The client is a major provider of Petro-chemical products globally.

An assessment of the organisation identified a significant overreliance on a relatively small number of expert engineers in the organisation. This was assessed as being a risk for the organisation – particularly with competitors investing in similar infrastructure and requiring the expertise held within the same group of engineers.

 

The organisation has a significant population of engineers but with the majority being young and inexperienced (but highly educated). The client wanted to create a programme that would support the development of junior engineers and take them on the road to becoming future experts.

Working in partnership with an industry expert consultant, the programme used the Institute of Leadership and Management Level 5 Certificate in Coaching and Mentoring as the structure for taking expert senior engineers through a development process as SME (Subject Matter Expert) Mentors. The qualification provides an excellent structure through a process of theoretical learning, skills development, and reflection on application – linking into reflective practice and continuous improvement.

Each Mentor was linked to a small number (normally 1 or 2) mentees. The mentor worked with mentee to create a development plan and support the mentees progress along the plan.

There are now 32 senior engineering mentors working towards a degree level coaching and mentoring qualification within the organisation.

Outcomes:

Because of the nature of the organisation and the tracking applied to the mentoring project it’s very easy to measure many of the specific outcomes. Many of the tasks now being undertaken by mentees require assessment and sign-off so the organisation has a register of engineers cleared to undertake certain tasks. The available resource for many critical tasks has increased very significantly. This has directly resolved the original organisational risk.

The project has been extremely well supported by the organisations leadership and senior engineers going through the qualification have been well rewarded and have been given exceptional exposure within the organisation. These additional ‘environmental factors’ for projects like this can have a huge impact on outcome and is an area of particular experience and expertise within the HumanTechnics team.