Mentoring Apprentices

Mentoring apprentices who join your business is an excellent approach to not only develop their skills in line with your requirements but also an excellent way to build their trust and loyalty to you.

Today’s workforce is very mobile. Staff are continually changing their employer in search of developing their careers.  If you can demonstrate from the outset that you wish to invest in an apprentice’s future and they are assigned a competent individual with experience in your business to mentor them, you are far more likely to secure the long term services of that apprentice as their career develops.

Mentoring apprentices is a skill that needs to be learned. This is why we recommend that anybody who is assigned the responsibility to mentor, should receive professional training.

What does the professional training cover?

The mentor needs to know the difference between mentoring, managing, coaching, counselling and buddying.  Furthermore, they require the skills to do these individual tasks and recognise when it is appropriate to switch from one to the other.

Our course also looks at how all parties within the mentoring relationship can benefit from a mentoring program.

In addition, the course provides the mentor with a suite of ‘tools’ to help the apprentice develop.

What are these tools?

The mentors are trained on:

• Establishing goals for the apprentice (The GROW model).
• Building development plans for the apprentice to follow.
• Putting a consistent and regular support structure for the apprentice in place.
• Coaching models for different levels of skill and experience.
• Interpersonal skills such as questioning techniques and active listening.

So, if you want to build loyal, competent staff through an apprenticeship scheme, start with ensuring the Mentors of the apprentices have the right skills to maximise the development of their apprentices.