Blog: Mind the gap…

29 January 2025

What role, if any, does mentoring have in closing the skills gap in the construction sector?

Maria Angliss, People and Organisational Development Consultant

In this thought piece, Maria Angliss, People and Organisational Development Consultant reflects on whether mentoring should be used as a strategic development tool to enhance the employee value proposition and explores the use of mentoring in the construction sector to help bridge the skills gap.

The construction sector is facing one of the biggest skills shortages in recent times. Experts suggest the UK requires an additional 250,000 skilled workers by 2028 to close the gap.1

The number of new recruits entering the sector has significantly reduced and apprenticeships have declined as skilled workers have been tempted to other sectors. This, coupled with an ageing workforce (35% of construction workers are over the age of 50) and a third of employers stating their key challenge is finding suitable skilled employees, has created a perfect storm.1

If it is to attract and retain the best talent, the UK construction sector needs to offer a more attractive employee value proposition to enable it to compete with other sectors and other countries.

 

How does the construction sector create a compelling Employee Value Proposition (EVP)?

Gartner suggests there are five key elements to a compelling EVP: compensation, benefits, environment, career development and culture. I will explore the wider EVP model in more detail at another time. For the purposes of this article, I would like to focus on the 4th element - career development, and in particular training and mentoring.

Companies working to deliver their growth plans need to have the right talent, with the required skills and capabilities and supporting processes in place.  This traditionally requires investment. However, in the current economic environment, training and development budgets are likely to continue to be tight. This presents a challenge to the construction sector.

Companies need to ensure they have the right people development structures in place however, for many companies this is not a key priority at this time, as their focus remains on operational elements largely driven by the current economic environment. Companies need to move to a learning-led culture; whereby employees are put at the heart of everything they do. Employees should own their personal development plan and drive their learning journey (with support of their manager) and where possible embed learning in the flow of work. This is where the 70:20:10 learning model3 created by Morgan McCall, Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger comes in.

What does the 70:20:10 learning model look like? 

70% Learning through work assignments

20% Learning through others

10% Formal learning through training

A central element of this model is learning through others, and this is where mentoring can play a part.

What is mentoring?

I often get asked the question - what is the difference between mentoring and coaching? Here is how two prominent thought leaders address this question.  

Mentoring - "Mentoring involves primarily listening with empathy, sharing experience (usually mutually), professional friendship, developing insight through reflection, being a sounding board, encouraging." (David Clutterbuck)

Coaching - “Coaching is unlocking people's potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them."  (Sir John Whitmore)

There are various types of mentoring, particularly in the workplace, including one-to-one, peer, group, reverse, flash, team and virtual mentoring.

The impact of mentoring can be wide-ranging for the mentee and mentor and is recognised as a key strategy used for skills development and career progression. It can also have a significant impact on employee engagement, retention and inclusive workplace culture - helping employees feel a sense of belonging and connection to a company. This can be a key factor in motivating employees to stay with a company. The cost of replacing an employee can be significant. According to the Harvard Business Review it can cost up to 200% of the employee's annual salary, depending on the role and level within the organisation. Given these figures it is no wonder we are seeing more companies invest in mentoring programmes as a strategic tool to help engage, develop and retain talent.

Is there a place for mentoring in the construction sector?

The sector is currently facing crippling skills shortages, low staff morale, performance output pressures linked to increased market demand (particularly in relation to housing, large scale infrastructure projects and maintenance and repair). At the same time there has been a significant hike in operating costs due to inflationary factors and the residue from Covid, leading to lower margins.  These factors have taken their toll on talent development budgets across the sector. During the last couple of years, the focus has been more on survive rather than thrive.  The sector needs to unlock new and cost-effective ways to enhance its EVP to attract and retain more people and bridge the skills gap.

In a recent article published by Pushfar - ‘Building a Construction Mentorship Programme: Top Tips for Contractors,’ the article shared several insights from research undertaken by Gallup concerning employee engagement. Here’s an extract, “According to Gallup, 57% of UK employees are not engaged, and 26% are actively disengaged. This means they are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and less likely to be productive. Employee disengagement costs their organisation between £52 billion and £70 billion of lost productivity.” 4

Forbes recently published an article which suggested, employees engaged in mentoring programmes were 49% less likely to leave. 5

Many of the most successful companies in the world invest in mentoring. Dr Ruth Gotian, the co-author of the 6Financial Times Guide on Mentoring, has suggested that 98% of Fortune 500 companies have established official mentoring programmes.  Companies such as SECBE are also utilising mentoring in their leadership development programme and shared apprenticeship scheme (IFLP and CoTrain).

What are the benefits of mentoring for the individual and the organisation? 

There is a perception that mentoring can be costly and time consuming. In fact, mentoring can be an inexpensive way to upskill and retain staff and can be easily scaled up across the business. A good mentoring programme has clear parameters particularly around independence and guidance, and commitment (time and focus) required from the mentor and mentee.

As we have already seen, mentoring can have significant benefits for the individual and the organisation. Employers are seeing savings derived from less staff turnover and absence rates but also from reduced work errors.

Whilst there are many benefits to mentoring, it is also important to acknowledge that there can be some challenges. A recent blog 7 identified five key challenges, which include a lack of structure or strategy (and clear objectives or purpose for the mentoring), mismatched mentor-mentor pairings, insufficient training, time constraints and admin inefficiencies and return on investment (ROI) measurement.

So, to summarise… What role, if any, does mentoring have in closing the skills gap in the construction sector?... I think there is good evidence to suggest that mentoring could play a key role in helping to close the skills gap in the construction sector. It can offer a cost-effective solution that could be used for all job roles, not just rising stars and aspiring leaders to support employees during all stages of their career.

Mentoring can be a powerful talent development tool and presents a compelling business case. The benefits from mentoring can be significant for the mentee, mentor and the organisation.  

I believe that the construction sector would be missing a trick if it does not consider mentoring as a strategic tool to support talent acquisition, development, engagement and retention.

I would like to see companies in the sector put mentoring on their skills development agenda.  It is a simple, yet powerful, tool that could play a critical role in helping to bridge the skills gap and prepare the sector for the future.

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