Mentoring – sharing experiences but also learning

27.5.2020

The more you give, the more you get!

Mentoring experience

My first experience about the mentoring process with PI was about 20 years ago. At that time, I was at the end of my studies and I had really good discussions with my mentor about the access to work life and different kind of carriers among the many other topics. After that, I have been also acting as mentee and mentor during my work carrier. All these experiences have been only positive. 

Acting as a mentor in PI's mentoring programme

This was my second time as mentor in PI. I wanted to share my experiences and tips with young bioforest industry talents, similarly than my mentor did 20 years ago. Main purpose has been to discuss about the subjects and questions mentees have. With both of my mentees I have had some 5-6 discussions and our co-operation has been rewarding for the both parties.

Mentor is also learning

The main target of mentoring is to support young students. But I have also learned a lot as a mentor. These discussions help to understand millennials’ priorities and expectations from the work life. The process gives also possibility to reflect your own thoughts with young talents. In the near future, we all will have possibility to work with millennials to an increasing extend. Mentoring gives good insight about the generation just arriving to our workplaces. In addition to learning from conversations, in previous mentoring process my mentee Emma made also a small survey within the group of students delivering really good picture about the key work life priorities for the younger generation. Match between company’s and employee’s values, equal treatment of employees and getting responsibility and clear targets together with adequate support and coaching are some of the examples from the results of that survey. Understanding better young generations’ expectations from the work life helps to improve co-operation and results in the future surely.

I can definitely recommend mentoring for all of you! The more you give, the more you get!

Kirjoittaja

Jani Sund, Program Director at Stora Enso

Jani Sund works as Program Director at Stora Enso. He graduated from Helsinki University of Technology (currently Aalto) in 2003. He has experience in production, supply chain and number of projects within Nordic, Europe and China.