People with convictions face challenges getting into and progressing in work, but a mentoring scheme involving experienced HR professionals is helping rebuild their confidence. Ashleigh Webber reports
Last year, the CIPD Trust – the arm of the HR body focused on supporting people who face greater challenges at work – began piloting a mentoring scheme that connects individuals with experience of the criminal justice system with HR professionals, to help break down some of the barriers people with convictions face.
The scheme, which was launched with social enterprises Offploy and St Giles Trust, sees people professionals with mentoring experienced paired with individuals with complementary motivations, skills or development needs, helping them to gain crucial workplace skills such as confidence and leadership.
Schemes such as this are likely to become especially valuable in light of government plans to encourage more companies to recruit former prisoners, in order to tackle reoffending.
According to the Ministry of Justice, around one in four working age people in the UK have a conviction – a significant proportion of the workforce – and 86% of employers of people with convictions rate them as good at their job, with higher levels of retention and loyalty.
However, according to Sally Eley, head of the CIPD Trust, the benefits of the project extend far beyond supporting the people with convictions themselves; she believes HR professionals can also learn from people with the lived experience of the justice system and use this knowledge to transform their people policies and embrace more inclusive recruitment methods.
“If we can do something about this, we’re not only supporting individuals but we’re supporting those bigger socioeconomic problems as well; the cost of reoffending is estimated at £18bn a year,” she tells Personnel Today.
“Organisations like Offploy and St Giles Trust really understand the barriers and specific challenges that people with convictions face. They’ve been sourcing the mentees who are ready to take a step into work, or who are already in work and are ready to progress.”
HR professionals step up
The project was initially piloted with around a dozen people. Following a call to action from its members, the CIPD Trust received significant interest from people wanting to volunteer their time and knowledge to support people facing barriers to work because of their past convictions.
Interested mentors were screened to ensure they had the desired experience, as Sally points out that the scheme required people professionals who had already acted as mentors before.
Mentee Heather, who is now a team leader and employment adviser for Offploy, was matched with Jane Walton, a long-time CIPD member with an L&D background who now runs a mentoring business in Yorkshire.
Without the mentoring, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage or the confidence to go for that interview” – Heather, mentee
Heather was put forward for the programme by her manager, but she agreed that mentoring would be beneficial to develop her ideas and skills.
“All of us in our professional lives can lose a grip on our confidence, our time management, or whatever challenges we might face, so I thought I would try to build those [skills] up,” she says.
“Before the process began, I didn’t have the goal of becoming the team leader I am today. That opportunity came up about halfway through the programme with Jane, and I realised I had to go for it. Without the mentoring, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage or the confidence to go for that interview.”
Developing skills
Jane applied to be a mentor because she wanted to gain experience of working with women who have experienced the criminal justice system.
“I’ve been mentoring for a number of years, but I’m always looking for new opportunities to develop my skills and my experience, because every mentoring relationship is different and I constantly need to develop,” she says.
“Heather and I worked quite intensively for about six months, and we covered a lot of ground quite quickly because we both wanted to learn from each other.”
Jane said her main role in the process was to be a listener and ask crucial questions to bring out Heather’s motivations and goals.
“Interestingly, we found that you have to go beyond working life – you have to consider any other influencers and aspects of [the mentee’s] life that are going to impact their professional life,” Jane says. “We followed a very clear mentoring structure, but there had to be flexibility around what we talked about.”
Every mentoring relationship is different and I constantly need to develop” – Jane, mentor
The process also encouraged Heather to consider her strengths and to set goals with clear actions for achieving them.
“Our conversations considered my lived experience, what makes me happy, what skills I have, what skills I needed to improve on and what makes me feel fulfilled,” she says.
“Professionally I have a better understanding of the team leader I am because of how I view myself now.”
Since completing the mentoring programme, Heather has begun a leadership course and spoken about her lived experience as a woman with a conviction at an event to mark Offploy’s eighth birthday in the House of Commons – something she says she would not have had the confidence to do had she not received mentoring.
She encouraged people considering mentoring to have a good idea what they want to get out of the process before they begin. “Mentors are mentors, not mind readers,” Heather says.
The CIPD Trust’s Sally Eley judged the pilot to be a success, and says it plans to continue running the mentoring scheme.
“There are so many people who have been affected by the criminal justice system; and this isn’t just individuals, it’s their families too,” she says.
“We hear a lot of people who have been through this say that just having somebody to listen to what their issues are has really helped build their confidence.”
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