Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Social mobilityCIPDCareer developmentEquality, diversity and inclusionCriminal records

How HR mentors are rebuilding confidence among ex-offenders

by Ashleigh Webber 16 Jul 2024
by Ashleigh Webber 16 Jul 2024 Image: Shutterstock
Image: Shutterstock

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.

Hiring people with convictions

KPMG urges others to hire ex-offenders after pilot

Stigma putting construction firms off hiring ex-offenders

Disclosure rules for ex-offenders reduce declaration time

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.”

 

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

 

Latest HR job opportunities on Personnel Today


Browse more human resources jobs

Ashleigh Webber

Ashleigh is a former editor of OHW+ and former HR and wellbeing editor at Personnel Today. Ashleigh's areas of interest include employee health and wellbeing, equality and inclusion and skills development. She has hosted many webinars for Personnel Today, on topics including employee retention, financial wellbeing and menopause support.

previous post
BT Group to roll out new family leave policy
next post
Bonuses and pay soar at Goldman Sachs

You may also like

DWP to deploy work coaches to tackle ill-health...

7 Mar 2025

Why segregation in networking does more harm than...

21 Nov 2024

Why mentoring in the hybrid era is key...

19 Nov 2024

CIPD launches HR support pilot scheme for SMEs

7 Oct 2024

Busy for the sake of it – the...

8 Aug 2024

Should HR just let managers manage?

25 Jul 2024

Imposter syndrome: Workplace prevalence by sector, gender and...

31 Oct 2023

UK employees focus on current, not future, skills

4 Aug 2023

Six ways to distinguish a coach from a...

12 May 2023

Deloitte and PwC identify lockdown skills deficit among...

5 May 2023

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+