If you’re new to mentoring, or you think it all sounds a bit fluffy, let me share with you my version of ‘Mentoring 101.’ 

A mentor is someone who has experience, sharing his or her story with someone on a similar journey with less experience.

As an example, someone who has run a marathon gives advice, based on his or her experience, to someone about to run one for the first time, and that person then benefits from that advice. 

Er… That’s it. 

You can train to be a mentor, or a mentee (if that is a word…) but focus on the simplicity. Someone with experience is telling a story to someone with less experience. That person may or may not take that advice on board, but that’s a different blog post altogether. 

Here we believe that mentoring in a business shouldn’t be a ‘project’. It should be woven in to the very culture of a business, and happen everywhere, all the time. 

So where does the Feedback360 Wellbeing tool come in?  

Well, it’s designed to take the pulse of a business regularly. The presentation of the results through the dashboard brings focus to current issues – issues that are unlikely to be 100% original. 

Examples of early warning indicators that may come out of a survey include: 

“Pressing deadlines.”

“Overwhelmed by my workload.”

“My manager doesn’t seem to understand the impact my workload is currently having on me.”

“I don’t know what’s going on around here.”

 Now imagine the senior team taking the sentiments from the dashboard, and addressing these very real issues by making them the theme for the mentorship conversations for the coming month.

It’s a healthy example of simple, joined up thinking which addresses real issues in a productive way. Again, rather than employee wellbeing being a focus week or a project, it becomes part of a culture. 

The team here has all benefited from the influence of mentors. Maybe you have too, or perhaps you are the experienced one? Let us know who has had a positive influence on you, and thanks to all the mentors out there. You Rock!

Thanks for reading. If you’d like to talk about how to make mental wellbeing part of your culture with govox, drop us an email hello@fb360.co.uk , and we’ll arrange a time to talk. 

Happy National Mentoring Day! 

Jeremy, govox