With so many experienced construction workers on the path to retirement, crucial and hard won insights from the field are at-risk of being lost at many businesses. But it doesn’t have to be that way: reciprocal mentoring in which long timers and newcomers actually enjoy working together–and improving the bottom line is a promising strategy.
Hands On and Tech Savvy Too
Although digital savvy workers span the ages, younger workers tend to have more fluency with tech, and fluency speeds advancement. Of course, so too does on the job experience–and plenty of it. Combining all this, the practice of teaming younger and older workers up can be very good for business—-and people too. That’s exactly what California contractor, Suffolk Construction, has found over the last year, as Jim Sammon, a senior superintendent with 49 years of experience, has been partnered with Troy Rossi and Milan Murray, both in their twenties. The team’s combination of modern technical skill and field experience is contributing to both jobsite success and worker satisfaction:
As a team, the trio say it’s a blend that is proving to be particularly beneficial to all of them; Rossi and Murray, not long out of college and university bring with them knowledge of BIM, 3D scanning, drones and other digital tools, while Sammon provides the sort of knowledge that can only be gained from decades of experience….For Sammon… the speed with which his two younger colleagues can pull up information from a Procore model is a perpetual wonder….“So, what I’ve grown to do is just I will just quickly flip to these guys and say what’s going on here, partners? They have got all that information to hand and so they can tell me; this change was made, or this is new information as of last night or two days ago. I am looking at the overall project and these two guys are dealing with the day-to-day everything.”
Reverse Mentoring?
Reverse mentoring is not a new idea. The term is attributed to Jack Welch, who in 1999 engaged 500 senior staff members at General Electric in learning about the technology practices of more junior staff; since then, the concept of reverse mentoring “has been gaining steam with companies from a range of industries including Target, Cisco, Deloitte, United Healthcare and Fidelity, all coming up with similar schemes designed to coordinate shared learning between colleagues of diverse backgrounds, create symbiotic learning and unpick stereotypes that underpin generational divides.”
As it plays out, teaming diverse workers may in fact be more aptly referred to as reciprocal mentoring, then reverse mentoring. Consider for example how Troy Rossi, one of the younger workers paired with Jim Sammon at Suffolk Construction sums up the magic of younger and older working together:
“Guys like Jim, they’re not wrong 90% of the time. If they see something that they think is wrong, it is probably going to be wrong, versus a guy like myself, who has not had so much experience,” says Rossi. “We have had a few field issues; things that look good on paper at the time we were coordinating them but, after everything was set in place, Jim has just seen them with his own eyes walking around. I think for something like that, it is purely having the eyes and experience to see it.”
The Value of Great Partnership
Teamwork: there’s nothing like people working seamlessly together to make life on the job better–and the business more successful. Ease, speed and the power to pursue new possibilities are important too. That’s why contractors across the country are coming to Colonial Surety for The Partnership Account®.
Once qualified for, you’ll use our power of attorney to issue your own bid bonds, in minutes. Order performance and payment bonds with speed and ease too. Run your business more efficiently and competitively than ever as you leverage your:
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Pre-Qualify for The Partnership Account® for Contractors
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