Abstract
There is growing evidence for both the need to manage work-life conflict and the opportunity for mentors to advise their mentees on how to do this in an academic research environment. A multiphase approach was used to develop and implement an evidence-informed training module to help mentors guide their mentees in issues of work-life conflict. Analysis of existing data from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a mentor training curriculum (n = 283 mentor/mentee dyads) informed the development of a work-life mentoring module which was incorporated into an established research mentor training curriculum and evaluated by faculty at a single academic medical center. Only 39% of mentors and 36% of mentees in the RCT indicated high satisfaction with the balance between their personal and professional lives. The majority (75%) of mentors and mentees were sharing personal information as part of the mentoring relationship which was significantly associated with mentees' ratings of the balance between their personal and professional lives. The effectiveness of the work-life module was assessed by 60 faculty mentors participating in a mentor training program at an academic medical center from 2013 to 2017. Among the respondents to the post-training survey, 82.5% indicated they were very/somewhat comfortable addressing work-life issues with their mentees as a result of the training, with significant improvements (p = 0.001) in self-assessments of mentoring skill in this domain. Our findings indicate that a structured training approach can significantly improve mentors' self-reported skills in addressing work-life issues with their mentees.
Highlights
There is growing evidence for both the need to manage work–life conflict and the opportunity for mentors to advise their mentees on how to do this in an academic research environment
Feedback on the overall mentor training program was positive with 46/50 (92%) respondents indicating the training was a valuable use of their time and 44/50 (88%) indicating they were likely or very likely to recommend the training to a colleague
These findings supported the development of a structured mentor training curriculum focused on both improving work–life integration for mentors and encouraging interactions between mentors and mentees focused on issues of work–life integration
Summary
There is growing evidence for both the need to manage work–life conflict and the opportunity for mentors to advise their mentees on how to do this in an academic research environment. Methods: A multiphase approach was used to develop and implement an evidence-informed training module to help mentors guide their mentees in issues of work–life conflict. Among the respondents to the posttraining survey, 82.5% indicated they were very/somewhat comfortable addressing work–life issues with their mentees as a result of the training, with significant improvements (p = 0.001) in self-assessments of mentoring skill in this domain. Given the growing evidence base for both the need to manage work–life conflict and the opportunity for mentors to provide role modeling, support, and guidance to their mentees on how to do this in an academic research environment, a structured approach to addressing work–life issues in academic mentoring is needed [1,2,4,5]
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