Wiley-Blackwell Handbooks in Organizational Psychology

Jonathan Passmore(article review)

In this journal, they will critically examine the design of mentoring schemes
and programs, rawing out the lessons for future practice. In the first section, they
will look at the rationale for developing a conceptual framework for mentoring
schemes, which will then be followed, in the second section, by an examination of
different approaches to mentoring scheme design. In the subsections that follow our
consideration of these approaches, they will explore specific issues that emerge
from these approaches: mentoring senior stakeholders; clarifying scheme purpose
matching; supervision and support for mentoring; review and evaluation. Following
this, the importance of context for mentoring schemes will be examined by
exploring mentoring scheme design issues in education, diversity programs, and
health. The lessons from these areas will then be examined in relation to issues
concerning the differents mode of mentoring, in particular electronic and mutual
mentoring. Finally, they will draw together some conclusions for the future of
mentoring scheme design.
Initial research by Merrick and Stokes ( 2003 ), revealed the following
common functions of mentor supervision in schemes as understood by participants:
Being a mentor to the mentors
Being able to explore techniques and help with problems
An opportunity to reflect on own practice
To support a mentor who feels out of their depth
As a mark of good practice for the profession
To support with ethical issues
To be available for the mentor as an emotional safety valve
Both formative and summative evaluation of mentoring schemes are useful
to inform the design and future development of formal programs. However, it is
difficult to review what is basically a private developmental relationship between
two people and ascertain sufficient information about the activities of and benefits
from the mentoring pair to satisfy the organizations expectations and to obtain
resources for future mentoring. Cranwell-Ward
et al. ( 2004 , p.136) state that
in order to position mentoring as part of the mainstream of organizational
development, a rigorous evaluation process is a key tool, which needs to be in place
at the outset of the scheme. Klasen and Clutterbuck ( 2002 ) reinforce this message,
whilst MacLennan ( 1995 , p. 264) states that if a mentoring system is not
systematically evaluated, monitored, and shown to be effective, it will be dropped
by design or default. However, Cranwell-Ward et al. ( 2004 ) and Klasen and

Clutterbuck ( 2002 ) stress how intangible many mentoring outcomes can be, which
is quite a challenge for the evaluator.