Earlier this month, we began a journey to understand the importance and value of people in construction and the topic of putting people to work in the construction industry. We know people are central to successful construction projects.
Last week, we looked at three steps to success with our workforce: train, retain, and evaluate, as needed. We very briefly touched on the fact that one of the key components to worker retention is mentorship. Let’s explore that in greater depth today.
Why Mentorship?
At its core, mentorship is the guidance provided by a mentor—someone who has experience in a particular field of work. We see in our research report Who Is the Worker of Tomorrow that mentorship can be a critical component to employee retention.
Looking widely, more than 63% of respondents do in fact have a mentor at work. Yet, in construction specifically, only 60% of people have a mentor at work while 71% of manufacturing professionals have a mentor at work.
All in all, the study suggests mentorship is essential to raise problem-solving leadership, guidance, and to overcome the immense challenges required to address today’s workforce. Young workers need a mentor to teach them the ways of the industry. Together, the combination of this experienced industry knowledge and young workers’ tech-savvy innovative ideas could potentially be a potent combination for the next era of construction. Of course, this is easier said than done.
The Path Forward
How can we encourage greater mentorship in construction? There are a few avenues we can pursue. For one, there are both informal and formal opportunities for mentorship in our own companies. Often, a supervisor can serve as a mentor—either formally or informally. In large companies, there are often mentorship programs and groups. Colleagues who are a bit further along can serve as a mentor.
There are also opportunities for mentorship outside the company. Learning happens all around us. In order to help provide this mentorship in construction, Peggy Smedley recently launched a Substack channel, aimed at helping construction workers learn and knowledge share. She provides storytelling to help readers see the past and to understand the future. Head over there to subscribe for daily updates.
The bottomline is we must learn from others. We must be constantly learning to move forward in this new era of construction. Today, consider two things:
- What type of mentorship you need!
- What type of mentorship you can provide!
There is always an opportunity to do both. In the construction industry, there is an opportunity to continue to learn from others. Let’s continue forward, together, today to build better infrastructure, homes, and buildings tomorrow.
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