Talent Development

The Challenge

A large and diverse oil company underwent global restructuring resulting in a transition from a hierarchical organisation to one with a flat structure. The company was faced with the following dilemmas:

  • How does it retain talented people when it cannot offer clear career paths or even promotional opportunities to its staff due to a low staff turnover rate, especially at the senior management levels?
  • How does it ensure new ways of behaving highlighted as essential through the culture change process are actually embedded in 'the way we do things around here'?
  • How does it continue to develop leadership skills throughout all levels of the organisation?
  • How does it create equal opportunities for minorities within the organisation?


Objectives

Facilitate experienced people to share their knowledge and skills for the benefit of others. Specifically create a vehicle to:

  • Develop individuals
  • Demonstrate new ways of working
  • Reinforce networking
  • Reinforce cultural change
  • Encourage diversity
  • Release potential
  • Improve equal opportunities performance
  • Develop leadership skills


The Process

The Performance Attitude designed and implemented a mentoring programme to compliment existing human resource initiatives, and provide an alternative avenue for individuals to explore insights and understanding of the Company and their own career development.

This programme provided the organisation with templates, tools and processes for identifying mentors and mentorees, matching mentors with mentorees, involving and managing the line manager relationships of those involved with the programme, and monitoring the progress of the mentoring relationships. In addition the programme provides tools for running mentoring sessions, managing disputes, and for career development. It also provides templates for developing partnership agreements, learning contracts, development plans and objective setting.

The Performance Attitude also developed a one day workshop for both mentors and mentorees, which facilitates the foundation setting of the relationship. This workshop covers:

  • Learning how to learn
  • What mentoring is and is not
  • Roles & responsibilities for both mentors and mentorees
  • The benefits of mentoring
  • Pros' & con's of mentoring for both mentor and mentoree
  • Critical success factors of mentoring relationships
  • Considerations required by mentor and mentroee
  • Getting to know each other
  • Establishing the foundations and agreements for the relationship
  • Commitment to the process
  • Planning future mentoring sessions

The Performance Attitude provides on-going support to the mentors, and to the HR team as required to keep this programme achieving its objectives.


Results

This programme has been evaluated in several ways. The workshops are evaluated for their effectiveness in delivering defined objectives. Results from this evaluation show the workshops are 100% effective in achieving the objectives. Additional evaluations have shown that in cases where mentors and mentorees attend the workshops the chances of the relationship been successful increase by over 85%.

As a result of specific and targeted interviewing of all participants of the mentoring programme the following comments summarise the findings.

"The programme has contributed to breaking down the invisible but recognised silos within the organisation. It has improved the understanding of the business by all those involved, and has improved the communication loops between all of the business groups." - Managing Director

Involvement in the programme has ensured mentorees:

  • Gained a greater awareness of the company
  • Identified a career path
  • Developed wider networks within the company
  • Built profile within the company
  • Built self-confidence
  • Developed skills
  • Improved job performance

Involvement in the programme has ensured mentors:

  • Improved their communication and leadership skills. Receive and understand feedback from a variety of levels within the organisation regarding the organisation and customers.
  • Are perceived as, and demonstrate they are more accessible to the staff for support with business challenges.
  • Model the desired behaviours and culture of the 'new organisation'.