The Employers’ Organisation for Local Government (EO) has become the second public body in the UK to win a gold standard from the International Standards for Mentoring Programmes in Employment (ISMPE) organisation.
The EO won the award for its national graduate development programme (ngdp), which was launched in 2002 to provide local authorities with high quality graduates with the potential to become senior managers in local government.
The EO set up an external mentoring programme for all graduate management trainees to help them build confidence, to offer guidance, support and access to networks, and to help formulate their post-programme career plans.
The ISMPE’s international team of assessors commended the EO programme for its online information and application area, communications forum and e-management system.
Professor David Clutterbuck, a leading European mentoring expert, said: “It’s rare to find a programme where so much thought has gone into the preparation and delivery. It is the quality of the preparation that has underpinned the success of the mentoring scheme and the relationships within it.”
