The Role of Mentoring in Maximising Employability

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The Role of Mentoring in Maximising
Employability

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• Welcome Introductions
• Scott Telfer,
• National Development Manager, SMN.

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• Employability is a set of achievements, skills,
• qualities and learning processes that make
• individuals more likely to gain employment and be
• successful in their chosen occupations
• Scottish Funding Council (2004)

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• Employability
• The Policy Context in Scotland
• Anna Kynaston,
• Senior Policy Executive, Work Based
• Vocational Training, Scottish Government .

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Our Vision

• A smarter Scotland with a globally competitive
  economy based on high value jobs, with
  progressive and innovative business leadership
• People motivated and confident to learn new
  skills
• Employers invest in, access, to a skilled
  workforce
• Small business and migrant workers encouraged
• Cohesive learning an training delivery

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Three Strategic Priorities

• Individual Development
• Economic Pull
• Cohesive Structures

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Individual Development

• Balancing the needs of employers and individuals,
  placing the individual at the centre
• Ensuring equal access to and participation in
  skills and learning for everyone
• Developing a coherent funding structure that
  encourages participation and increases choice

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Economic Pull

• Stimulate demand for skills from employers
• Improving skills utilisation
• Understanding current and future projected demand
  for skills

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Cohesive Structures

• Ensure Curriculum for Excellence is at the heart
  of skills acquisition
• Achieve parity of esteem between academic and
  vocational learning
• Challenge funding bodies to achieve a step change
  
• Encourage training providers to bridge the gaps
  for learners
• Simplify structures creating one focused skills
  body
• Recognising SCQF has key role to play

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Call to Action

• Next stage is to develop how we will deliver this
  Strategy in conjunction with stakeholders,
  employers and individuals in Scotland.

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Employability and Mentoring

• Commissioned research in July 2007 in order that
  we could better understand the use of work based
  mentoring programmes
• Hope to have final research document this side of
  the New Year
• This research will considered in detail as we
  consider options to take work based mentoring
  forward in Scotland

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Questions?

• e-mail contact
• anna.kynaston_at_scotland.gsi.gov.uk

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• Funding for Employability Programmes The Big
• Lottery in Scotland.
• John Fellows, Head of Communications
• Marketing and Karen McGregor, Outreach
• Development Support Manager The Big
• Lottery in Scotland.

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Big Lottery Fund
Mentoring and Employability
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Who are we?
Largest Lottery distributor
257m to commit by 2009 So far weve spent just
over 108m
Committed to bringing real improvements to
communities and the lives of people most in need
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Investment areas
Supporting 21st Century Life
Life Transitions
Dynamic Inclusive Communities
Growing Community Assets
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Investing in Communities

• One to five years funding
• Up to 1,000,000 but average grant c300k
• Capital and/or revenue

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Life Transitions
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Why are we investing in this?

• In our consultation people said

People often fall between existing services when
their life circumstances change
People with deep-seated problems need longer-term
support not one-off interventions
Theres a need for flexible projects to wrap
around big schemes like New Deal
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Why are we investing in this?

• And when you look around in Scotland you see
  that
• Young people leaving care are far less likely to
  go on to university
• People over 50 you are far more likely to be made
  redundant
• One in six people lose their jobs within a year
  of becoming disabled
• One in seven young people are not in education or
  employment
• One in six households have no one in work
• One in five Scots are affected by mental illness

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Life Transitions

• We will commit 35 million to projects that
  support people through transitions in life at
  different stages and in different circumstances.
• Funding will be focused on 4 areas
• Transitions that young people experience
• Transitions that people over 50 experience
• Employment and Skills transitions leaving
  school, entering employment
• People facing challenging times in their lives
• e.g. substance addiction, long term health
  issues, debt.

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What are we trying to achieve?

• People have the skills and confidence to cope
  with changes in their lives
• There are better and more coordinated services to
  help people cope with changes in their lives
• People have access to and knowledge about
  services to help them cope with changes in their
  lives
• Communities work together to support people
  through changes in their lives

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What kind of projects will we fund?

• We especially want to fund
• Mentoring, befriending and peer support
• Advice, advocacy and bespoke support packages to
  help people access services
• Information, sign-posting and joining-up services
• Skills development, especially basic and softer
  skills
• Financial literacy, debt counselling and money
  management advice
• Supported employment projects and volunteering
• Health and well-being projects, especially around
  self-esteem

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How will we target?

• For employability projects we especially want to
  target

• People facing change in their work or education
• becoming unemployed
• starting education, especially learners with
  extra support needs such as carers, parents, or
  disabled people
• getting a job, especially for the first time,
  long term unemployed, those returning to the
  labour market, or those less likely to get a job
• changing jobs or moving up in the workplace,
  especially those less likely to do so like women
  and BME groups

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What kind of projects will we fund?
CV prep Job Search Skills
Getting people interested in getting a job
Supporting people in employment
?
?
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Who can apply?
Public sector organisations
Social economy organisations
Private sector organisations
Voluntary and community organisations
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Current context for Life Transitions
Over 610 outline proposals
272 applications
51 awards totalling 17,454,352
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Current context for Life Transitions
High demand
Over 610 outline proposals
Competition increased quality threshold
272 applications
Focusing on priorities
51 awards Totalling 17,454,352
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What our Committee looks for in a good
application
Evaluation and learning

• Evidence of
• need

Link to local or national strategies
Partnership working
Strong outcomes that demonstrate the
transition 50 people move into employment
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Case Study

• Linknet Mentoring Ltd's 16-24 Job Ready Project
• 3 year grant 208,814
• Will work with 16-24 yr olds from BME community
• To improve the skills and confidence of
  education leavers
• Uses mentoring to increase young peoples
  knowledge of labour market

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Interested

• Visit our website www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
• Call our enquiries line 0870 240 2391
• Complete our outline proposal form

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• Working Rite.
• Sandy Campbell, Director, Working
• Rite Ltd.

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Working Rite is a tried and tested method which
turns youngsters into employable, mature young
adults.

• It works by matching up each individual youngster
  with a local tradesman to give them full-time
  paid work experience for 6 months - and a rite of
  passage into the world of work and adulthood.

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• The Results - for the youngsters
• 150 youngsters recruited onto one of the projects
• 70 success rates in progressing on to full-time
  employment and apprenticeships
• The breakdown for the 70 successes
• 90 is the average daily work attendance rate
• 65 progress to Modern Apprenticeships
• 35 progress to full-time semi-skilled employment

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• The Results - for the Tradesmen
• Over 60 small-scale construction contractors have
  taken a lad on placement
• 90 wouldnt have done so - if the project hadnt
  approached them - its creating NEW jobs
• 60 have kept a youngster on after the 6 months
• 70 have come back for more placements

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• Why does it work?
• It looks, feels and pays like a real job - NOT a
  project or training scheme
• It gets the lads away from their peers
• A one-to-one relationship is formed
• Its seen as a fair deal by tradesmen and
  youngsters alike
• It gets a good reputation quickly - tradesman and
  youngsters recommend it to each other
• Its practical learning on site
• The lads feel like part of the squad
• Its rewarding for the tradesmen - the youngsters
  change, mature and learn quickly

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• Creating a working rite of passage
• When boys are in trouble, so are we all
• Teenage boys need good men in their communities
  to come forward and help them reach manhood
• Paid work - a boys first job - is the natural
  setting
• Self employed tradesmen are good men to do it
• Learning delivered by mentors - not teachers
• Facing challenges through experience - not
  courses
• Producing good young men for the next generations

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Everyone remembers their first boss
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• From Survive to Thrive
• Nick McBain, Mentoring Programme
• Co-ordinator and Chris Simmonds,
• Leadership Development Manager The
• Scottish Government.

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Scottish Government Mentoring SchemeCreating
Time to think

• Chris Simmonds
• Leadership Development Manager
• Nick McBain FCIPD
• Mentoring Project consultant

Thinking for yourself is the thing on which
everything else depends Nancy Kline, Time to
think , 1999
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The nature of the work we do

• We focus Government and public services on
  creating a more successful country, with
  opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish,
  through increasing sustainable economic growth

• STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES
• WEALTHIER AND FAIRER
• HEALTHIER
• SAFER AND STRONGER
• SMARTER
• GREENER

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Mentoring best development method for those who
are short of time
All we have to decide is what to do with the
time that is given to us.
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How mentoring has helped individuals

• I have found it very interesting to work with a
  relatively inexperienced manager and understand
  some of the challenges facing her.
• Mentoring helps build the skill of non-critical
  listening (which is crucial in ones own team
  especially if people are having difficulties).
• Mentoring was a very useful sounding board early
  on, helpful in confirming my actions against
  anothers experience . it was useful to have
  had someone who had been there and done that.
• This was a helpful form of self analysis (and
  often very critical analysis) while my mentor
  asked probing questions about the situations and
  actions that I had taken in those situations.

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Mentoring is about individual support and
challenge
Chili Palmer I'm the guy who's telling you the
way it is.
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How mentoring has helped individuals 2

• Dec 2006 survey of participants - 110 responses
  ( 60)
• Mentors
• 80 got significant benefits in learning to help
  others find their own solutions to problems
• 97 reported improvements in their own listening
  skills
• 77 felt it helped them become more suppportive
  as managers
• 91 said they would like to do more mentoring and
  would recommend it to a colleague.
• Mentees
• 95 were satisfied with its relevance to their
  work and with its relevance to their personal
  development
• 87 reported that they had taken a great deal
  or "quite a lot" of learning and new skills for
  their future career from the process
• 83 had got a great deal or "quite a lot" of
  learning and skills for their current job
• 91 would recommend mentoring to a colleague.

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Mentoring can restore a better sense of
perspective

• .it doesnt take much to see that the problems
  of three little people doesnt amount to a hill
  of beans in this crazy world.

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How mentoring has helped individuals 3

• Mentees also identified a wide range of specific
  benefits including
• building rapport (58 reported a lot or huge
  benefits)
• being supported and developed (69 as above)
• maintaining a sense of perspective during hard
  times (80)
• working a route through difficulties (71)
• self knowledge awareness about their blind
  spots (64)
• building wider networks (31)
• Mentors also said they get
• ring-fenced thinking time to reflect on their own
  work practice
• practice in developmental manager skills for
  off-line colleagues
• opportunities for completely fresh, new
  perspectives.
• at least as much as mentees out of the process.

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Mentoring meets individual needs
Spock The needs of the many outweigh the needs
of the few. Kirk Sometimes, the needs of the
one outweigh the needs of the many.
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How mentoring has helped the organisation

• Our own assessment - these results benefit the
  organisation too
• increased energy, self confidence, motivation and
  engagement
• better knowledge management
• manager , leader and employeeship development
• helping the organisation re-balance formal v
  informal learning
• raising the level of diversity mindset
• capacity building.

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Mentoring helps ordinary people achieve
extraordinary things
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Lessons about such schemes, for us

• CLARITY on scope, boundaries, and process
• some measure of central, follow-up support
• this to have a light touch, be informal and
  purposeful, and carried out by a specialist third
  party
• the need for both parties to get benefits this
  is mutual benefit not sacrifice volunteering
• a no-fault call-off after the introductory first
  meeting, so no-one feels locked in
• the need to let a mentoring partnership find its
  own level, once launched.

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• Scottish Mentoring Network
• Annual General Meeting 2007