Mentors: How does your company support you?

[kwotremb]

Mine has varied more by Managers, but usually I have been able to take the Fridays off for competitions without and issue and just work harder during the day to leave an hour earlier than normal. Although my company supports a lot of teams and I have heard of a lot of variation between other mentors on teams. Between only working half days and working on the robot the other half, to anything you want to do is your time and forced to use vacations.

[SuperBK]

Kudos to companies that are understanding and let employes take time off to support first. My boss is flexible as long as I get my work done, but no benefits. Especially not paying for hotels or travel expenses. Seeing the students work together and having a good time at competitions was something that money can't buy.

[Wetzel]

My company was kind enough to give me full time off just in time for build season.

Wetzel

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by rsisk

The company I work for graciously lets me spend my vacation time to support FIRST. In other words, no support... but I'm working on changing that

sigh. Me Too.

Long time ago, they were a lot more supportive - time off, travel expenses, and a donation to the team.

These days, I am grateful they let me work a shifted schedule so I can leave at 4. Even that may go away, I am hearing some grumbling.

[JesseK]

I got a small bonus once for performing well at work while also volunteering 700 hours over the course of a year. I've done that for 4 years in a row, but only 1 'bonus'. Interestingly my company gives an award to those who reach 3,500 lifetime volunteer hours, yet last year most of the people who had reached that in recent years were laid off. One year I got 8 hours of paid vacation for my efforts, but that was after the season. We get a breakfast once a year, but we have to stay late to make up the time for the breakfast. Ironic, heh.

So as to support -- other than a "thanks" and a logging system that allows the company to take credit for my hard work, support has never existed for employees.

There once was a corporate initiative to grow STEM education through FIRST, but it fizzled because the corporate guys put guys in charge of it who have absolutely no passion about STEM education in general. Did my one corporate contact listen to me? Hardly. His son graduated from my team and I haven't heard from him since. Corporate gave some money to some teams one year.

I'm sure I sound disenfranchised about it. To be honest, I am. But life goes on and I still do great work.

So I'm head of CAD. Yea, the guy who programs and helps hold together a 17 million line system doesn't program a single word on the robot. But at least I don't have to be at the school to do it; the projects I'm on are less flexible with the FLEX scheduling we get.

[Alan Anderson]

I am very well supported.

I work for Delphi, the primary corporate sponsor of the team I mentor. The company provides the bulk of the team's funding, including travel and lodging for "official Delphi mentors" who travel with the team (I don't actually work for the same division that sponsors the team, but I do get counted as official). I get to charge my days attending FRC events with the team to the special account set up for that purpose, so I'm not required to take vacation for Thursdays and Fridays when the team competes.

My mentoring is recognized by my supervisor as an important part of what I do. I also perform my "real" job well enough that nobody gripes when I take some time at work to read and answer Chief Delphi posts.

(I do have to take vacation days if I choose to volunteer at FRC events that the team is not competing at. I'm doing that in Hawaii this year.)

[sheilarogers]

PTC has nearly 300 employees who volunteer for FIRST programs all around the world. PTC has been very supportive of those activities, including implementing a Community Volunteer Day Policy - encourages employees to participate in non-profit volunteer activities for up to two "work" days per fiscal year without taking paid time off.

In terms of supporting teams financially, PTC sponsors 110 FTC and FRC teams. Every team that has a PTC mentor is given the opportunity to apply for a PTC grant. PTC also sponsors JFLL/FLL teams. We will provide the cost of registration/intro kit for every team that a PTC employee is associated with.

[mac]

Originally Posted by sandiegodan

Mentors,

My company is having a discussions on ways to encourage and support employee volunteer efforts like FIRST mentoring. I was interested in asking this forum what are some of the ways your companies support you in mentoring FIRST teams?

Do they have an allowance of time off to go to team meetings?
Do they offer incentives to those who volunteer?
Are you assigned to the task as part of your job? If they do, how does that work? Do you get time off? Extra pay?
Does your company help you with travel expenses for regionals or the championship?
Do they off other incentives like a volunteer lunch or dinner or some kind of appreciation celebration?

It will help me to benchmark other companies and I thought it would be valuable to document some of the various ways companies support their volunteers.

If there is a similar thread already, please point me to it, I tried to search but didn't come up with anything.

Right now, my company doesn't do anything, but they are talking about it, which is appreciated.

Any experiences shared would be very helpful.

Thank you,

Mentor Mac, None, nothing at all. Post Office! Can you see and under stand. I put my own money out and time. Go team 686. God Bless All

[rbrown1]

My company has been supporive. They donate to the local regional and give up to 40 hours/year of time for community support. We also can apply once a year if we donate 50 hours of time they will also give $500 to the 501.c.3 organization.

[Phalanx]

I've been mentoring for 10 years and have worked for few different companies.

During that time, I've had various levels of support. My current employer has been the best of the bunch, but, they are also a LARGE contributor to NYC FIRST. In all of my employers though, being in IT for me means being on call 24/7 so regular shift hours can vary. Although normally it's 9-5.

1st employer, My supervisor "looked the other way" when I'd leave at 3PM during build season. I couldn't do it every day, but at least 2-3 days a week. As for events, it was use my vacation time(I had 4 weeks) . They donated nothing.

2nd employer, allowed me to shift my hours so I could leave at 3PM everyday during build. Again, use my vacation time for events(I had 4weeks). They donated nothing.

My current employer, gives me 1 day off with pay for charitable work & pays our teams registration fee. Other than that its use my vacation time(I have 4 weeks). However, they are very supportive of FIRST so I get a far amount of leeway as long as I don't abuse the privilege.

So all in all, it varies highly on your employer and sometimes your direct supervisor as much support you have.

[wireties]

My company, The PTR Group Inc - www.theptrgroup.com, are major sponsors of 4 teams (116, 620, 1296 and 2537). And they are EXTREMELY flexible about time during build season. They do all this despite being a pretty small company - so I'm pretty lucky!

[Kims Robot]

Its interesting to see the range of levels here. I used to work for Harris when I ran 1511, and they are truly an incredible sponsor...

Originally Posted by sandiegodan

Mentors,
Do they have an allowance of time off to go to team meetings?
Do they offer incentives to those who volunteer?
Are you assigned to the task as part of your job? If they do, how does that work? Do you get time off? Extra pay?
Does your company help you with travel expenses for regionals or the championship?
Do they off other incentives like a volunteer lunch or dinner or some kind of appreciation celebration?

1511's team meetings were mostly after work hours (6pm or later), but there were a few times where there were demonstrations or meetings that I or other mentors would need to attend, and although it varied by manager, the company was very supportive. Most weeks we had so much work to do that we would just make it up in that week at other times. In the case that we were busy/unable to make it up, we were allowed to take Personal Time (for which Harris had unlimited - though everyone used it within reason).

While I didn't technically get "paid" for running 1511, for several years it was actually on my goals & performance review. They recognized it as incredibly beneficial to the company and as part of their "corporate responsibility" so I always got "credit" for my leadership of the team. Again, there wasn't a budget for hours to spend on it, but I flexed my time in all sorts of ways... some days for competition prep I could spend 75% of my day doing FIRST work, but in general it evened out as I often worked 60hrs most weeks and traveled a lot. But it was nice that no one was micromanaging my time. As long as I could meet company deadlines and get my job done, I was free to do what I needed for FIRST.

Harris is a very generous sponsor. We got plenty of funding to not only run the team, but also to fund the travel for all of the mentors involved (including non-Harris employees). So all of our trips were paid for. In addition, for competitions each of us got one to two days "off" (based somewhat on level of effort/who needed to travel early with the team), marked as Personal Time to attend the competitions.

Not to be overlooked was their donation of shop time and materials that they give to the team every year. We end up a bit at the mercy of current work, but the fact that they allow their machinists to work on our parts and get us plenty of them was a huge leap in our productivity. We even brought the robot in to show the guys in 2008 just before we shipped it, as they were so instrumental in helping us get some really impressive parts made.

There is also plenty of company recognition for the mentors. We were often recognized in the weekly email newsletter or monthly company newsletter. The trophies were on display on the executive floor. And every year they had a luncheon to recognize all of the mentors with the Harris senior staff (non-Harris ones invited) and when corporate funding allowed (most years), the Harris mentors received small bonuses & recognition certificates.

Some other little things included that they had a system where you could track your volunteer hours, and those who did would get a pin and certificate, and I believe they were building that up to be more. They also worked into our signed funding request that we would be allowed to do fundraisers onsite, so the first year we sold hexbugs we sold cases and case of them at Harris! Our carwashes and other fundraisers get advertised in their newsletters, and we could post fliers around the company. Additionally a lot of the administrative assistants would help us with everything from packing our patron drive folders to doing the submissions for our mastercards monthly and helping us with printing for documents for our competitions.

For me, the benefit was huge... I felt like my name was known everywhere in the company. The president and VPs knew me by name & face and often said hi to me in the hallways. One of the stories I've told before, that I think clearly echo's Harris's support is from one of our midyear meetings. Our President was talking about the company, corporate outreach etc etc. He said "And the Robotics team did great this year!!..." and elaborated on our awards. He went into something else and then started up with "And the other weekend I was in the grocery store... dressed down, but I had a Harris Tshirt on. This lady stopped me and said "Oh, do you work at Harris??" I said of course. The lady asked "Oh do you know Kim O'Toole?? She does great things with that robotics team!!!"... and gushed about our team... Then she turned around and asked "So what do YOU do at Harris?""... He of course laughed and said he was the President. As he told this story I was simultaneously mortified and shrinking down in my chair, but also incredibly proud that not only had we garnered this amount of respect for the "Harris Robotics Team", but our president had enough of a sense of humor to recount the story to the entire company.

Above all else when I've mentioned Harris's sponsorship to others, I say that really, they just "get it". We were fortunate that the Chief of Engineering Finance had been involved in FIRST with Harris back around 96, so he knew the program and its benefits. And while it took a little bit of work to build the partnership that exists today, they really have been great. To me it was ironic that it never mattered to them how well we did or what awards we won, they were just happy that we were helping students get interested in STEM careers... yet 1511 is the most successful team I have ever been involved in.

I'm still learning the ropes with my new employer, but they push us to have "an external footprint", for which FIRST seems to qualify, and they allow us to take up to 16 hours off at a time that we can make up within a period of time.

[Tom Line]

My employer (Ford) gives small donations of things like fasteners, etc. As far as I know, all of our volunteers do so on their free time, and no one is compensated in any way.

I do spend time while I'm at working working on FIRST, but it isn't technically 'sanctioned' and I have to be very careful to maintain job performance at the same level I have when FIRST isn't in season.

[Seth Mallory]

My work is very generous. They let me use my vacation to attend events if I can get those dates. They support my efforts to mentor the team as long as it is on my own time.

I am able to each year to choose to come to work at 4:00 AM and get off at 12:30 PM. This allows afternoons and nights for volunteering. The problem is that at times during build I have health problems related to sleep deprivation. My normal is 5 hours a night but 2 or more nights in a row of 3-4 hours and my body says no more. Only 11 days until I can start catching up.

[fox46]

My work is very generous. They let me use my vacation to attend events if I can get those dates. They support my efforts to mentor the team as long as it is on my own time.

I am able to each year to choose to come to work at 4:30 AM and get off at 12:30 PM. This allows afternoons and nights for volunteering. The problem is that at times during build I have health problems related to sleep deprivation. Only 11 days until I can start catching up.

X2

-I get up for work at 5am, finish at 3:00,
-Head to the school from 3:30-6:00,
-Get a bite to eat at the healthiest fast food place I can find,
-Help out at another sponsor's tool and die shop from 6:30-10pm+.

On weekends, I finish the weekly cycle early at 9:00, then:

-Drive from London Ontario to Toronto Ontario (2 hours)
-Spend the night at my parents house, where I get to sleep in until 7am and get a home-cooked meal!
-Pick up an old highschool robotics buddy of mine and we drive from Toronto Ontario to Stayner Ontario (another 2 hours north) where we help another team work at their sponsor's shop until about 4am in the morning.
-Resume work at about 10am.
-Leave at 7pm (this often gets pushed back to 9pm) and drive 2 hours to Toronto where I drop my friend off.
-Depart for London at 9:30pm.
-Arrive in London for 11:30pm if I don't have to stop to rest.

-- resume weekly cycle

My coffee budget is out of sight...