From Bill Ward, ARCSE West Region Vice President, and additions by Craig Derickson.
NRCS and ARCSE working together to identify and recruit NRCS and partner retirees to provide mentoring assistance to NRCS staff.
Recently NRCS and ARCSE signed a MOU with the objective to work together to identify, recruit, and use NRCS and partner retirees to provide mentoring assistance to NRCS employees, especially to new employees.
The fundamental principle and objective of the MOU is very simple. NRCS and partner retirees have experience and skills that can be very valuable in a mentoring capacity to train and guide newer NRCS employees to become proficient more quickly in their jobs.
Under the MOU, ARCSE State representatives are a new resource for NRCS State Conservationists to help identify NRCS and partner retirees interested in working with NRCS staff in a mentoring capacity.
The key individuals for communication and action regarding implementation of the MOU include:
- NRCS – State Conservationist or designee for MOU and mentoring activity.
- ARCSE – ARCSE State representatives.
- NRCS and partner retirees – Self identify if interested in mentoring NRCS employees.
The original intent of the NRCS and ARCSE leaders who drafted the MOU was to identify retirees interested in providing mentoring assistance to NRCS employees on a voluntary basis. NRCS expects to hire as many as 4,400 new employees in the months ahead to meet a growing workload and effective mentoring can help employees reach their full potential.
NRCS retirees providing mentoring assistance will have access to guidance in mentoring guide materials made available to them from NRCS and ARCSE. There is a new folder on the ARCSE.org website under the Resources tab that contains several useful guides and references on the topic of mentoring. See the mentoring reference material at: https://arcse.org/resources/arcse-nrcs-mentoring-program/.
At the discretion of NRCS State Conservationists, and depending on State mentoring needs, ARCSE retirees can be accessed through ACES funding to provide more detailed mentoring or training assistance.
The ARCSE organization has established a Mentoring MOU Work Group that is developing a “framework plan” to assist with successful implementation of the MOU objectives. The framework plan can be used as a model by states and will be made available on the ARCSE website when it is finalized. The ARCSE Mentoring MOU work group members are Craig Derickson, Julie MacSwain, Bill Ward, and Chris Tippe.
ARCSE encourages NRCS and partner retirees to consider this new opportunity to work with NRCS staff and provide valuable mentoring assistance to NRCS staff. This is a new activity for the ARCSE organization, and information and guidance are flowing from the ARCSE leaders to ARCSE members at the state level. Interested individuals should plan to contact their State and Regional representatives for more information as it is made available.
ARCSE 