Boosting Your Career With A Mentor

Boosting your career with a Mentor

Within a profession with high employee turnover and a shortage of incoming talent, career development is more vital than ever. Mentoring is becoming more and more recognised for its ability to help mentees perform better and increase confidence and morale.

To get the next generation of rising stars onto the career ladder, we have teamed up with NOVUS and Career Ready to share their mentors’ and mentees’ stories on the benefits of a mentoring initiative, how they can assist with professional development and the schemes they have used.

NOVUS

Part of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT UK) and working with leading universities to provide students studying logistics and supply chain degrees, NOVUS’ mentoring initiative supports members in their CPD activities, pushes career development and helps to achieve business goals.

One mentor who is devoted to sharing his skills and expertise is Mark Douglas, Network Continuous Improvement Manager at Wincanton. With strong links with NOVUS, he sees the value of encouraging the next generation of experts into the profession through placements, graduate positions and mentoring. Through his experience, he believes mentors should help those who are just about to embark on their journey, whether as a sounding board for ideas and concerns, to offer advice or just to be there for a general chat. Mark’s current protégé, Tony Wong, student at Aston University, believes that having a mentor can help you learn something you won’t learn in a lecture, or by reading books. He says mentors have real world experience in their field and know exactly what’s going on in the sector. Tony believes that it is always good to know someone working in the profession and is looking forward to putting all the insights and experiences learnt into his career.

Another NOVUS mentor who is passionate about bringing talent into logistics is Sally Hill, Head of Operations at JCB World Logistics at DHL. It became clear to Sally that having someone who could give you impartial advice, help you work through challenges and give you the confidence to achieve your goals was a fantastic gift. The scheme has definitely challenged her, but it has also made her think differently and she believes it’s a great way to stay in touch with developments within the sector. Also a student at Aston University, Jo Varin came into the mentorship with the hope of gaining an expert on speed-dial. As a woman entering the profession, she has found it inspiring to have been given a female mentor that has the levels of experience that Sally has. Jo has been guided through her studies and achieved the networking and professional experience required to achieve her career goals.

Bethany Fovargue, Operations Manager at NOVUS says:” Mentoring is a relationship that maximises potential and improves performance, providing a safe space for development into the best supply chain professional that you can be. Mentoring can play a pivotal role in helping achieve goals, which is why NOVUS is proud to be able to support our students with mentoring.

“The mentoring relationship will look different to each mentoring pair, so we encourage our pairs to take time to speak or meet, remembering that email, Skype or text might also feature in their relationship. Understanding what they would like to achieve from the relationship, as well as what they expect of each other as mentor and mentee, is pivotal, and NOVUS provides mentoring training to help mentors shape this conversation.”

To find out more about the NOVUS mentoring scheme, please contact 01536 740108 or novus@ciltuk.org.uk.

Career Ready

To prepare young people for the world of work, Career Ready’s Plus programme works with schools and colleges to help the next generation of professionals kick-start a successful future with one-to-one mentoring schemes helping to develop skills, confidence and experience.

Emily Clark went from internship to degree apprenticeship at PD Ports after gaining the right skills, confidence and experience from supervisor Lee Dolan, Engineering Manager at PD Ports. Lee is a believer of giving young people quality work experience opportunities and has found the experience incredibly rewarding. Supervising Emily has given Lee the opportunity to develop his own skill-set and mentoring skills, as well as getting more experience of supporting a young, new-starter to the organisation. Emily was extremely enthusiastic about a career in engineering, so being able to play a part in getting her one step closer to her dream career is a great feeling for Lee.

Emily added: “Getting involved with the Career Ready programme is something which I’d recommend to any student who’s starting to think about what they want to do in the future. Just remember to be confident and engage with the people you work with – it can only help you in the future.”

Christopher George, a Motor Injury Claims Handler for Aviva, supported Erik Petnehazi as a Career Ready mentor and helped him secure an internship at the same company. Christopher says that mentoring a young person is such a rewarding experience. As a mentor, Christopher helped Erik grow his confidence by having monthly chats about his interests and future. By doing this he watched him grow in terms of his keenness and his eloquence. By the time Erik came to work at Aviva, Christopher felt Erik had worked hard to give himself the best start possible which was demonstrated by the great reputation he built. Watching a shy young person grow so much in confidence that he completed four weeks work at a major organisation, passed his exams and won a place at college, has been really rewarding for Christopher.

Erik added: “Honestly, getting involved with the Career Ready programme is one of the best things that has happened in my life, and I’d recommend it to any other student. Learning from my mentor – who is more like a friend who you can count on – and my internship at Aviva have both been great experiences which have really helped me become career ready.”

Ian Nichol, Head of Logistics at Career Ready says: “Career Ready mentors can transform lives, providing their mentee with the skills, confidence, and attitude to reach their potential and kickstart a rewarding future. In 2018 we supported 4,000+ young people on our mentoring programme.

Mentors themselves get a great deal from their experience as well, which can be beneficial to their businesses.”

To find out more about Career Ready’s mentoring schemes, please contact 020 7986 5494 or info@careerready.org.uk.

Mentoring can have a really positive impact on your individual employees, and the business as a whole and can play an important role in continuing talent development throughout the industry. If you’d like to find out more about the benefits of mentoring please contact Talent in Logistics on 01952 520216 or talentinlogistics@capitb.co.uk.