Mentor profile for human resources in SMEs.

Izvercianu, Monica ; Draghici, Anca ; Guta, Carmen 等

1. INTRODUCTION

The paper presents the research results gained during our participation in the Leonardo da Vinci European programs:

--FORCREST project (Izvercianu, 2004), and

--TACITUS project (Izvercianu, 2005).

The University "Politehnica" of Timisoara team, from Romania, through the present paper authors, has detected the mentoring requirements in the case of human resources' (employees) of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), from the West part of Romania, before and after the Romania accession to the European Union. In this context, we depict the research scenario that was followed for defining the mentor's profile and skills. Some important issues of the research results and conclusions will be presented in the end of the paper.

2. MENTORING

The small and medium enterprises development, in the economic point of view, is the research and innovation engine and it triggers the changes in the entire society. In this way the enterprise becomes strongly linked to concepts such as: technical innovation, systemic integration and increasing competitiveness. The new and continuous changing environment reports forward the classical interpretations and traditional concepts about enterprise that begin to remain without senses (Izvercianu, 2002).

During lifetime, humans train and develop, and this training and development leads to a skilful and effective adaptation to environment and manipulation of the environment. Society fosters and facilitates these activities of its members, but also channels and controls them through socialization and education so to produce outcomes which contribute and are acceptable for the society. People continue training throughout life, whether encouraged or not, whether the outcomes are valued or not, at work and at home (Beardwell & Holden, 2001).

The mentoring process facilitates the learning--to -learn of the employees and contributes to the process of meaning making in the organization and hence to its responsiveness to environment, while meeting the development needs of employees. The mentees are not the only beneficiaries of mentoring: mentors also gain very much from being challenged to understand their jobs and the organization, and to find ways of helping their mentees share this understanding and work efficiently.

By mentoring they may also find that they need mentoring, too. Mentors draw upon their own networks to give experience and support to their mentees, and encourage them to develop networks of their own. In this way, the practice and benefits cascade through their organization (Torrington, & al., 2002).

3. THE RESEARCH SCENARIO AND RESULTS

The research regarding the identification of mentor profile, for the human resources involved in the small and medium enterprises environment, had as objective: defining the mentor's profile and identifying the skills requirements for a mentor.

That objective has risen from a vast analysis developed upon 32 small and medium enterprises from the West part of Romania. The analysis was developed at:

--Medium level, in the context of the work collectively (or work team);

--Micro level, for each person / employee (Foster-Turner, 2006).

Defining the mentor's profile--The first question to arise is: who are the mentors?

We consider that mentors may be friends, parents, colleagues, teachers as well as historic and contemporaneous personalities.

Age has no great importance in mentoring; although it is sure that the person who participates in a mentoring program is, in general, younger than mentors, that is to say innovations advance so fast and personal experience learn so many things that often young people have the opportunity to make mentors greater workers.

The mentoring relation works well if both parties spend time together and if they want it. A short mentoring relation means a long way for the mentee: a relative small investment of the mentor can suppose a significantly positive difference in the career and in the life of the mentee (Foster-Turner, 2006).

Study sample--Knowing who can be the mentors, for mentoring study were randomly chosen from the 32 small and medium enterprises a group of 8 enterprises. These enterprises have the next identified features (Table 1).

The research methodology--For the first research objective we have chosen a qualitative method, namely the group's phenomenological analysis and we have used "the non-direct centred group interview technique". The topic of the group interview was based on the following questions:

--"Which are, in your opinion, the skills that a mentor must have?"

--"Which is the mentor's profile?"

Regarding the skills that a mentor must have, we have encountered many opinions, but considering the group's final opinion we kept 19th of them.

Each opinion was scored on the following scale from 1 to 10, according to the level of importance considered by each member of the group from Insignificant--Grade 1 to Extremely important--10, with intermediate values. From the mathematical point of view, the decreasing ordering of the mentor's skills importance in students' opinion was made depending on the average value of opinions Ki . This was calculated with the following formula:

[K.sub.i] = [n.summation over (j=1)] [a.sub.ij]/n (1)

where [P.sub.i] = skill i; i = 1 ... m; [S.sup.j] = interviewed subject j; j = 1 ... n. The skill value [P.sub.i] in subject's opinion [S.sub.j]: [P.sub.i], [S.sub.j] [right arrow] [a.sub.ij] according with the information presented in Table 2. In our actual case were retained: Pi skills where i = 1 ... 19 (m = 19) and [S.sub.j] subjects where j = 1 ... 136 (n = 136).

The research results regarding mentors' skills and profile--Followed the mathematical model presented before for all the opinions regarding the mentor's necessary skills, there have been resulted the decreasing ordering as results of the arithmetic means of grades given by the 136 subjects answers that are shown in Table 3. For each skill there have been deteminated the correspondent average formula. The result was the matrix of grades given by the subjects [S.sub.i] answer (opinion) for each abilities [P.sub.i] .

It can be observed that from the initial list made of 19 skills, were retained only the first ten skills, because under the 6 grade the skill importance becomes very less essential.

Proceeding in the same way and using the research method and the mathematical calculus the have been determinated the mentor's profile as it is described in Table 4. In the final part of the research, seven features of the mentor's profile were considered as essentials from the praxiology point of view.

4. CONCLUSIONS

The mentoring relations are not spontaneous and their occurrence is not automatic. It was outlined a kit of skills, which enabled us to design the mentor's profile. During the future phases we intent to disseminate the research results. The research for the mentor's profile determination was grounded on a group of 136 subjects. The paper was finalized with the mentoring concept analysis and development in economical environment.

5. REFERRING

Beardwell, I.; Holden. L. (2001). Human Resources Management, Ed. Pearson Education, ISBN 0273643169, Harlow, England.

Foster-Turner, J. (2006). Coaching and mentoring in health and social care: The essentials ofpractice for professionals and organisations. Oxford, UK.

Izvercianu, M.(2002). Marketingul resurselor umane, Ed. Solness, ISBN 973-8472-17-2, Timisoara, Romania.

Izvercianu, M.(2004). Leonardo da Vinci Programme, Forcrest Project

Torrington, D.;Hall, L. &Taylor S. (2002). Human Resources Management, Ed. Pearson Education, ISBN 0273646397, Harlow, England.

Tab. 1. The structure of groups--*) Shoe production (SP);
Textile production (TP); Thermo- electrics (TE);
Apparatus & machines (AM).

 The group structure
 No of by gender
 subjects in
 No. Enterprise * the group Female Male

 E1 SP 14 8 6
 E2 SP 15 5 10
 E3 TP 15 15 --
 E4 TP 17 17 --
 E5 TE 16 1 15
 E6 AM 18 2 16
 E7 AM 20 1 19
 E8 AM 21 3 18
TOTAL 8 136 52 84

 Professional
 experience
 [years]

 No. 0-5 5-10 >10

 E1 4 3 7
 E2 7 2 6
 E3 2 1 12
 E4 1 3 13
 E5 -- 3 13
 E6 -- 3 13
 E7 1 6 13
 E8 -- 7 14
TOTAL 15 28 93

Tab. 2. The matrix of grades given by the subjects [S.sub.i] to the
skills [P.sub.i]

 Subjects S

 Skills [S.sub.1] ... [S.sub.n] Sum

[P.sub.1] [a.sub.11] ... [a.sub.1n] [[summation][a.sub.1j]
[P.sub.2] [a.sub.21] ... [a.sub.2b] [[summation][a.sub.2j]
... ... ... ... ...
[P.sub.m] [a.sub.m1] ... [a.sub.mm] [[summation][a.sub.mj]

 Skills Average

[P.sub.1] [K.sub.1] = [n.summation over (j=1)][a.sub.1j]/n
[P.sub.2] [K.sub.2] = [n.summation over (j=1)][a.sub.ij]/n
... ...
[P.sub.m] [K.sub.m] = [n.summation over (j=1)][a.sub.mj]/n

Tab. 3. The research results regarding mentors' skills

 [n.summation
Skill over (j=1)]
[P.sub.i] Mentor's skills [a.sub.ij] [K.sub.i]

1 They know what they are talking 1202 8.838
 about, usually they are good in
 the activity they develop

2 They give honest answers 1195 8.786

3 They are natural, they do not 1124 8.264
 hurt with their answers or
 behaviors

4 They do not intimidate, they 1110 8.161
 are easily accessible

5 They formulate questions 1041 7.654
 actively

6 They make possible, they take 1002 7.367
 care, they act, and they
 facilitate

7 They give a constructive and 975 7.169
 positive feed-back

8 They are disposed to discuss, 968 7.117
 to argue, to talk openly

9 They are interested in the 835 6.139
 mentee in a personal way, in a
 genuine worry

10 They guide subtly but checking 817 6.00
 that the mentee is able to take
 decisions

Tab. 4. The research results regarding mentor's profile

 [n.summation
 over (j=1)]
 Features of mentor's profile [a.sub.ij] [K.sub.i]

1. Relevant experience not to provide 1237 9.09
answers but know how to listen, to
formulate questions and to give feedback.

2. Sharing the leadership practice 1200 8.82

3. Disposition to reduce the mentee's 1192 8.76
learning curve.

4. Disposition that the trained persons 1150 8.45
overcome them.

5. Values that enrich the personalized 1100 8.08
relation

6. Vocation and consideration of the 1095 8.05
mentoring like a contribution or legacy for
the mentorized.

7. High level of respect in all situations 1051 7.72
or proposals.