Abstract:

This paper is based on the experiences and results of the Trust Me – Training for Unique Skills and Techniques for Mentoring project (2015 – 2018) funded by Erasmus+ programme.

Coaching and especially mentoring are seen as cost-efficient and flexible training methods for SME managers’ training. Business mentoring services and programmes are offered by a number of different international, national and regional SME supporting organisations as a part of their services. There exists also a huge number of different mentoring training programmes in Europe but only a small part of them is focused on business mentoring. A good business mentor should have both business and mentoring competencies. If you are a good business manager it does not necessary mean that you are also a good business mentor. Respectively, the mentoring skills without business experience are not enough for acting as a business mentor.

The mentor’s competence framework published by The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) is a general assessment tool which helps mentors to understand their level of development and training providers to evaluate the behaviors of a mentor, to categorise the level that the mentor and the level and effectiveness of mentor training programmes. The competency framework is suitable for all kind of mentoring including eight competence categories focusing on personal and interpersonal skills as well as mentoring process. As a general competence framework for mentors, it does not include any business or industry specific competencies needed in business mentoring.

Based on the above-mentioned reasons, a business mentoring competence framework was defined and a business mentoring training was developed in international cooperation in the project. One of the project’s results was also the Trainers’ Handbook which includes exercises to each phases of mentoring process. The business mentoring competence framework consists of 10 business skills, mentoring process and four soft mentoring skills. The trainings are targeted to SME managers and to the master degree students with business entrepreneurship/business experience. After the training, the mentoring trainee should be able to work as an internal mentor and carry out small external mentoring processes. In the optimal situation, the training will continue with a supervised real mentoring process.

The training programme was piloted in Finland, France, Hungary and Romania during autumn 2017. The basic structure of the training was same in all of the countries, even thus some of the exercises and pedagogical approaches were applied to national/regional circumstances based on the differences of target groups. The pilot training held in Finland, were offered as an elective study course for master degree students of Lahti UAS but also to regional SME managers and entrepreneurs. The pilot programme had three contact days closely connected to business simulation game, aim was to create an authentic business environment. Received feedback of the training was positive and the development of participants’ business mentoring competences were promising. For further development of the training, real-life mentoring practices are clearly the core element of the training and therefore should be emphasised alongside the training. This will be possible when extending the training period up to 6 months programme.

Keywords:

Business mentoring, competence framework, training programme.