February 20, 2020The ‘Mentoring for Success’ program launched in September last year, attracting 69 mentoring matches across Northern Health.
One of these matches is Grant Taylor, Site Director of Broadmeadows Hospital and Craigieburn Centre with Karen Barnett, Deputy Director, Finance.
Grant, who is mentoring Karen, said he had previously participated in mentorship programs at other health services and has always found these programs to be of great personal and professional benefit in terms of growth and development.
“It is through participating in these programs, I have been able to achieve my career goals and furthermore have enabled me to work towards my current position as Director of Nursing and Operations,” he said.
Karen, the mentee, said she was particularly attracted to Northern Health’s mentorship program as it offered her the opportunity to be paired with a mentor from outside of Finance, and provide her with valuable insight into operations. Through the program, she now has the opportunity to brainstorm ideas around how to address challenges within her portfolio.
“As the mentee in this relationship, I was looking to gain greater insights into Northern Health from a nursing perspective. I believe having these insights will help myself as a finance professional to provide better business support to our operational stakeholders,” she said.
As a mentor, Grant’s goal is to support the growth of his colleagues, help troubleshoot challenges and come up with new ways of doing things.
“As I’ve previously been a mentee, I wanted to share that same positive experience I had. As a mentor, I also hoped to gain insight into other people’s experience, which thankfully I’ve been fortunate enough to have gained. Even though I am the mentor in this relationship, I have still learnt a lot of things from Karen, given she is from a Finance background. It’s been great to blend our two ‘world views’ and find some common ground in how we get through our days, as well as take on ideas on how to best manage new scenarios,” Grant added.
Both Karen and Grant agree they would strongly recommend mentorship to others, as they found it to be a really rewarding experience and through participating in it, they are able to share ideas and notice not just their own growth and development, but that of a colleague.
“Who knows, you might even find a new friend,” Grant added.
Natalie Sposaro, Manager, Organisational Capability, said the overall staff feedback has been extremely positive.
“Our staff are thankful that Northern Health has allowed employees to connect within and cross discipline. People are enjoying the different types of mentoring relationships – traditional, peer to peer and reverse. We have most of the Executive team participating in the program and they are very supportive,” she said.
