FSIS “How To” Mentoring Guide forAgency Program Areas
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In all the ways you can, In all the places you can,
To all the people you can, As long as ever you can." - John Wesley
Contents
- Discussion and Mentoring Defined
- Comparing Mentoring and Coaching
- Benefits of Mentoring for Mentors and Mentees
- Benefits of Mentoring for FSIS
- Types of Mentors
- Implementing a Program Area Mentoring Program
(2)Developing a Recruitment and Marketing Strategy ......
(3)Matching Mentors and Mentees ......
(4)Conducting an Orientation Program ...... / 7
7-8
8-9
9-10
- AgLearn and Other Training Resources
- Mentoring Connection Tool
- Developing an Instruction Guide for Mentors / Mentees
- Developing an Instruction Guide for Supervisors
- Conduction a Mentoring Pilot
- Developing a Mentoring Agreement
- Developing a Mentoring Action Plan
- Providing a List of Mentoring Topics to Discuss
- Providing Developmental Activities
- Conducting Mentoring Program Evaluations
- Conducting an End of Program Ceremony
- Additional Mentoring Resources
- Mentoring Quick Reference Guide
- Resources - Books and Organizations
- References
FSIS “How To” Mentoring Guidefor Agency Program Areas
Discussion:
The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) will continue to experience many changes and challenges. Through positive mentoring, employees can get a feeling that FSIS is genuinely concerned about their development, career aspirations, and ensuring the Agency has developed the talent to meet the demand of an uncertain future.
This FSIS “How To” Mentoring Guide will focus on mentoring “best practices” and will recommend proven methods to create a mentoring program within FSIS program areas.This guide is in alignment with the USDA Regulation4740.01, USDA Mentoring Program.
Mentoring is a term used to help, advise and guide employees through challenges of their day-to-day work activities. It is a mutual learning partnership in which individuals help each other with personal and career development through coaching, role modeling, counseling, sharing knowledge, and providing emotional support. A formal definition of mentoring may be stated as follows:
Mentoring Defined:
Mentoring is a developmental partnership through which one person shares knowledge, skills, information, and perspective to foster the personal and professional growth of someone else. Mentoring entails informal communication, usually one-on-one, during a prolonged period of time between a mentor and an individual who is perceived to have less knowledge and experience.
The knowledge and insights of a mentor have been learned through the years, creating possibilities, and providing guidance and support to others in a relationship of honesty and integrity. It includes facilitation, imagination, and a determination to help people achieve their goals. A mentor achieves a personal relationship with a mentee; and the mentee recognizes his/her own personal growth through this relationship.
Mentoring is widely recognized today as an extremely beneficial career development tool. The power of mentoring is that it creates a one-of-a-kind opportunity for collaboration, goal achievement, and problem-solving.
Mentoring programs are as varied as the program areas that implement them. Options include one-on-one, group, executive, and e-mentoring approaches. These all share common strategies that can establish a mentoring program as a viable function. Understanding the goals required from a mentoring program and ensuring that support is available for both mentors and mentees, will aid decisions on how mentoring should be approached.
Comparing Mentoring and Coaching:
People often confuse mentoring and coaching. Though related, they are not the same. Mentoring is “relational,” while coaching is “functional”. Coaching focuses on helping another person to improve awareness to set and achieve goals in order to improve a particular behavioral performance. Coaching is seen as short term; mentoring is long term. Coaching addresses specific issues; mentoring addresses larger issues.
The table below compares mentoring and coaching:
Focus is on career and personal development. / Focus is generally on development at work.
Agenda is set by the Mentee with the mentor providing support and guidance to prepare them for future roles. / The agenda is focused on achieving specific, immediate goals.
Ongoing relationship that can last for an indefinite period of time. / Relationship generally has a set duration.
Can be more informal and meetings can take place as and when the Mentee needs some advice, guidance or support. / Generally more structured in nature and meetings are scheduled on a regular basis.
More long-term and takes a broader view of the person. / Short-term (sometimes time-bounded) and focused on specific development areas/issues.
Mentor is usually more experienced and qualified than the Mentee. Often a senior person in the organization who can pass on knowledge, experience and open doors to otherwise out-of-reach opportunities. / Coaching is generally not performed on the basis that the coach needs to have direct experience in their Coachee’s “specific occupational" role, unless the coaching is specific and skills-focused.
Benefits for Mentors:
As a mentor, there are various ways a person can benefit. Mentoring:
- Strengthens leadership skills by working with individuals from different backgrounds and personality types;
- Strengthens communication skills;
- Rewards in assisting with a persons’ development; and
- Develops a network of colleagues.
Mentoringmay contribute to the success of aprogram area because it can potentially help to grow, develop and retain talent.
Mentoring can be a remarkable experience for both the mentor and the mentee. It can inspire and empower employees, build commitment, increase productivity, and promote success.
AdditionalBenefits:
MentorBenefits (What’s in it for me?) / MenteeBenefits (What’s in it for them?)- Renews enthusiasm for the role of expert;
- Makes a smoother transition into the workforce;
- Obtains a greater understanding of the barriers experienced at lower levels of the organization;
- Furthers his/her development as a professional;
- Enhances skills in coaching, counseling, listening, and modeling;
- Gains the capacity to translate values and strategies into productive actions;
- Develops a more personal style of leadership;
- Develops new and/or different perspectives;
- Demonstrates expertise sharing knowledge, and;
- Gets assistance with ideas;
- Increases generational awareness.
- Demonstrates strengths and explores potential, and;
- Increases career networks and receives greater agency exposure.
Benefits to FSIS:
Reasons to establish program areamentoring programs:
- As part of the on-boarding process -Mentoring helps new recruits, trainees or graduates settle into the organization
- Skills Enhancement - Mentoring enables experienced, highly competent staff to pass their expertise on to others who need to acquire specified skills
- Professional Identity -Novice employees need help in understanding what it means to be a professional in their work environment. Professionals embody the values of the profession and are self-initiating and self-regulating. Mentors play a key role in defining professional behavior for new employees. This is most important when employees first enter the federal workforce.
- Career Development - Mentoring helps employees plan, develop, and manage their careers. It also helps them become more resilient in times of change, more self-reliant in their careers and more responsible as self-directed learners.
- Leadership and Management Development - Mentoring encourages the development of leadership competencies. These competencies are often more easily gained through example, guided practice or experience, than by education and training.
- Education Support - Mentoring helps bridge the gap between theory and practice. Formal education and training is complemented by the knowledge and hands-on experience of a competent practitioner.
- Organizational Development and Culture Change - Mentoring can help communicate the values, vision and mission of the organization. A one-to-one relationship can help employees understand the organizational culture and to make necessary changes.
- Customer Service - Mentoring assists in modeling desired behaviors, encouraging the development of competencies in support of customer service, and above all -cultivating the right attitudes.
- Staff retention - Mentoring provides an encouraging environment through ongoing interactions, coaching, teaching, and role modeling that facilitates progression within the organization. Mentoring influences employee retention because it helps establish an organizational culture that is attractive to the top talent clamoring for growth opportunities. It is a tangible way to show employees that they are valued and that the organization’s future includes them.
- Recruitment - Mentoring can enhance recruitment goals by offering additional incentives to prospective employees.
- Knowledge Management/Knowledge Transfer - Mentoring provides for the interchange/exchange of information/knowledge between members of different organizations.
Four Types of Mentors
- Career Guidance -- promotes development through career guidance, counseling and visibility;
- Information Source -- provides information about formal and informal expectations;
- Friend -- interacts with the mentee socially and provides information about people; and
- Intellectual Guide -- promotes an equal relationship, collaborates on research projects and provides constructive feedback and criticism.
When planning and developing mentoring programs, FSISprogram areasmust consider the type of mentoringneeded and decide which type(s) will be most appropriate given their program goals.
Implementing a FSIS Program Area Mentoring Program
- Conducting a Needs-Assessment–A mentoring needs-assessment helps find common interests for a group of employees.
- The program area mentoring coordinatorsends a survey to all employees.
- Each employee writes down their ten most importantreasons for a mentoring program, including specificreasons.
- When all have been listed, use a weighted voting process to prioritize the reasons across the group. Those surveyedmark which reason is most important. Assign a large dot 25 points for the number 1 -5 reasonsand smaller dots five points each for rankings 6-10. List the reasons in order of importance, with the number of points assigned as votes determining priority. Make sure you have notes (best taken by someone on their laptop while the process is underway) to maintain a record of the assessment results.
- Take time, or schedule another session, to brainstorm the needed outcomes or goals from the mentoring program. More brainstorming can be scheduled later, as needed.
- Note the number one or two reasons of each employee, which may not be the priorities for the group.
- If the results show that there is a great interest in developing a program area mentoring program, proceed to step 2.
- Developing a Recruitment and Marketing Strategy
Communication is crucial in assuring a successful mentoring program. A good strategy will effectively advertise the program and help recruit mentors and mentees. In addition to other challenges in communication, one of the biggest challenges of a mentoring program is recruiting mentors. Oftentimes, employees who could be potential mentors do not understand the value of participating in a mentoring program. To combat this problem, a program area’s marketing strategy should showcase the benefits to both mentors and mentees.
Below arestrategies to recruit mentors and mentees.
Note: Contact information should be clearly displayed on any marketing materials.
- Select a program area mentoring coordinator to assist with developing brochures, flyers, posters, other marketing materials and e-mails to distribute to program employees. The program area coordinator can be responsible for ensuring the mentoring program is a success.
- Send an email from the champion (either the program area Assistant Administrator or other senior leader) asking for participants.
- Post a message on the program area’s Intranet site advertising the program and inviting participants.
- Conduct brown bag or career development sessions on the importance of mentoring.
- Ask for supervisors and work unit chiefs to advertise the program and encourage participation from their employees.
- Work with organizational leaders to set a target number of mentees foreach senior person to mentor – up to 5 is considered a reasonable number, per benchmarked standards.
- Provideprogram area-wide feedback regarding the value of mentoring along with program results.
- Provide ongoing recognition of mentors.
3. Matching Mentors and Mentees
Many agencies have found web-based mentoring tools valuable in the mentor/mentee matching process. There is a cost associated with using this tool. Web-based mentoring tools reduce the administrative and paper burden of matching mentors and mentees by electronically pairing participants, tracking meetings, and providing participants access to career development materials. A web-based tool also assists with:
- Identifying competency strengths and opportunities for growth
- Determining the goal(s) of the mentoring relationship
- Determining preferences for a possible mentor (e.g. a mentor with similar interests, mentor of the same gender; etc.)
- Identifying choices for possible mentors (or mentees)
- Tracking dates and other mentoring activities
- Accessing resources for additional learning needs
- Conducting evaluations by sending an on-line evaluation to all participants
- Analyzing results from the evaluations and providing an overall report
Future directions for web-based mentoring tools include virtual mentoring meetings and group mentoring activities. Group mentoring activities are an excellent opportunity for program Knowledge Management leaders to disseminate valuable information to all employees. Paper-based matching requires the collection of biographical information(bios)from mentors. The mentees review the bios, and indicate their top choices (usually two or three). The program coordinator then matches the mentee with one of their top choices, if possible.
Mentees should be matched with mentors outside of their office or unit. While some mentees may desire to be matched with their supervisor’s boss or another senior manager in their chain-of-command, matching a mentee with a mentor within the same chain-of-command may cause conflicts within the office or work unit.
It should be noted that sometimes mentoring relationships do not work. In such cases, the program area mentoring manager should intervene and explore whether the mentoring relationship should be revised or terminated. In these cases, there should be a process in place to amicably terminate the relationship and match the mentee with a more suitable mentor.
4. Conducting an Orientation Program
The information in this appendix consists of suggestions that program areas should consider when creating a mentoring program.
- The following topics are examples of content that can be included when training mentors and mentees:
• Definition of mentoring
• Difference between mentoring and coaching
• Roles and expectations of the mentor, mentee and supervisor
• Awareness of the mentor’s mentoring style
• Available tools
• Benefits of mentoring for all parties
• Description of the mentoring process that is to be used in the agency. For example, program
length, minimum requirements, reporting requirements, resource availability, etc.
• Key mentoring skills
• Pitfalls to be avoided
• Feedback skills
• Listening skills
• Conflict resolution
• Evaluating the mentoring experience for the mentor and mentee
- During the introductory meeting between the mentor and mentee, the following topics should be discussed:
• Meeting frequency, location and how to handle schedule conflicts
• Availability of the mentor outside of scheduled sessions
• Mentee and mentor’s personal goals to be gained from the experience
- Assessment of the experience by the mentor and mentee:
• Use a multi-point rating system with questions covering all significant aspects of the program
• Have the mentor and mentee separately provide an overall rating of the program as well as written comments for how the program can be improved
• Develop a summary report of the findings
• Conduct focus groups to gather more detailed information, if needed
- Program areas should evaluate the effectiveness of their mentoring program at the end of the mentoring cycle or annually:
- Review all participant assessments and recommendations
- Summarize aspects of the program that are working well and look for ways to improvethose aspects
- Summarize the problem areas, identify mitigation strategies, assign owners and target dates
- Training for mentors andmentees:
Program areas may develop their own training for mentors and mentees, contract the training, and/or use AgLearn courses.
AgLearn and Other Training Resources:
Essential Mentoring Techniques: Building and Maintaining Mentoring Relationships (Web Basedmgmt_29_a03_bs_enus_SKILLSOFT)
Essential Mentoring Techniques: Designing and Initiating Mentoring Programs (Web Basedmgmt_29_a02_bs_enus_SKILLSOFT)
Essential Mentoring Techniques: Mentoring Fundamentals (Web Basedmgmt_29_a01_bs_enus_SKILLSOFT)
Implementing a Mentoring Program for the Organization (Web Basedmgmt_10_a03_bs_enus_SKILLSOFT)
The orientation is a vehicle for matching pairs to get acquainted, establish a mentoring agreement, and begin working on a mentoring action plan. Orientation is usually a half to a full day. The orientation can include a workshop or session on tools and techniques to begin and enhance a mentoring relationship. Exercises during the orientation should allow mentors and mentees to practice the tools and techniques presented to them.
The following link features an FSIS-produced mentoring PowerPoint for training and reference:
Each mentoring session should be documented so that there is a record of discussionfrom the previous sessions.This record can be referenced as new information and assignments are discussed. The Mentoring Connection Toolcan be used and is illustrated in the following section.
Mentoring Connection Tool
Date: ______Mentee: ______Mentor: ______
Action Elements of Mentoring (CARE + 5-step process) / Notes/CommentsConnectwiththe mentee by creating a climate of learning and trust.
- Remove any barriers to improve the climate.
- Build a positive emotional bank account (EBA) with your mentee.
- Aim at building trust to create a culture receptive to mentoring.
- Use knowledge about your mentee’s learning style when communicating with them.
- Use CONNECTION strategies when interacting with mentee on a daily basis (eye contact, open body language, tone of voice, choice of words, warm greeting)
Appreciatethe individual’s situation by seeing the developmental issues through the mentee’s eyes;
- Understand the issues from the mentee’s perspective.
- Consider generation-specific factors (i.e., N-gen)
Respondto employee’s development needs by providing honest and direct feedback.
- Identify areas that are currently working well and areas that can be improved. Focus on future goal attainment.
Empower the mentee to create actions for improvement.
- NOTE: CAREprecedes the 5steps
- Use the 5 steps to create actions for improvement
- Establish goals: let the mentee identify and articulate his/her initial goal(s) first.
- What would you need for yourself? What would you like to focus on? What outcome do you want?
- Discover possibilities. Examplesof questions to ask:
- What needs to happen? What does this do for you? What do you think is missing?
- What do you want to have changed? How would you change it? What might work best? What have you already tried?
- How urgent is this? How important is this to you? Is this a priority at this time?
- Develop an action plan
- Answer the what, how, who, when, why
- Authorize and empower:
- If possible, assist with removing barriers and provide resources.
- Examples of questions to ask:
- What do you need to do to reach your goal?
- What is the most important thing to do now? Is this feasible?
- What are the roadblocks you expect or know about? What’s stopping you? How would you go about removing them? Who/what is standing in the way of reaching your goal?
- What resources do you need? Who do you need to talk to? Who else do you need to achieve this goal?
- What will you do and by when?
- What will happen if you do/don’t achieve your goal?
- Recap, Reviewand Restate using DR GRAC format
Guidelines (Parameters: how often should you meet? how should feedback be given?):
Resources (fiscal or human resources):
Accountability (who is doing what? When?):
Consequences (negative or positive):
Developing an Instruction Guide for Mentors and Mentees