Keyword: Mentoring Programmes

The New Zealand Computer Society have launched a year long mentoring programme for their members in the ICT community.

The programme was launched in Wellington on 29 July with a training day for mentors in the region.

Wendy Baker, NZCMC director, trained 25 Mentors for the programme and focused on ways they could support their Mentee in finding their own way to achieve their career goals. Following the training, Mentees were invited to join the session and meet their Mentor for the first time, over a glass of wine.

The programme will be rolled out to Auckland and Christchurch later this year.

NZCMC have been selected for the 3rd year running to present a workshop at the 2010 American Society for Training & Development International Conference in Chicago in May which is the Trainer's equivalent of the Rugby World Cup.

This year's workshop, Group Coaching: Tools for Leveraging Learning in Groups and Teams, will provide participants with a taster of this powerful coaching mode. Group coaching combines the benefits of one-to-one coaching with the power of peer-to-peer learning. It provides a recession-proof method for coaching in times when coaching is most needed and makes the most of what is probably the best learning resource an organization has--its own people.

The Royal New Zealand Air Force have celebrated the first year of their in-house mentoring programme with a formal ‘Dining In’ held at Whenuapai Air Force Base and was attended by The Chief of Air Force, Air Vice Marshal Graham Lintott.

The pilot mentoring programme was launched on ANZAC Day, 25 April 2008 as a result of an idea put forward to the RNZAF Innovation Scheme. It has since been rolled out nationwide to all RNZAF Bases and Wellington Headquarters.

The mentoring programme is a voluntary scheme which cuts across rank and service areas to develop leadership and tap into the innovation and talent within Air Force personnel.

The NZ Coaching & Mentoring Centre welcomes International Associate, Professor David Lane to New Zealand for his 3rd visiting expert series in March. David is both an academic, an author and a senior practitioner of executive coaching in the UK.

On his last visit in 2007 he was the keynote speaker for the inaugural Mentoring & Coaching Forum (Building Momentum) held in Auckland where he presented the results of his case study research on the realities of coaching in UK organizations.

Forum attendee, executive coach Una Ryan said: "David’s wealth of knowledge and passion for coaching contributed to an in depth learning experience that was both conceptual and practical. The day delivered more than I expected."

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.