Mentoring for Career Development: Organisational Approaches to Engage and Retain Employees

Managing one's career is becoming more complex as the external environment races towards increasing uncertainty. Rules that were familiar to individuals in the past are now opaque. This paper explores the career experiences of global rail professionals from a wide cross section of countries. It identifies findings that are applied to the development of a model for mentoring that could be utilised by organisations to development professionals. Related to 'soft skills', mentoring is a learning and development tool that is widely used in organisations through formal processes that develop skills for special groups including apprentices, graduates and those identified with talent. As a result of changing workforce demographics, it is argued that more focus on the soft side of a predominantly hard or technical industry would benefit rail industry organisations with this paper highlighting new insights into mentoring.