WUN4ALL
WUN's mission is to help women to connect with other women, so they can share learnings, build confidence, and develop their own passion for the fast moving utilities space. Through our podcast episodes, we aim to provide our listeners with the skills they need to build long-lasting and fulfilling careers in the sector.
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WUN4ALL
Ep. 25 Why you should become a mentee with WUN mentees
In this podcast episode, WUN Advocate Victoria Lemmon talks to four mentees of the WUN Mentoring Programme: Phillipa Rose, Stella Matthews, Della Newton and our own Karen Hosking, about their experience with the WUN Mentoring Programme and what insights they have to share.
We also hear some useful tips on how to choose the right mentor and how mentoring can empower you to accelerate your career and enhance your life.
Welcome to the Women's Utilities Network One for All podcast, our corner of the world where we'll be talking all things energy, water, sharing personal stories and debating female issues.
Speaker B:Enjoy.
Speaker A:Hello all. Welcome to the latest One for All podcast. This session's on mentoring from a mentee's perspective. We've got four of the one mentees with us today and we're just going to have a chat through their experience of the mentoring program. But first of all, just going to introduce everyone. So if we start off with Philippa, please.
Speaker C:Hi, thanks for having me. So my name is Philippa Rose. I work as a business development manager at LCP Delta. I've been in sales and marketing for most of my career, so 17 years now and very excited to be part of the one Mentee scheme.
Speaker B:Hi everyone, I'm Stella Matthews. I'm hydrogen development manager at Northern Gas Networks. I've been working in the hydrogen part of the energy industry since the end of 2017 and I love it.
Speaker A:Every day is different.
Speaker D:Hi, I'm Della Newton. I work on the power and gas origination team at Engie. I've been at Engie for six years now. I'm totally into the power side of things now. I'm a power nerd, I would say. I've been a one mentee for around a year now and honestly it's changed my career and my outlook on life as well.
Speaker E:Hi, I'm Karen Hosking, PPA originator at EDF Energy and also one advocate for bringing more lovely ladies into the industry. I've been with EDF since 2005, so kind of quite, quite long in the tooth in regards to the energy energy industry, I guess 18 years coming up. So yeah, really excited to talk to you, to Victoria about mentorship and really the varying journeys I've been on both internally at EDF, but also more recently as a mentee as part of one and also a mentor at one.
Speaker A:Thanks all for joining us. And I'm Vicky Lemon. So I am in my day job. I work for Anglian Water. I do long term strategic planning and water recycling. But I'm also the one advocate for mentoring. So I'm the person that you will come to if you have any mentoring issues or you'd like to talk to more about the mentoring program. So obviously you're all in various stages through your career, various sort of experiences with mentoring. So I'm really interested to understand how you started making that leap from being a, wherever you were to say. Actually, I think a mentor would really help me now and Philippa, I know you've mentioned me before that you're a sort of a serial mentee, that you've had lots of mentors through your career. Do you remember how you started your mentoring journey?
Speaker C:Yes, yeah, yeah. Self confessed serial mentee for sure. I was very, very fortunate, I guess, to start my mentoring journey very early on in my career. So probably a year after graduating university, I must have been 21. 2022 I would have been. And I was offered quite a senior position. This is when I was working in biotech. And I remember at the time it was a sales and marketing management role. And at 22 years of age I was utterly, utterly petrified. I was excited and as ambitious as I was and am and as driven, I think that fear and that lack of confidence and the lack of experience really put me off accepting the role. So what I actually negotiated was to have an external mentor to the company I was working for. And it was, you know, it was much more than a mentor, it was a business coach essentially. And what that relationship gave me, I think at 22 years old, was confidence to really go out and do you know, what someone else had seen I was capable of doing. And I think ever since that I've always kind of organically found people in my life to be mentors. Yeah. So it really changed my life to have that experience very early on.
Speaker A:That's really good that your company supported that as well.
Speaker C:Yeah, very, very fortunate.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And do you sort of generally find that it's been self led, finding a mentor or have you been pushed towards someone?
Speaker C:I think having that experience ever since then it's been very, very much self led. I've worked for companies that have had an internal mentor mentee program, but I think there's a lot of benefit to having someone external to the company you work for who is unbiased and doesn't need to influence. And I think that actually makes a much bigger impact on your life and they genuinely have your best interests at heart. So they really give you that kind of support and challenge you to be a better version of yourself without any ulterior motives. So, yeah, very much needed, but very self led and very external.
Speaker A:Amazing. There's a lot of nods going on. You're nodding viciously as we go through similar views from you.
Speaker D:Yes, definitely. I've been put onto mentoring courses before but never really got on. I think that if somebody else matches you, it's not going to work. Whereas with the one mentoring program we have the option to go online and Read people's profiles and see what speaks to you. And I think that that is actually really valuable in choosing your mentor. And in general, like you said, Philippa, I have quite a few people throughout my career that I consider as mentors, unofficially that I've chosen. I've chosen to put them around me because they help and they develop you. And also it's a two way relationship and you help to develop them as well. And it's all, all around mutual, beneficial, great relationship. And honestly from this experience, especially one making it a lot more formal, I just can't recommend mentoring enough. I love it should be a phrase.
Speaker A:A tagline that we should take.
Speaker B:I think Philippa is really fortunate to have access to a mentor so early on in a career because I just never had that. And it were only when I started the role that I'm in now in 2021, early 2021 and business development were brand new to me and it scared the life out of me. I'll be honest. I just didn't know where to start. And a senior colleague of mine knew Angie Niederloo was one of the ones founders and it kind of said, you ought to talk to Angie and just get some advice from her. And straight away she said to me, you need a mentor. I was just so not self aware of anything. I'd kind of been really lucky in my career in just falling into roles, never actually having the intention of building a career. It just kind of happened around me and I got to a stage where I got to this level and I kind of didn't know. I was like a deer in headlights if I'm honest. And it's been like Della said, it's been invaluable having a mentor because having someone external as well is key, I think. I've had people unofficially mentor me, usually men, and they just don't get the same perspective if I'm honest. But having someone external, they can look at everything with a fresh pair of eyes. They're not involved in the politics of the company. So they come from it from a very transparent viewpoint and kind of open your eyes to seeing things in a certain way that possibly because you're there head down, day to day that you don't realize is happening around your opportunities and ways to deal with things that you wouldn't normally identify for yourself.
Speaker A:It's really interesting. So a couple of you there have sort of mentioned how you were in a new job and then fell into mentoring. Whereas often a lot of people sort of think of mentoring as I need mentoring to get that next new job. So obviously there are many things you can discuss in a mentoring role. So what? Obviously, part of it is being confidential, but there's a lot of topics that you wouldn't mind sharing that on, things you've spoken through in your mentoring journeys.
Speaker C:Yeah, I can start. I think for me, with my mentors, it's more about perspective on anything that's going on, and it's having someone else's perspective. So like Stella says, when you're in a company, you can get sucked into the internal polit and all that buzz that's going on. So to have someone who can give you an unbiased perspective and have that open conversation, that is confidential and they generally want the best for you. Yeah, I think that that's the real benefit. And that's kind of my focus is just having someone to. To voice things about, you know, with no judgment and someone to say, yes, Philippa, you know, this is the right solution. Or actually, no, you know, you've gone, lost the plot. Actually, this is probably a better idea without any preconceptions, you know, it's great to have that feedback.
Speaker B:I think for me, I became a line manager when I started this new role, which, again, were brand new to me, and it's a huge challenge. I have to admit, I find line managing quite difficult. It's probably the hardest part of my entire role, and I just didn't know where to start. And I've had some quite challenging experiences through line management where I wouldn't have known where to get advice on how to deal with certain situations for people who I line manage. So that's been invaluable to me and I've learned so much in such a short amount of time.
Speaker D:I find that because I'm fairly early on in my career, I don't always have the experience of situations myself to not know how to deal with them. But that validation that, yes, what I'm doing is correct. So just being able to bounce off, even if it's not even that much of an awkward situation, it's just something that I want validation on how to move forward and if I'm making the right decisions and such like. And also I found that if I'm having a **** day, my mentor does not judge me. I can sit there and moan and she will sit there and listen. She won't tell me what to do. She knows that she sat there to be my bouncing board for that.
Speaker E:So it's.
Speaker D:That's what I really get from the Relationship.
Speaker B:Do you guys find that your mentor can pick up on when you're having a bad day as well? So I can sit down and have a meeting with my mentor and straight away she'll go, stella, you look really flat today. What's wrong? And I've not even said anything. And I think that relationship's just brilliant because when you work with people day to day, they might notice that, but they'll not call you out on it or ask you what's wrong. So then there's no one vents the wrong word, but there's no one to speak to about what's niggling you.
Speaker C:I suppose I do think at work we also have the pressure to put on a facade in our professional armor. And even if you are having a terrible day, you know, there's this stigma of I would just pretend everything's fine and then, you know, of course your colleagues don't pick on a bit. But I think that's where having a mentor, where there is no armor, you can be completely vulnerable with them, completely transparent. And I think that's where you get really valuable feedback. Because if you're like that with all your colleagues at work, you know, you might get labeled certain things or it might not be as productive because they don't always have your best interests at heart or they're not that interested. And I think through the one mentor scheme, people are giving up their valuable time. They're not being paid to take part, they genuinely care and they genuinely want to help and support.
Speaker A:And one of the things obviously is that it's private and a few of you have mentioned how it's very non judgmental. Do you think that's really important to help you meet that goal? I don't know. Karen, I know we've spoken previously about some of the experiences that you've worked through. Is that mentoring, the privacy around that mentoring relationship really important?
Speaker E:Absolutely. I think it's a safe space. I mean, for me, I've had mentors at varying times of my career. So when I first started coming out of university, a number of predominantly women, I think that I identified that that's who I'd like to be when I grow up. I guess it's as simple as that. And then, you know, when the time came, I got married, I had my first child and I've got three children now. And I would say it wasn't until I had my third child that I actually felt really, really supported in my transition coming back to work. And that was because of my mentor. She was Able to say, look, I've been through this. You have to have a dedicated plan. I was moving into a new role, so I had to actually break to my. To my manager at the time that I'd accepted the role and then found out I was pregnant. And it was. Yeah, there was a lot of challenges around, you know, where does my career go from there? And now he's three. And I've moved into a space where I've got a really fantastic mentor. Through the one network I think we've touched on, we can actually identify with someone that can help you with that next stage, wherever it may be. You may be worked right at the start. You may be kind of in the middling part of your career where you're thinking, what's next for you? So I think that's really where I think mentorship has helped me, and particularly starting as one for an advocate, as an advocate in the last year, really feeling that kind of essence of a safe space that you can bring as a mentee what you want to that conversation. And the mentor can give their advice, how they've approached things in the past, and it can really give you a differing insight and doing that outside.
Speaker B:Outside.
Speaker E:Of your kind of workplace. I think Philippa touched on this. You can kind of be yourself a little bit more. And I think that really, really has helped me kind of build my career so far. So, yeah, really, really positive experiences of.
Speaker A:Mentorship and talking about sort of different stages of life and you're early on in your career and we might be further on in the career. Do the type of mendors that you sort of gravitate to change as you're going through your career? Do you feel or life experiences, or have you found that you thought you found one and you've stuck with them, that you've got one? Maybe that's your safe space that you constantly go to, but you might have other ones which. Which come along for the journey.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker A:How have you found it going through?
Speaker B:Well, I'm only on my first mentor, so it's very difficult for me to answer that question. But I feel like I've built up a really, really good rapport and there's that trust that you mentioned, but also you feel like someone's investing in you as well. So you feel valued and you feel like they've got your best interests at heart, which makes me want to work with them even more.
Speaker D:I feel like for me, so the mentor that I've got through one, I think I'm going to speak to her forever. To be honest, I can't ever see me not going to her, especially when it comes to confidence issues or not particularly issues. But when I want to take that next step or I don't think I'm speaking up enough, I'll definitely always go back to her. But then, as I said earlier, I've got certain people throughout my role at work that I see as mentors. And officially, if it was something more specific to my job, then I'd probably go to them and know that I would also get that feedback. So, yeah, I suppose you do. You pick and choose who's around you. But I definitely think that my one mentor is a lifelong mentor. I'm sure she'll listen to this and be like, yes, Stella, she's not getting rid of me.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So obviously our mentoring relationship through one is generally sort of time constrained, but they very easy to then to move into friendships. And if your mentor is open to that, that's brilliant to then keep that relationship going. Wow. Okay. You've all been really open in your discussions. Thank you. So actually you've all mentioned your one mentors at some point or the other. How did you decide? Why did you decide to go through it with one and how did you decide of our big long list of lovely people that volunteer as mentors, which one was right for you?
Speaker B:I was signposted by Angie Needle and she was like, I have no slots available for mentees, but have a look on the website. And I had a look and had a flick through all the different people that were available, mentors that were available. And the one that I chose had quite a varied career, but within the energy industry. And she specifically looked at leadership and confidence building and they were the things at that time, I'd just got into this role which were new to me, more senior than I've ever worked at before. So it's a little bit more leadership. I got the new line management and I just thought that's a perfect fit. I feel like she'll be able to give me some good advice. And thankfully when I wrote up to her, she accepted.
Speaker C:Yeah, I had a very similar process, I guess to you, Stella as well, where I was kind of signposted to a few people that could be a good fit. And I felt, I guess I was looking for, if I'm honest, I was definitely looking for a female mentor. I've had a few male mentors in my life who are still, you know, in, in my life professionally and still have relationships with, but a senior Woman who was well networked in the energy industry was really important to me and I feel I'm massively lucked out with the lady I got matched with. I utterly adore her. I adore our time together and she's just an absolute joy to talk to.
Speaker D:I heard of the ONE Mentoring program through the first couple of podcasts that you guys did over lockdown. So I was at that point an energy shift trader, which was working night shifts and weekends in a lockdown. So you can imagine how isolated that was at the time. And then I moved into an origination role which as I'm sure you know because a couple of you are in the same type of space, you've got to have a lot of confidence, you've got to speak to a lot of people. And it's not that I. Well, now that after speaking to my mentor, I know that it's not that I had, I didn't have the confidence at the time, but what I was looking for was somebody to help build me up. And speaking to my mentor and working through this, we've kind of seen that it's not a confidence issue itself, it's an experience issue. It's more that I don't have the experience of certain situations and such like. So for me, when I went on the ONE Mentoring website and looked at different people's profiles, my mentor screamed out to me because her entire bio is about confidence building yourself, women leading and all such like. So that's why I chose her.
Speaker E:And the same here really looked for someone that had amazing leadership credentials. I've been connected with my ONE mentor now we've been chat, we've probably had it for four sessions, but her, her drive and the, the ability to, to kind of turn me around. And you, you could join that call and be really downbeat about various things, maybe just been turned down for a job, but I don't know. Or they could be issues, you know, work, life balance, those kind of things. But yeah, she really is able steer about where, where I'm going to go. How I chose her really is looking at her career path. So I think a lot of things came out to me that she'd, she'd followed a very similar path to myself, worked in similar industries. It came up through, through a large energy company. So there was a lot of synergy between me and my mentor and I think that's, that's why I, I picked and luckily she had space within the ONE Network. So yeah, really thankful for the program. Victoria, well done.
Speaker A:Well, I think I hope all your mentors listen to this. You've all got such glowing reviews. They please. And you've all mentioned how fantastic your mentors are. But what do you feel as a mentee you really need to do to get the most out of a mentoring relationship? Don't know who wants to kick off on that, Della, go on.
Speaker D:I think the main point for me is allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Because when you're vulnerable, you build that safe space with your mentor. And that is going back to that non judgmental talk as well from earlier. Just being able to say anything and letting them know exactly how you feel about a situation. Because I think this is how it differs from people that you come across at work. You kind of hide your feelings because that's your, that's your vulnerability. You don't want to show that at work. Whereas with the mentor, you just need to be as open as possible and honest as well. So if there's something they suggest that isn't working, if you've got the correct, correct type of relationship with them, you can tell them it's not working and then you don't go down that track and then you can backtrack to where you started and try something different and find what works for you. So, yeah, I think just being open, honest and vulnerable, I'd say I would.
Speaker C:Absolutely second that as well, Della. And I think, I think what's really important to mention is it's not a one way relationship. I feel like as a mentee, I try and give back to my mentor as much as I can as well. You know, in terms of what's happening in a personal life, you know, other organizations to join in terms of networking, you know, some advice on stuff that's happening in her world and her life. So it's very much a two way relationship, give and take. And I think when you give as much as you get, you get much more benefit from that relationship and you build a lot more trust together.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'd agree with all that. My mentor always says that she's holding up a mirror to me so that I can see myself in a true light. And that is a really good analogy because that is the way I see it. You never really see or understand why you're behaving in a certain way. Being open and honest is absolutely key. If you can't do that, then you shouldn't even try having a mentor because you're not going to progress. And there's that trust in that relationship that you've got to build up and Once you've got that, I think you're aware, then it's so valuable.
Speaker E:Absolutely agree. Because I think if you can't as a mentee, come with an idea of, even as I want to have a conversation about this, it will, it will grow naturally and if that mentor is the right fit for you, it will, it will give you that kind of confidence to, to go away. I think that was a really good conversation and that was well worth, you know, half an hour, well worth spent. And I've got a plan to move forward and where I want to be for our next session. So it gives you, gives you that kind of drive, be it confidence or whatever, whatever you want to talk about. It could just be that you, you what you want to get up in front of an audience and do a presentation. Something that you think, oh, I couldn't possibly do that. Just, just something that you can think, you know, giving you something to say, you can do it. Who's, who's telling you that. So giving you that belief and I think that's something, something that we could all benefit from. So, yeah, sounds like more people need to join the mentorship scheme.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker A:So honest, open and come with ideas, I think is what I took out of that.
Speaker C:Love it.
Speaker A:Okay, you have all been amazing. Thank you so much for sharing everything. We're going to sort of wrap up but finally before we do, if we, if you were talking to someone's listening to this, they're thinking about joining but they're not really too sure whether to go for it. What would you say and could you give a three word phrase for the benefits you've got being mentored? I know that's come out through the pros and everything we've been talking today, but it. So two things. What would you say to someone who's wants to join a mentoring relationship and a three word phrase from what you've got out of being mentored.
Speaker C:Oh, I, I'd say just do it. What have you got to lose? Just do it. You know, throw yourself into it. And I think, you know, the, the three kind of main things I've certainly got out of having a mentor is, you know, perspective for me is the first thing. Having someone completely different to me with different opinions, clarity around situations and as a woman in a very male dominated industry, confidence.
Speaker A:Amazing. Anyone else for any more not being.
Speaker E:Afraid to make that first step. There could be colleagues or friends that you could talk to who have previously gone down the mentorship route. If this is the first time you're looking For a mentor, I think it's you will know the right mentor when you find them and not being afraid that sometimes you might have a conversation with someone and it may not work. And depending on where you are in your career, a mentor can help you in various ways, even if it is just to improve your confidence and know what direction you want to go in or if the energy industry is an industry you want to get into. 1 have got a fantastic range of mentors. You can look at that covering differing areas. So three words I would say encourage yourself to succeed. Because I think from any. Everything that I've learned, there's only one person that can stand in your way and it is, as Stella said, it's the person that you look at in the mirror. You know, there's. Who is telling you you can't do something. It's. It's having that belief in yourself. And I say I'm still working on that. But yeah, like you just need to, you just need to do it.
Speaker B:In the words of Philippa, yeah, I'm.
Speaker D:Going to echo that again. Just do it. Hopefully no copyright issues with night here, but honestly, just go for it. Just take that step. If you're even considering getting a mentor, then you clearly are ready to work on something and you've got that openness within yourself that you will then be able to take to somebody else and really get the most out of that relationship. So, yeah, just do it. I'd say my three word phrase is my voice matters, which for me is a big thing. As I've said so many times about experience, I am one of the most inexperienced people in my team and usually in the room and working through with my mentor is that, that's fine. It doesn't matter. It's that my voice matters and I'm there for a reason.
Speaker B:Yeah. Echoing everything else that everyone said, go for it. What have you got to lose? It's been invaluable to me. I have learned so much about myself, but also about what I want. I think I never knew what I wanted. I just, it was just a job and now it's a career and that's massive. It's a huge improvement. Three things or three word phrase. I'm unsure. Confidence, definitely belief in yourself that you can achieve. Because we are in a male dominated industry, let's be honest, and we are the minority that is changing slightly. But yeah, and, and make sure you continue to challenge yourself because I think that's what my mentor has made sure I've done and I probably never really realized that I did it prior to having the mentoring scheme.
Speaker A:Amazing. Thank you so much, everyone.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker A:Oh, it's been so lovely hearing everyone having such good mentoring experiences, especially through the ONE program. Thank you very much for joining us today. And, yeah, I look forward to hearing how your mentoring relationships progress.