Employer Mentoring of Apprentices

1. Employer Mentoring of Apprentices Name Date This was produced as part of the Apprenticeship Staff Support Programme, which was commissioned and funded by The Education and Training Foundation

2. Administration Timing Breaks Rooms Refreshments Phones Facilities

3. Introductions • Name • Background • Current mentoring role? • Personal objective(s) • “I am probably the only person in the room who….”

4. Agenda • Apprenticeship context • Role of the mentor • Skills of the mentor • Stages in the process • Roles and responsibilities • SMART targets

5. Setting the Scene • Be yourself • Contribute • Offer feedback … constructively • Be respectful • Something should be different tomorrow!

6. Apprenticeships • Provider to insert their specific Apprenticeship context

7. What is the role of a mentor?

8. The mentor role As a mentor, you pass on valuable skills, knowledge and insights to your mentee to help them develop personally and in their career.

9. Definition "Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they may maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be." Eric Parsloe, The Oxford School of Coaching & Mentoring

10. Skills of a mentor • What do you think are the essential skills of a mentor?

11. Skills of a Mentor • Positivity • Empathetic • Motivational • Confident • Honest • Questioning • Active listening • Noticing • knowledgeable • Caring • Observing • Target driven • Skilled at feedback • Time manager • Structured • Authoritative • Approachable • Open

12. Stages in the mentoring process 1. Getting to know you 4. Ending 2. Goal setting 3. Progress monitoring

13. Exercise – getting to know you • Write a letter to your mentee. Include: • A little about you, your background, work history and your experience • What you hope to bring to mentoring • What you will commit to the mentoring relationship • Your hopes and expectations of mentoring

14. Effective listening • In pairs, one person talks about a hobby, holiday or passion of theirs. • The other person has the role of listening.

15. How do we ACTIVELY listen?

16. How do we ACTIVELY listen? • Maintain eye contact • Encourage the speaker • Check understanding / summarise • Appropriate body language

17. Exercise Draw a house

18. Explicitness is.... ...defining, and specifying in explicit terms, what is required, so that the person has a clear mental picture of the actions, behaviour or results that are required.

19. Draw a house • Add 25 points for each window • Add 100 points if you included curtains • Take off 50 points for each chimney • Add 75 points for a pathway • Add 100 points for each tree • Take off 25 points for animals

20. Explicitness The Onion Model

21. SMART Targets • SMART targets help develop explicitness in goal setting. • SMART stands for: S Specific M Measurable A Achievable R Realistic T Time-bound

22. Creating SMART targets • Work in pairs to generate 2-3 SMART targets that may be relevant to an Apprentice. • Share your examples with the room and ask for feedback on ways they may be made even more SMART

23. Exercise 2 - SMART targets How could you suggest SMARTening the following target: Apprentice X is expected to make telephone contact with 300 employers.

24. Feedback exercise • In small groups discuss how feedback is best delivered. • Agree the key elements of effective feedback • Prepare to feedback to the full group

25. What is Feedback? • Information about reactions to a product, a person’s performance of a task, etc. which is used as a basis for improvement. Oxford English Dictionary

26. Considerations when providing feedback • Be clear and honest • Remain positive • Be objective – using facts • Ensure the comments are constructive • Feedback should be two-way • It may need to be formally followed up • Discuss alternatives / advice • Motivational – positive / developmental / positive • Consider an appropriate environment

27. Preparing to Give Feedback When preparing to give feedback, it can be useful to consider the conversation from three different perspectives, in order to ensure that: • You are clear about the key messages you want / need to get across • You have considered beforehand the possible reactions / questions of the recipient, how your feedback can be worded in a way that is least likely to provoke a difficult reaction, and how you might handle possible reactions / questions • The bigger picture – the context of the conversation, what are the longer-term implications of the conversation, and what is the overall purpose of the feedback conversation

28. Feedback exercise • In groups of three allocate roles: • Observer • Mentor • Mentee • Practice providing effective feedback to the Apprentice based on their first month in your department

29. Kolb Experiential Learning Cycle

30. The Seven Learning Styles Visual Aural Verbal Physical Logical Social Solitary prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding prefer using sound and music prefer using words, both in speech and writing prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch prefer using logic, reasoning and systems prefer to learn in groups or with other people prefer to work alone and use self-study

31. What could be barriers to mentoring success? • In groups list on the left margin of a piece of flipchart the potential barriers to a successful mentoring relationship • Move to the flipchart of a different group and say how you may overcome each of the barriers

32. Case study Your apprentice suddenly starts being about 20 minutes late for work every day, having been an excellent time-keeper up to that point.  Honestly - what would you do?

33. Case study When gently persuaded, the apprentice revealed that his moped had broken and he couldn’t afford to fix it until pay-day, added to the fact that his Mum (single parent) was ill and so couldn’t drive him in.  What would you do now?

34. What support is available? • Your Learning Provider • Mentoring Handbook • Linked-in group – ‘Apprentice Mentors’ • Websites – specific support • Further training

35. Thank you! • Evaluation sheets • Next steps • Any questions?