Mentor Recruitment and Quality Control

[KathieK]

Some NEMO stuff on the subject of mentors that might help: A Mentor Is... and Recruiting and Retaining Mentors.

If your team organization model allows for it, treat the team like a business. Define your goals; determine what types of "employees" you are looking for to successfully meet those goals; advertise (recruit) people with those skillsets or those looking to learn those skills; interview likely candidates. Have a performance appraisal system in place so that each employee's strengths and weaknesses can be discussed in a nonconfrontational setting. Is there something the team can do to help the person succeed? And have consequences in place for if it's just not working out. Do you keep an employee who is clearly alienating all the other employees and who doesn't want to change? I know this sounds extreme, but most students in FIRST will be in the workplace in 4-8 years. And most companies have some sort of system like this in place, so why not adopt this model?

[Richard Wallace]

I just want to support and reinforce what Kathie posted above.

To carry the analogy between a FIRST team and a business one step further: successful businesses recognize that hiring (aka human resources) decisions are the most important ones that they make. A common rule-of-thumb says that hiring the wrong person for a job will have a negative financial impact on the business that is at least three times that person's yearly compensation (pay). So even the smallest businesses consider hiring and promotion decisions very carefully, often involving the president of the company (or of the operating division, in the case of a very large business) in the final decision to hire even one engineer.

The decision to take on any new team member is always important. The decision maker(s) must understand a prospective new member's capabilities, work habits, communication skills, etc. very well before taking the new member onto the team and assigning the new member responsibilities.

[RoboMom]

Some sort of a written contract or memorandum of understanding is another suggestion.

[JaneYoung]

Jaine:
I'm looking at a lot of your questions from the perspective that sometimes there aren't easy answers. There is a lot of gray, rather than the black and white that many of us like.
Our mentors come in different packages: engineers, teachers, NEMS, parents who fill in as needed. We have mentors who have been with teams for many years, mentors who are just starting out, and we have college mentors. Within that, we may have many volunteer mentors. Within that, we have mentors who have comfortable set-ups for the teams: shops, materials, budgets and we have mentors who catch as catch can, often dipping into their own wallets.

To me, a mentor is always maturing, developing, and learning. It isn't just the students who go through developmental processes. And the team program goes through these processes as well.

So I look at all of this plus other things when I look at your questions.
One thing that I can say is that our team is working on defining the different mentors' roles this year and also working on keeping communication a priority. Things can bog down quickly with poor communication on a team. Good communication helps when personalities and approaches vary. And, sometimes there are tough calls to make that have to be made when other methods have failed.

[Wayne C.]

- What problems has your team had with mentorship?
Most teams seem to have the problem of having a scarcity of mentors. For us the policy has been that we allow each mentor to do what they do best for the team and we respect their talents. In some cases it has been a challenge to find a niche for the various adults. But we generally try hard to find places for everyone to fit in.

- How does your team ensure that it has good quality mentors?

We develop mentors just like we develop the students. Exposure to a progressive series of experiences is important. And somehow, as the head coach, I act as the quality control for the various subsets

- How does it cope (or not cope) with having bad mentors?
In the past we have had some personalities that " didnt get with the program". If they didnt respond to a direct talk they generally found it was time to leave.

- How does your team encourage new mentors to join?
My job is to develop situations where new mentors can be successful and find a niche to participate along with the students. They need to see the fun of FIRST and catch the enthusiasm the kids have. Our team has been expanding into new project areas with the inclusion of more and more mentors. The can-do attitude is refreshing to many of them.
Our graduate mentors are active participants in FIRST world activities and we try to keep them close.


- Does your team train your mentors to be better teachers?
The team certainly does- students putting demands on the expertise of adults trains them quite effectively. We all learn from each other and come away better for it.

- How does your team ensure that new mentors understand what their role on the team should be?
New mentors arent just thrust into a position. We work together for a while and I gradually put more and more responsibility in their hands. I look for their interests and strengths and try to capitalize on them for the benefit of the team. We have a team leadership council of students that work closely with the adults so we all know we can rely on each other. Irresponsibility is not tolerated.

The mentors on team 25 are just as much a part of the team as the students. We all work together as a unit in our respective roles and we all are very proud of the team's accomplishments. And the adults learn as much as the kids because the team exposes them to experiences they otherwise wouldnt ever have. And we have a lot of fun!

Does that answer it?

WC