadian firm of KPMG has an enthusiastic champion of mentoring in the form of Kathy Cunningham, campus recruiting partner in Toronto: 'I've had three mentors in my career here - two of which were performance counsellors that I maintained relationships with, while another was a senior executive. They all give me valuable input, and I get lots of feedback. And under our formal mentoring program, I'm designated to be a mentor myself. I don't think it matters if you find your mentor through a formal or informal process - what you want is someone who's going to help you stay the course, encourage you to stretch your boundaries and help you to reach for that next step up.' Cunningham believes it's just as important for mentors to occasionally come down hard on their charges: 'Accounting firms are people businesses - if we're not honest with our people in mentoring relationships, then we're doing no-one any favours. We need them to perform at their best when they're out at clients or on auditing engagements - and that also means pointing out where they need to improve. Not everyone likes delivering those messages - a pat on the back is nice but if you want to achieve the next level, you need mentors to tell you what you have to watch out for. Although no automatic formal training is given to mentors, the firm's senior managers have access to a host of online information: 'We want our people to drive their own career,' says Cunningham. 'We ask them to reach out for the resources they need. But if you're new to mentoring, there are non-KPMG courses that would be made available.' Mentoring is perhaps a more familiar concept in North America than in other parts of the world - and the firm's employees welcome the opportunity: 'When mentoring is offered, they grab onto it,' reports Cunningham. 'They see it as recognition that they're a valuable person to the firm. It also enables them to engage with senior members of the firm that they'd otherwise not have the chance to meet - they think it's fantastic that the firm is showing an interest in them.' Like the UK , performance management and mentoring are not linked formally: 'It's kept absolutely separate,' insists Cunningham. 'People I mentor may have certain performance challenges but I would always ask their permission to talk to their manager. I would never do it behind their back - it would totally destroy the trust. You always try to encourage them to figure out how to handle a problem without intervention; however, not everyone can do that and sometimes you may need to intervene - but only with permission.' Cunningham believes ethics is all about leading by example - and that mentors have a role to play in instilling good ethical practices: 'If someone sees or hears something they think is wrong, but doesn't have the confidence to talk directly to their manager about it, then I'd welcome having them bring it to me. We may have a discussion and conclude that it's ok - there are often shades of grey. After all, mentors are there to provide guidance.' |
