Participants of the AXIS Mentoring Programme (Cohort 3) came together for a close out celebration kindly hosted by one of our mentors, Brian Crichton, and his team at People Factor Consultants. Thanks all at PFC!
Susan Gordon and Denis Pinto, AXIS Mentoring Leads, facilitated the discussion to share experiences and learnings. It was beyond heart-warming to hear what participants thought about this voluntary, free mentoring programme, application to which is open to all AXIS members.
A clear message was the extent to which diversity and inclusion was in action. For example, the matching process provided some surprising, but ultimately strong partnerships. These sometimes surprising matches underlined that we can have preconceived ideas of what a mentor or mentee should ‘look like’. Cohort 3 participants valued the partnerships they created across the industry, across disciplines, and across ‘seniority’ levels (age and organisational level). We also wanted to point out that we had, and we welcome, male mentees and mentors as well as female – our mentorship programme, like our network, is open to all genders.
The independence of the AXIS Mentoring programme was hugely valued, as the lack of organisational pressures on either the mentor or mentee created a freedom that obviously isn’t possible with internal programmes. Some participants also thought the scheme felt almost bespoke to them, particularly when their own mentor was adaptable to their needs. Some mentors felt they have developed their own skills and widened perspectives. Mentors and mentees alike felt they had been introduced to people and topics they would never get the chance to otherwise. As this mentoring programme is populated by volunteers, (committee, mentors and mentees) it meant that individuals wanted to be there – increasing engagement and quality of experience. Several AXIS Mentoring partnerships are continuing past the end of the AXIS run programme as they have found it so beneficial.
In short, we heard – keep running this mentoring programme AXIS, it’s a real benefit to members and it makes a difference to us!
Susan and Denis will work together with Jenny Junnier who is joining the AXIS Mentoring Lead team to make a few updates to the programme in readiness to launch Cohort 4.
Look out for the call for applications for Cohort 4 (to find a mentor or be a mentor) around the end of March. After matching takes place, Cohort 4 will kick off around the end of April/early May – we look forward to welcoming you!