The Mentoring Programme for JPOs

| Introduction & objectives | Benefits | What is mentoring? | Values | Practicalities | Summary |

Introduction and objectives

The e-Mentoring Programme for Junior Professional Officers (JPOs) is a new initiative which is being launched to further strengthen the learning element, which has always been an intrinsic part of the JPO Programme. The Mentoring Programme focuses particularly on the personal development of JPOs in relation to their job and hence supplements the other training elements of the JPO Programme.

The JPO e-Mentoring programme is currently offered to UNDP JPO's who are in the beginning stages (maximum six months) of their assignment. The objectives are to offer job support to, and development of, new JPO’s in UNDP who are facing unfamiliar challenges and territories. The e-Mentoring programme offers a virtual platform for knowledge sharing and mentoring. Via an e-Mentoring relationship, potential mentors would assist in shortening the new JPO’s learning curve by providing: insight into the organization’s culture; experiential knowledge on how to achieve strategies for work-life balance; support during the introduction process including how to acclimatize to a new field or office culturally, organizationally and professionally; as well as assistance in gaining new skills that will help JPOs as they advance in their careers.

The intention is that the Mentoring Programme will give the mentee an opportunity to draw on the experience of another staff member with more years of experience in the UN system. Hence, in our definition, a mentoring relationship is a relationship between two partners where one introduces to and shares with the other organizational, personal and professional insights related to a job. In order for the mentoring to be effective, however, it is essential that the mentee owns the process and takes the main responsibility for defining his/her needs and for gaining from the mentoring relationship what is intended.

From an organizational perspective, the objective of the Mentoring Programme is to further support the development of JPOs as well-functioning young professionals in a challenging and at times difficult (work) environment and hence to increase the positive experience of the JPOs. Through the Mentoring Programme, it is expected that the mentees will develop new coping mechanisms and become better able to deal with various difficult situations. It is expected that the Mentoring Programme will turn the mentees into more valuable employees during their JPO assignment. Should some of the mentees be retained by the Organization after the JPO assignment, it would be an additional benefit, although it is not a direct objective.

This Programme is intended as a supplement to ongoing line management, in the sense that the mentor has no direct management responsibility in relation to the JPO and no direct influence on the outcome of the annual RCA exercise.

Benefits

The Mentoring Programme will evolve around the needs of the mentees, be they specific knowledge, help to get through a difficult change process, guidance in relation to personal developments related to the job or help in finding the right balance between work and family life, just to mention a few examples. The mentoring relationship is first and foremost the responsibility of the mentee and will only be successful if the mentee sets aside time and energy to define his/her own needs, be open to feed-back and be willing to reflect and find his/her own solutions. If these conditions are met, the potential benefits are tremendous in terms of personal development, improved self-confidence, better understanding of how the system works, etc. according to the defined needs.

Mentors will be identified among professional UN staff (particularly UNDP) worldwide. All mentors participate on a voluntary basis. In principle everybody can be a mentor, as long as they have the ability and willingness to listen and to use their own competencies, experience and common sense together with the mentee, in a way that meets the mentee's needs. Mentors are expected to set aside part of their time and resources for their mentees. On the other hand, they can also expect to benefit from their participation in the Programme. For example, it is likely that mentors will gain broader knowledge and information about the Organization, be stimulated and gain new perspectives, experience the joy of helping others, become better communicators, gain more knowledge about themselves and, last but not least, develop better management competencies.

What is mentoring?

According to the Administrator's broadcast message of 22 March 2002, "Managers at all levels are expected to be actively engaged in staff development as a coach and mentor and through regular and meaningful performance feed-back. They must be both champions and models for learning and knowledge-sharing in their offices..."

But what is mentoring?

Mentoring is person focused. It aims at helping the mentee to help himself, takes place over a long period of time and the process is led by the mentee and the aim is reflection. The process takes place through dialogue and the mentee learns with the mentor.

In general, it is a voluntary programme, based on the intentional relationship between a mentor and a mentee, where the mentor is a more experienced member in the organization or within a particular practice area. A successful mentoring relationship depends on mutual participation, open communication, respect and trust. Such a relationship can provide to the mentee, an introduction to the organizational culture, a broader perspective on the challenges facing UNDP, accelerated training, understanding of potential career paths within UNDP, coaching and support regarding challenging situations, etc. Furthermore, the mentor will have the opportunity to develop skills within communication, coaching and leadership.

E-Mentoring does not provide supervision, management, on the job training or sponsorship of the mentee. A mentor will not act as a mediator between the mentee and their supervisor, but will complement the guidance and supervision offered by direct supervisors and managers.

Values

In order for the Mentoring Programme to become useful to the participants, it is paramount that the mentoring relationship is characterized by confidentiality, mutual trust and respect, openness and knowledge sharing. We strongly encourage all participants to respect and pay particular attention to these values.

Practicalities

It is the intention that, with time, each new JPO will be offered a mentor for the first year of the JPO assignment. As a first step, the JPO Service Centre is launching phases of the JPO Mentoring Programme, where JPOs are being given the opportunity to benefit from the experience and knowledge of a mentor.

When a mentor and mentee are informed whom they have been matched with, they will also receive from the JPO Service Centre a guideline containing some ideas on how to get started, what to do if problems arise, etc. Once or twice during the mentoring process, they will be contacted by the resource person to make sure that all is well, and at the end of the mentoring process, both mentor and mentee will be asked to evaluate the process by filling in a form. If questions arise during the process, participants are welcome to contact the resource person at any time.

The fact that mentors and mentees are not situated in the same country, and in some cases maybe not even in the same region, means that most of the mentoring will take place by e-mail, phone or fax. For issues of general interest, we also suggest using the JPO-Net on our website at www.jposc.org, which would also be a forum where cross-mentoring could take place (i.e. using more mentors for each mentee according to need).

In acknowledgement of the fact that it can be difficult to build a relationship of trust where no face-to-face encounters take place, we strongly encourage mentors and mentees to arrange personal meetings if at all possible. Within reasonable limits and subject to agreement by the duty station, it could be possible to cover costs in this respect from the DTTA balance of the individual JPO.