Keywords

81.1 Introduction

Mentoring is an important step in career development and in-service training can be used as the perfect platform for effective mentoring to take place. Rad and James (2007) stressed that mentoring should be a common phenomenon, and it should continuously be to ensure that senior and experienced workers pass their knowledge and experiences to junior ones. Nkomo and Thwala (2014) stated that not having mentors and/or mentees is a major hindrance to progress, which is why mentoring is of vital importance in all industries including construction.

According to Hoffmeister et al. (2011), the built environment/construction industry is quite complex and congested and this distinguished it from other industries. The fact that this industry is quite multifaceted and crowded necessitate the need for effective mentoring for sustaining of practice. Higher institutions require students to go through in-service training before graduation and this should serve as a platform for senior and experienced employees to mentor them. However, most senior employees miss this point by allotting and apportioning jobs and works instead of the actual mentoring. The study therefore investigates ways of enhancing mentoring and mentoring relationships in the construction industry for better performance of new professionals.

81.2 Requirements for Effective Mentoring

Mentoring has been known to assist in career development, however, effective mentoring can also aid personal development of both mentor and mentee. Having an effective mentor has been known to increase self-confidence, increase self-esteem and increased job satisfaction (Amelink 2010). It can be said that in order for effective mentoring to take place, healthy mentoring relationships need to be established. However, According to Pinho et al. (2005), a mentee may develop negative attitude towards a mentor when a mentor overworks the mentee on a task and takes credit for the accomplishments. This can also happen when mentor spends more time impressing top management and promotes self than necessary.

81.2.1 Characteristics of a Good Mentor

According to Mostafavi et al. (2013), a mentor is a senior and knowledgeable employee/employer who has been in a certain industry (construction in this case) for a long time, thus having more experience. The mentor should be a mentee’s role model and should help with the mentee’s career and personal development (Rogers 2008). Kerry and Mayes (2014) concluded that all definitions of a mentor should include five basic components, namely: nurturing; functioning; role modelling; focusing on the progress of the mentee; and sustaining a caring relationship over time.

In agreement to this definition, Nkomo and Thwala (2014) added that a mentor should not only focus on career development. The mentor should provide career development opportunities such as assigning tasks that will challenge the mentee, guiding the mentee accordingly, providing sponsoring advancement and assisting the mentee on their perception of the industry. More so, issues relating to social development of the mentee should a concern of the mentor. However, mentoring has been associated with salary increase, promotions, higher job satisfaction, self-respect, recognition and higher organizational commitment (Starr-Glass 2014). The above listed findings have brought rise to the need to identify characteristics that an individual should possess in order to be labeled as a good, effective and effective mentor.

81.2.2 Attributes of a Good Mentee

Mostafavi et al. (2013) viewed a mentee as a less experienced and knowledgeable person hoping to learn and develop socially, personally and professionally, with the help, guidance and support of an effective mentor. It is possible for the mentee to approach and initiate a mentoring relationship but it takes admiration and respect for one to select a possible mentor. However, it is still a mentor’s duty to find a mentee who will be ready and willing to work with him/her (Rad and James 2007). It is therefore important to understand basic characteristics required of a mentee for effective mentoring relationship.

Stone (2007) listed the characteristics of an excellent mentee to include demonstration of intelligence and showing initiative to learn and make progress; loyalty to organization; commitment to values; sharing a desire to achieve goals and results with mentor; enjoying challenges; be willing to accept more greater and challenging responsibilities; taking responsibility for personal development and growth; and welcoming mentor’s help in identifying lacking areas.

81.3 Methodology

Survey design was adopted for this study because of the nature of variables to be examined, category of data to be collected and character of respondents involved. Using existing literature as the basis for obtaining factors relating to characteristics required of mentor and mentee in a mentoring relationship, quantitative research approach was employed for data collection. Self-designed questionnaires were adopted as research instruments and they were administered on construction professionals practicing in Gauteng region, South Africa. These professionals are architects, quantity surveyors, engineers, construction managers and construction project managers.

In designing the instrument, close-ended questions were adopted and it was ensured that negative, irrelevant, bias and long questions were avoided. First section of the instrument was used to collect biographical information of respondents while the second part related directly with the objective of the study. 5-point Likert scale was employed where 1 = Strongly Disagree (SD); 2 = Disagree (D); 3 = Neutral (N); 4 = Agree (A); and 5 = Strongly Agree (SA). Mean Item (MIS) and Standard Deviation (SD) were computed from the scale and the results were used to assess order of importance of the identified factors.

Using Cronbach’s alpha value, reliability test conducted on the three sections in the second part of the instrument, that is: expected attributes from mentee; required virtues of mentors; and factors causing failure of mentoring relationship, indicate values of 0.877, 0.955 and 0.910 respectively. From the assertion of Santos (1999) that 0.7 is an acceptable reliability coefficient, it could be concluded that the instrument adopted for the study is reliable.

81.4 Analysis

45 questionnaires were distributed, 38 were retrieved while 34 adequately completed and found suitable for further analysis. There are 55.9 and 44.1% of male and female respondents respectively indicating adequate representation of the major two gender. Age group of these professionals revealed that 64.7% are between 20 and 25, 29.4% between 26 and 30 while 5.9% are 31 years and older. Considering respondents’ year of experience and practice in the construction industry, both groups of mentees and mentors were captured. About 55.3, 23.7, 13.3 and 7.8% have 1–10, 11–20, 21–30 and above 30 years experience respectively. Respondents are also spread across various professions in the industry, these include architecture, engineering, construction management, quantity surveying and construction project management. Of these, 62.1% are junior while 35.9% are senior employees and they have been involved in about 11 projects on the average.

81.4.1 Characteristics Expected of Mentees

The most important attributes that should be possessed by young construction professionals are indicated in Table 81.1. These include willingness to learn; enthusiastic; respectful; motivated and good listeners. Others are energetic; willingness to assist; honesty; communicative; knowledgeable; innovative; and serving heart. The least required factors are multi-tasking and time-efficient.

Table 81.1 Traits required of mentees
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81.4.2 Attributes Required from Mentors

As indicated in Table 81.2, experienced members of the construction industry are expected to be resourceful; encourages communication; knowledgeable; good positive attitude; shared past experience; and honest. They are also require to be energetic; sets a good example; enthusiastic; motivator; encourages new ideas; ability to multi-task; encourages learning and growth; always willing to assist; resourceful; provides guidance; supportive; share knowledge; open to new ideas; and acts as a positive role model. At the lower end are ability to listen, provide constructive feedback; and punctual at meetings.

Table 81.2 Virtues expected of mentors
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81.4.3 Failure of Mentoring Relationships

As displayed in Table 81.3, mentoring relationships in the construction industry fails majorly due to company’s top management lacked expressed interest; mentor becoming manager instead; conversations not focused on personal beliefs and values and constant cancellation of meetings. In some cases, mentoring relationship was not planned thoroughly, review of mentee progress was not carried out, mentoring relationship not having clear goals and mentors dictating instead of communicating with their mentees. Other identified factors are faded Enthusiasm and lack of constant engagement between mentee and mentor.

Table 81.3 Why mentoring relationships fail
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81.4.4 Discussion of Findings

Findings on basic attributes expected of a young graduate for effective mentoring were similar to the findings by Stone (2007). It was stated that a mentee should demonstrate intelligence, show initiative, be willing to learn, be enthusiastic, be loyal to the organization and respectful. However, Rad and James (2007) stated that it is mentor’s duty to find a mentee who will be willing to work with him/her. Concerning reasons for failure of mentoring relationships, Starr-Glass (2014) agreed with the results of this study. It was stated that mentoring relationships are most likely to fail if company’s top managers lacks interest in the mentoring relationship and if a mentoring relationship does not have clear goals. Nkomo and Thwala (2014) also concluded that a mentoring relationship lacking communication is more likely to fail.

81.5 Conclusion

For effective mentoring, young professional should be willing to learn and assist, enthusiastic, respectful, motivated, energetic, good listener, honest, communicative and knowledgeable. More so, the most dominant characteristics of effective construction industry mentors are that a good mentor should have good positive attitude, ability to multi-task and sets good example. It also require that such should be respectful, encourages communication, knowledgeable, sharing past experience, honest, energetic, enthusiastic and motivated. In addressing the failure of mentoring relationships, the following should be avoided: constant cancellation of meetings, inadequate planning, not doing a review on progress, company not supporting the mentoring relationship, mentoring relationship lacking clear goals as well as mentor dictating instead of communicating effectively. It is also necessary for company’s top management to develop interest in mentoring, mentor should remain a mentor than becoming a manager and conversations should focus on personal beliefs and values.