Mentoring

Free mentoring service available to HFMA members

The HFMA has re-launched a free mentoring service, available to all full HFMA members. Thanks to the support of Future Focused Finance, this service is also available free of charge to organisations within the South West, West Midlands and South Central regions that are signed up to the Skills Development Network (SDN) levy. 

Colleagues within these organisations can access free mentoring whether or not they are an HFMA member. See below for details on how to access it. 

What is mentoring?
Mentoring is a collaborative relationship between an individual and a more experienced colleague or peer, which aims to support the individual’s knowledge, skills, growth and career development. 

An HFMA mentor is a more experienced peer who is happy to share their knowledge of healthcare finance to support you.

How can the HFMA’s mentoring service help me?
Everyone wants to progress in their chosen career. Having a mentor can help with this by helping you identify opportunities for progression and development, and helping you build upon your existing skills and strengths.

Our pool of qualified mentors are available to support individual HFMA members completely free of charge. Their guidance, insight and support can help you to improve your knowledge and skills, develop a career plan and learn more about working in the field of healthcare finance.

Is mentoring right for me?
Mentoring can be beneficial to a wide range of professionals, but is especially useful to emerging leaders, managers or project leads. If this applies to you, or if you are interested in developing your career then mentoring could be for you.

When should I use mentoring?
Mentoring helps in many situations. A mentor can:

• help you identify the skills and expertise you need to succeed
• enable you to work more effectively and avoid "reinventing the wheel"
• offer valuable insight into what it takes to progress and become a leader
• be a guide and "sounding board" for ideas 
• help you to develop a career plan and consider how to advance your career.

How do I choose my mentor?
We start by gathering information about your current role, past experience and the organisation where you work. We’ll also ask your line manager for their thoughts via a short statement. Once we have this, we’ll suggest a number of suitable mentors for you to choose from. Once you’ve selected the one that you think is right for you, we put you in touch — and off you go.

What can I expect from my mentor?
Ultimately you decide what you want from the relationship. 

It is important to remember that all of our mentors are fully trained and hugely experienced in healthcare finance and will be able to offer a wide range of advice, guidance, insight and support 

How are mentoring sessions delivered?
Mentoring sessions take place online, however you can decide with your mentor to meet face-to-face if preferred.

How do I sign up to the mentoring service?
To find out more about the HFMA mentoring services contact anya.mcgauley@hfma.org.uk, or call 0117 938 8333.

I am not an HFMA member, how do I book mentoring sessions?
If you work for an organisation within the South West, West Midlands or South Central regions and that is signed up to the SDN levy, follow the steps outlined above.

If the above does not apply to you and you are not currently an individual member of HFMA, you can join today and start to benefit from our mentoring services as well as the many other products and services that HFMA provide. Click here to find out more about the benefits of HFMA membership and how you can join.