Assisting Apprentices in Learning to Work
Effective Mentoring

“Mentoring requires a fully dedicated staff member”

While it is good practice to assign a mentor to each apprentice, that doesn’t mean mentor should spend all his/her time with the apprentice. According to some studies up to 30% of mentors time can be spent on giving instructions, working with the apprentice and monitoring their work. Depending on the style of mentoring and experience of mentor it can be as little as 10% which leaves enough time for mentor to work on his/her primary tasks.

Nevertheless, some of the mentor’s regular work does needs to be reallocated to other employees, to allow for proper mentoring of the apprentice. The cost of an employee’s time spent on mentorship needs to be evaluated in the business plan and offset by gains of having an additional person doing apprenticeship in the company.

“Mentors should be experienced in human resources”

In companies that have an HR department, training and apprenticeship-management often fall to the HR department. However, the job of a mentor is not to manage the skills-strategy of the company – it is their job to impart their personal skills and ways of doing things to an apprentice. Thus, with a bit of basic training in mentoring skills, anyone can be a mentor.

“Apprenticeship has no benefit for the mentor”

Good apprenticeships benefit not only the company and apprentice but also the mentor. Mentors transfer valuable skills, knowledge and insights to apprentices to help them develop in their career and personally. In return, mentorship gives mentors an opportunity to revaluate and optimise the efficacy of established procedures in the company. It also brings a fresh pair of eyes to entrenched procedures from persons with solid theoretical background. In this way apprentices can bring a valuable contribution to any SMEs team.