Article written by Cassandra Hodgkinson (Technical Operations Manager, FBMH)

“Mentoring is about empowering individuals to ask powerful questions to help individuals to think – reframe – explore – devise on a way forward”.
Insight shared by Prof Judith Williams at the Manchester Gold 2022 Celebration Event

Each technical member of staff should consider the role mentoring could play in their professional development. This is applicable to ANYONE, at ANY GRADE, and at ANY STAGE of their career! Either as a mentor or a mentee.

Consider that you have a lot to offer others. Acting as mentor, it feels good to give back – which also fits in with our six ways to wellbeing. If you’d like to be a mentee, having a mentor who is outside of your natural area helps you to think about things as an organisation, rather than in your silo of your work area.

WHAT IS MANCHESTER GOLD?
Manchester Gold is the Staff Mentoring Programme at the University of Manchester, managed by the Learning and Organisational Development Team. The team work with colleagues each year to improve the programme and matching process. For 2022, Learning & OD made a couple of changes to the application process:

• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) criteria.

For 2022 a number of applications highlighted EDI criteria as a priority of their match. The addition of these criteria enabled prioritisation of this in the matching process to shared characteristics for those who indicate the preference as a mentor/mentee.

• Technical criteria.

Members of the Technical Commitment Leadership Group wanted to ensure that technical members of staff could identify themselves as technical, thereby enabling a match with an appropriate mentor/mentee, as well as in their preferred technical area, be it research / teaching / operations / infrastructure /specialist.

For the 2022 programme, these changes have had a positive impact. We have seen an increase in the number of technical staff registered as both mentors and mentees. For 2023, we would like to encourage technical staff to continue to engage with the programme, registering as either as a mentor, a mentee, or both!

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF MENTORING?
To help you decide about joining the programme, it is worthwhile considering the benefits mentoring can bring:

• Enables people to sit and increase their self-awareness
• Improve their research & student interaction
• Good wellbeing
• Manage workload
• Prioritisation
• Aligns an individual’s values with the University values
• Overcome barriers
• Personally rewarding
• Mentors giving time to support others
• Mentees putting aside time and space to develop

EXPERIENCE OF TECHNICAL STAFF PARTICIPATING IN MANCHESTER GOLD
I personally participated in the programme for the first time last year as both mentor and mentee. I found it very rewarding, and am now wondering why it took me so long to get involved in the first place. As a mentor, it was great to be able to pass on my insights to my mentee, see them making their own decisions on how to move things forward, and observing their confidence grow. This had a positive impact on me as well, knowing that I helped someone in some way. As a mentee, I really benefitted from having insight from someone outside of my immediate sphere, helping to challenge and /or support ideas, as well as encourage the development of my strengths. This relationship helped me to build my confidence and develop a self-assurance.

But don’t just take it from me. See the feedback from some of last year’s technical participants:

From Ben Spencer – Senior Technical Specialist (Surface Characterisation):
“My main thoughts on the mentoring scheme include:
1. It helped build confidence for mentor and mentee
2. It effectively set time aside to focus on long-term goals/ stepping away from the stressful day-to-day to see the bigger picture, and this again benefitted mentor and mentee (you of course see parallels between your mentee’s situation and your own)
3. Hearing new perspectives, and hearing about work in different areas is always illuminating.
Met someone who is also a good contact for the future (helps build professional relationships)
4. As mentor it helps me think about better ways to manage my team
5. Helps build skills in handling “difficult conservations” or tackling difficult subjects”

From Emma Enston – Senior Technician (Mass Spectrometry & Separations):
“The Manchester Gold Staff career mentoring programme opportunity came at a time where I felt I could use some support, and some inspiration and direction for my career. I had some ideas that I wanted to explore and put them in my application, and I was successfully matched with someone who was closely associated with the area I wanted to go into. I had a very good relationship with my mentor, she was very supportive, and we got on very well. Whilst on this programme, the Technical Review was well underway, and a new position came up in my department through the restructure, which I was able to apply for. Having a mentor at this time was really beneficial for me as I was able to gain immediate support for applying for this position. After being successful in the application and interview, I am now fully embedded into my new role of Senior Technician (Mass Spectrometry & Separations). Overall, the programme gave me a huge confidence boost, knowing that my career is moving forward, and I can focus on other ideas alongside my role at my own pace. I would recommend this to anyone who feels they could use some support in their role, it is an opportunity to explore new ideas, and you never know what opportunities might come up.”

From Gemma Chapman – Teaching Technical Specialist:
“I participating as a mentor in the 2022 programme. I was encouraged by the call out for technical mentors, especially those in management. I manage labs and people.
However, I was not paired with a technician as a mentee. I was paired with someone in administration. When I asked the programme regarding this, it was due to the matching process, and that I had put that I felt I could help with internal career progression (having joined 18 years ago as a grade 3 technician and having steadily progressed to a grade 6 manager). However, the person they matched me with had already achieved their aim before we met up. We still met, and discussed next steps, and how preparation for the next progression can be built into the day job.”

HOW CAN I FIND OUT MORE AND APPLY?
Be mindful that applications open once a year to participate in the programme and the closing date for 2023 is Friday 28^th April. For further information, visit Manchester Gold. If you have any queries or would like to discuss the programme further, please contact ManchesterGold@manchester.ac.uk.

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