Sharpening strategies for work toolboxes - NZ Herald article

British expert will help NZ firms develop a mentoring culture, writes Steve Hart

New Zealand organisations are increasingly embracing mentoring and coaching as being essential to their organisation's toolbox of learning and development strategies, says Aly McNicoll.

The New Zealand Mentoring Centre training director says the benefits of mentoring include helping to develop leaders, drive change and address management and human resources issues. While mentoring staff and grooming them for advancement may be all well and good, McNicoll says showing the benefits on the bottom line - generating a return on investment - is something some firms struggle with.

But help is on its way in the form of a mentoring expert from Britain.

"Britain is about five years ahead of us in terms of where mentoring and coaching sits in organisations," says McNicoll. "One survey found that 86 per cent of organisations [in Britain] were using mentoring and coaching as part of their day-to-day performance management practice.