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One of the most interesting and difficult problems facing many public sector managers in general, and health and social service managers in particular, is how to develop their organisation. Many of them, encouraged by the policies of Conservative governments since 1979, look to the world of business for assistance in creating helpful techniques and strategies. One such technique is that of mentoring, which is being increasingly utilised as a management development technique by many public sector organisations.
There is a range of definitions (see Collin, 1979; Burke, 1984) but in general mentoring involves a more experienced individual taking particular responsibility for the development of a less experienced colleague. This can involve a variety of roles and relationships (Burke, 1984; Noe, 1988). Noe has argued that 'the mentoring construct remains unclear...this is because of a lack of agreement regarding the functions provided by mentors and differences in the purpose and extent of formalization of mentoring programs in organizations'. There is not therefore a single, agreed model of mentoring that public sector organisations can adopt. Instead there is a variety of models and clearly the private sector constitutes an important source.
Paradoxically there has been a tradition of mentoring-like activities among many of the professionals in the public sector. Nursing, where the practice is referred to as 'perceptorship', social work, where the term 'supervision' is commonly employed, and teaching, where the term 'mentoring' is used, are all examples. As we shall see, while we have to be careful not to make large generalisations, there are important differences between mentoring in the private sector and in the professional in health and social services. These focus around issues of control and accountability which weigh heavily in the health and social services situation.
We have been involved in various ways in mentoring for a number of years. Our experience includes both professional--participation in social work supervision--and managerial--'mentoring-like' support for first-line managers, who were involved in year-long development programmes within a Health and Social Services Board in Northern Ireland. In addition Ritchie has been involved in advising a number of boards, as well as researching on mentoring.
Reflecting upon this experience, we have become aware of the uneasy translation in practice of private sector experience into health and social services....