National Mentoring Month
January is National Mentoring month. Nationally, this is a focus on developing mentors to assure positive outcomes for the young people of our society. Here at Reid Middleton, we also apply mentoring concepts to assure positive outcomes for our young staff and consequently, great outcomes for our clients over the long term. Mentoring is part of who we are and how we do things, with our goal to build the next generation of leadership from within.
A Mentoring Culture
Reid Middleton has been around for 63 years, and we are in our fourth generation of leadership. Today’s leadership mentors staff to afford them the same opportunities for leadership, growth, and self-determination that we were given.
Engineering relies on good mentoring to prepare the design professional. Of course there are standards and codes to learn and reference, but many times engineering calls upon a reserve of experience that is either acquired personally or that is passed on inter-personally.
Colleagues work closely within their practice areas and across the company on project teams. Interdisciplinary training is encouraged through varied project assignments to diversify our expertise. We recognize the value our people’s experience offers and build that into our project teams to facilitate hands-on mentoring specific to projects and technical expertise.
On projects, senior engineers are always passing on their technical knowledge to less experienced engineers so that on the next project the younger engineer will have that specific knowledge to execute on their own.
Beyond technical training, the next step in career development is Project Management. Although learning occurs by participating in well run project teams, we also have formal training based on the fundamentals developed by the Project Management Institute for staff project management skill development. Marketing skills are developed through mentorship, including participating in project interviews and building client relationships. Business metrics and what makes our company and the individual divisions a success is another area in the firm’s mentorship opportunities.
Reid Middleton places high value on mentoring. We see it as foundational to our business model and our quest to be an enduring company that provides a great place for professionals to work.
