Hosted at Johnston Carmichael’s Aberdeen office, this was our first in-person AXIS network mentoring programme kick-off meeting since 2019 (with technology allowing for great interaction with our online attendees). We love the kick-off meetings. They bring people together to network, discuss their hopes for their mentoring partnerships and share some career development aspirations.
Mentoring is a great time for self-reflection, to talk to a sounding board who is outside of your immediate circle, in a safe space. Don’t just take our word for it - here are some of the responses from past mentees and mentors about the benefits:
The interaction and the support I received
Helping someone who needed someone to listen and for the mentee to talk through their options
Valuable to mentor as much to mentee
Open, trusted discussions and the feeling that I was truly able to make a difference to my mentee’s day. Very motivating and rewarding
Someone outside of my sphere asking why I had the thoughts I had and also encouraging me to try new things
Having an independent sounding board
Supporting someone to work through their goals
Meeting with the mentor & discussing ideas/ approaches
Cross peer mentoring, opportunity to put a different lens and focus on business issues from a non-biased perspective
A different approach to tackling difficulties with senior leaders
Great initial kick-off session with my mentee
Learning from someone new
Our mentoring programme is now in its 8th year of running, and we're delighted that cohort 2 will be kicked of H2 2023 - so don’t worry if you missed out this time! You can subscribe to our community via our website to be first in the know when Cohort 2 launches. The programme offers a unique opportunity to all, to develop strong partnerships across industry, across disciplines and across seniority levels (age and organisational) and we receive an average 4+ stars in our annual feedback.
We highly recommend it and look forward to hearing of all the successes at our mid-programme catch up in a few months 😊