Mentoring The Next Intern
This month the new intern has started. It feels weird to say that as I have been planning a handover of what she needs to know before I leave at the end of the month. Before her arrival, I have been slowly updating our intern folder, which is our point of reference for everything! This was very basic when I started and I have ensured that anything she needs to know for organising parcels, stock, factory and important addresses are easy to access from this document.
During my first week everything seemed very overwhelming as there was so much information that I was being asked and expected to know. After a few weeks, it became easier as I learnt the style of products, knew where things were and starting doing tasks that I had organised myself. This is what I needed to remember when starting the handover. In her first week, there were a lot of questions and shadowing of how tasks needed to be completed. There was less of a time limit in this first week as there wasn’t that much for her to do as I didn’t want to swamp her with tasks. I needed her to pay attention more to the process, and the timing would speed up further into the weeks.
One thing that I learnt in the first week of mentoring was that I needed more patience for the basic jobs. It is strange for me to be handing over all the things I have learnt in the past 9 months to someone who has no idea. One of the main things that I created myself and I have made sure I have always kept on top of has been the stock list. I have been in charge of this since I first started and created all the Excel sheets for it. Every item from every collection is on it, including previous seasons. This has made my life increasingly easier as being asked questions about stock I can refer to this so easily. I have mentioned previously in other blog posts, that I use our distribution reports each week and ATS’s to send out information across the Zoë Jordan team weekly. This was one of the more major processes of handing over that I was nervous about. If any mistakes are made on these sheets, it alters what we can sell on our online shop or what we can do for gifting. In the second week, I decided to have her shadow me to see how I edit and use the stock sheets, reports and ATS’s. Doing a step-by-step was slow but in her third week, she was able to do most of the process herself using the intern folder where it is all explained and from the steps I taught her.
The new intern’s skill set is different to mine, as I am a Design intern and she is in her second year of university doing a Marketing and Business degree. I have had to learn the skills over the past 9 months that may come easily to her and she will have to help in the design and production team if she is needed.
Image - Ali Wylie - my notes I use for store visits
Last week, we did store visits at Selfridges, Harrods, Shop at Bluebird in Covent Garden and Notting Hill and Fenwick in Central London. I used to do this task weekly by myself at the beginning of my internship. I have all the notes on my phone of what I needed to do, so I made sure she had all this information and refers to it next time by herself. I find it easier to learn things by actually doing them myself instead of watching someone, so I got her to follow each step instead of her shadowing me. This way next time she does this process it may come easier for her to remember what each reference means.
This is the third week the next intern has been here, meaning that I finish next week! She has picked up the normal everyday things that need to be completed, however I am starting to set more timed deadlines for tasks, as things need to happen a bit more efficiently. I have had to give constructive criticism to help speed up job processes, as I have been in charge of her mentoring her instead of the Zoe Jordan team members who work here. It has been rather good timing that we are altering our website around, as I have been able to show her and another colleague how to upload onto our Shopify platform. I found this mentoring process, strange and helpful. I am slowly stopping doing my main tasks, so that the rest of the team depend on her more, as I will not be here to help after next week. I think I am finding this process hard, as I have really enjoyed doing all these tasks and creating all this work for Zoë Jordan. Working in an atmosphere where there are daily deadlines and seeing several collections go from start to finish - SS19, AW18, Holiday'18 and most of AW19 in a fashion brand has been really interesting and fascinating to be a part of.
This whole mentoring process will help in final year, as I will have one or two first years interning for me, whilst I will be doing my final project. I hope to have more patience and better communication skills as a mentor. A few tips I have learnt are to wait to give any advice, be open-minded, take an interest in their personal life and be forthcoming about sharing my own mistakes. Having an amazing mentor, either on my placement year or at a previous jobs, has made my experience of being in a work place enjoyable and made it exciting to learn new things. I want my first years, who are will be interning for me, to gain valuable skills and to continue to take an interest and enjoy various areas of the fashion course.
Ali xox