The construction of an identity as ‘mentor’ in white collar and academic workplaces: A preliminary analysis

The analysis in this paper examines how mentors ‘do mentoring’ in the workplace, by considering the use of non-work-related talk within the context of formal mentoring meetings. Using a data set consisting of 12 recorded meetings between mentors and their mentees in four different workplaces, the analysis focused on the extent to which mentors from different types of mentoring programmes included non-work-related talk in their mentoring meetings.The results of the analysis showed that the most goal-focused mentoring programme was the only programme whose mentoring participants were almost entirely focussed on core business talk in both of the recorded mentoring meetings. The second most goal-focused mentoring programme (in terms of to whom mentoring is available, and the purpose of the mentoring) was less focused on core business topics, and in each of the two recorded meetings from this workplace there was at least one topic that was less narrowly focused, but still identifiably work-related. Of the two organisations whose mentoring programmes had organisationally defined goals, neither of the recorded meetings included social or phatic talk. The results are discussed with reference to the construction of different types of mentoring identities.