B&W Energy Services’ stand-out Mentoring Program has successfully completed its second full year and has taken professional development at B&W to an entirely different level. Mentoring develops both mentors and mentees and provides them an opportunity to be better and more productive than either could be individually. We are very proud of what the program has become and of promoting a culture of continuous improvement and supporting change.
B&W’s Mentoring Program invests time and resources into developing our most critical positions in order to strengthen our employees’ knowledge and experience and shorten their learning curve. Our leadership team understands the benefits that this program provides to the clients through increased productivity and more professionalism. Our performance level on-site at projects has risen, resulting in better outcomes. Mentoring provides an avenue for employees to find resources and solutions to problems empowering them resolve problems themselves.
Our business is specialized and employees are required to learn and master all of our services lines. The program is a powerful approach where our experienced staff formally mentor emerging talent to help them gain a solid foothold in the company and a pathway to master all the skills needed to successfully perform. Employees in the Mentoring Program receive personalized guidance specific to their position and the ability to grow their professional network by exposure to leaders in the energy industry during project assignments.
The two Talent Development Specialists, Tom McGlade and Billy Williams, developed the vision of a Mentoring Program into existence and have been steadily improving it through simplification and modification of the Competency Feedback Form, regular discussions with mentors about their mentees’ progress and working more closely with Managers to guide assignments to ensure that mentees have an opportunity to work on competencies they have not mastered yet. Both Tom and Billy were able to spend time in the field last year to view the program in action and develop improvement initiatives for 2018.
One of the greatest results of the Mentoring Program is that communication initially improved significantly in the field and continues to improve today. Employees in Tiers 1, 2 and 3 work in partnership with their mentor and have more confidence in performing their positions because they always have someone dedicated to their development. There are channels through which they can ask questions and get answers when they need them. B&W’s team is spread across the globe and the ability to effectively communicate is vital to performance at the project level.
The Mentoring Program also gives B&W’s leadership oversight on development of employees in key roles and ensuring world class performance to its customers. In an industry dominated by the use of individual contractors, B&W’s direct hired team provides a path to stable, consistent development of the exact competencies necessary for success. New employees are provided a roadmap to advancing through the company and a coach to assist and monitor their development.
B&W’s motto is Better People, Better Equipment and Better Engineering. We guarantee “Better People” and we work very hard to deliver on our word. We know that excellence does not happen overnight and are dedicated to investing in our team members, continually adding value to our company and setting the standard in our industry. The B&W Mentoring Program has proven to do just that.