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Guidance supporting Europe’s aspiring entrepreneurs
Policy and practice to harness future potential

migrant entrepreneurs in the media can overcome some of the psychological
barriers holding back migrants from pursuing their enterprises.

5.7.3. Challenges in delivery of career management skills
The challenge facing the expansion of mentoring opportunities concerns the
difficulties in finding both funding and organisations to connect start-ups with
available and appropriately skilled mentors. In order to convince more authorities
to invest in mentoring, more scientific and longitudinal ‘value-for-money’
assessments are needed to demonstrate their value. So far, most studies related
to mentoring schemes focus on analysing the attitudes of mentors and mentees
about the programmes; such attitude surveys illustrate very positive results. All
parties involved in mentoring initiatives are convinced that they are good value
for money. However, it takes time and thorough research to demonstrate the
longer-term ‘effects’ in monetary terms.
The cost of guidance and advice offered by entrepreneurial mentors is
another complex matter. Mentors can be paid or they can offer their services free
of charge. Some stress that mentee commitment is better guaranteed when they
pay a fee for this type of service (e.g. the approach sometimes used in the UK);
the Nordic model tends to encourage mentoring based on voluntary support. It is
believed that mentees who are paying for professional mentoring sometimes
expect ‘guaranteed answers’ because that is what they are paying for. There is
also danger that this confuses some mentees about responsibility; the ownership
and responsibility of business problems and resolutions must always lie with the
mentee (the entrepreneur). However, this can confuse some mentees who pay
for a mentoring service.
Mentors need to be able to acknowledge that they may not be the right
person to provide a specific piece of guidance. In these cases they need to be
able to introduce the mentee to someone who can be more effective. However,
this is not easy if the mentor is paid for their work: they are expected to be able to
provide this help or they may not be seen to provide ‘value-for-money’.
There are potential disadvantages to the provision of support and guidance
through online measures. Online services based on mentoring and provision of
one-to-one advice are rarely a substitute for face-to-face interaction, especially if
the guidance needs of the individual are complex; such online tools cannot go
into the same depth as is possible through face-to-face interventions. Some
online services also require quite intensive management of the site, e.g. forums,
matchmaking services for mentors/mentees. This means that the online provision
does not necessarily equal inexpensive provision.

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