Why Mentoring Works

Benefits for Mentees

Time for personal learning & reflection. The opportunity to work with someone more experienced and who is an independent third party. Focus on current work issues, personal development and long-term career progression and can provide enhanced organization and sector awareness as well as access to wider networks. Mentors can help to increase competence and confidence building and help with challenging issues. Mentoring sessions provide space to test ideas in a risk-free environment and gain authentic feedback from someone you can trust.

Benefits for Mentors

There are several benefits for those who become mentors. These include the mentor being given the opportunity to create and transfer a common set of leadership/cultural standards, passing on their acquired knowledge and experience to help others and supporting a learning culture that contributes to business performance. Mentoring also contributes to the mentor’s own development and offers the opportunity to ‘give something back’ to the organisation and its employees.

Benefits for Business

There are many ‘business benefits’ to mentoring. Through mentoring, employees may feel more valued which will assist in recruitment and retention. Mentoring is also a low-cost but highly effective way to develop employees and to strengthen the psychological contract. An employer that is willing and able to support its female staff, through mentoring, is also more likely to attract female applicants. This is especially important in the aviation and aerospace industry, where women are so poorly represented yet offer a key source of skills for the industry.

Business benefits also include the organisation gaining a reputation as a learning organisation and being viewed as ‘the place to work’ for those looking for development opportunities, improving employee commitment and loyalty and enhancing employee and organisational performance, The main benefit for organisations will be an enhanced ability to attract and retain skilled female employees. It will help to reduce attrition costs and improve business capability.

Why Women?

Skills shortages remain a feature of the aviation and aerospace sector, in the UK, Europe and globally. Despite this, organisations are not fully utilising their existing talent, especially their female talent, which is borne out in the official statistics. Women’s employment in engineering has increased, but remains low at 16.5% (UK Engineering 2021) while just 5.5% of commercial pilots in the UK are women (Civil Aviation Authority, 2022). Despite their proven abilities in the industry, negative views remain about women in male dominated industries and organisations, which is evidenced through our own research with women in the industry.

Addressing the under-representation of women will help to address the skills shortage generally and go some way in dispelling negative stereotypes about women in male dominated industries. STEM remains an important part of the UK economy but fails to attract enough women. Whether you are working in stem or any other part of the industry are an experienced mentor or mentee, alta provides mentoring for professional women, by women, in the aviation and aerospace industry and has something to offer professional women at all levels.et especially

What our Members Think!

"alta was a landmark for my beginning career in the UK. I met alta when I was a bit lost about what I wanted to do in the future but then I met Alessandra, who became an amazing mentor to me by helping me discover what the alta platform offers such as SWOT, G-STAR and SMART goals. Also, the network allowed me to connect with amazing women in aviation and they are always open for questions and discussions about any topic."

"I’ve learned a lot along the way but there’s always more to learn, and the alta Mentoring platform has been great – I would recommend it to anyone, whatever stage you’re at in your aviation career and no matter what specific sector. It takes some perseverance to get matched with a mentor or mentee but it’s well worth the effort. After a difficult period at work, I signed up to alta as both a mentor and mentee. My mentor, using Lata’s tools, has helped me refocus and get back on track. She’s helping me navigate starting a second career. Her honest feedback and advice have been invaluable. I’m lucky to be well supported by my line managers but having someone completely independent and external to work with has been brilliant – while her career has been quite different to mine, we have found common ground in experiences, challenges and ambitions. It’s like having a personalised career coach!"

"Alta has been all about connection for me. The platform itself has built-in flexibility, with a great balance of automation and personal choice in the matching process. Plus, there's a committed set of real people behind the venture, steering its development. But beyond the platform itself is where the real magic has happened, where I've benefited from my mentor's perspective, wisdom and honest opinion - priceless!"

"As a mentor I have grown in confidence. My imposter syndrome is definitely pushed back in its box! I have learnt so much from my mentees too. How they think, feel and act has really challenged my perceptions and biases. I am so proud of what they have gone on to achieve. As a mentee, I was fortunate enough to be paired with the most amazing individual not long after returning from maternity leave with my second child. Without their mentorship and their belief in me I do not think I would still be serving in the RAF. Their advice was invaluable, and their confidence in me truly inspiring. It made me feel brave and realise, in that moment, I could achieve anything. "

Why Mentoring Works