ESTABLISHING AND MAINTAINING MENTORING RELATIONSHIPS: AN OVERVIEW OF MENTOR AND MENTEE COMPETENCIES

This introduction to this special edition of the SA Journal of Human Resource Management dealing with recent qualitative and quantitative work undertaken by South African Human Resource Practitioners and Industrial Psychologists on the topic of mentoring, attempts to draw together the thinking around the nature and concept of mentor and mentee competence. A framework of competencies which mentors and mentees can be helped to develop before or during their mentoring relationships is also suggested. Although the proposed competencies described have face validity, there is still a great deal of research to be done to establish the validity using more rigorous measures.