The transportation and logistics industry is under an ever-increasing amount
of pressure for meeting greater customer expectations, optimizing operations
and revenue, globalizing products and services, and providing all-inclusive supply
chain visibility.
Given these growing demands, the
unprecedented value that positive mentoring relationships can bring to your employees is a business concept that mustn’t be
overlooked.
“Without the human touch that the mentoring process brings to our business,
imagine the talent that goes unnoticed,
ignored or virtually wasted in your work
force,” says Herb Cohan, senior vice president for AIT Worldwide Logistics. “It’s
important to consider the detriment this
causes not only to your business but to an
employee’s personal career aspirations and
growth potential.”
Smart Business sat down with Cohan to
discuss why he believes mentoring is the
key to grooming logistics success.
How does mentoring contribute to job fulfillment for logistics professionals?
The freight-forwarding business typically
requires longer hours, higher stress levels,
quick decision-making and immediate
reaction time. It’s an industry that keeps
you on your toes, making it nearly impossible to go home and forget about the
demands of your job. Once bitten by the
transportation bug, you quickly discover
that the supply chain never sleeps.
Unfortunately, it’s far too easy in this fast-paced and competitive environment to lose
that human touch that is so crucial to our
individual growth and career development.
Muddled amid the piles of paperwork,
countless conference calls and multitude
of meetings is a reality that is too often
ignored in the so-called ‘daily grind’: The
nucleus of each and every company, logistics or otherwise, consists of the people
who run the business.
Facilitating another’s professional
advancement is an ongoing process — a
natural evolution that is highly charged
with individual attention, compassionate
attachment, mutual trust and a sincere connection to both the person and his or
her job.
Explain how mentoring addresses a specific
key issue in the industry.
The stakes have never been higher in
ensuring that logistics companies have a
tremendously talented, highly specialized
work force in place who can keep the business both profitable and operationally
sound. While considered one of the fastest-growing employment fields, high turnover
rates continue to be an unfortunate trend
in our trade.
Mentoring addresses this key challenge
in that it attracts and retains a trained and
skilled work force who is more apt to experience advancement opportunities instead
of dead ends and glass ceilings.
When taking a truly vested interest in mentoring employees, you are establishing a
heightened awareness of their overall job
satisfaction, personal career goals and specific strengths and weaknesses. In assessing
the candidate’s best placement within the
company, you are also maximizing on the
employee’s various talents and the company’s investment in that particular person.
Likewise, when the mentee feels like a
valued asset to the company, his or her
motivation to excel and succeed is tremendously enhanced.
What factors characterize a healthy and successful mentoring relationship?
A successful mentoring relationship cannot be forced or contrived, nor can it be
considered a job obligation or requirement.
It’s a reciprocal process in that you have to
possess a strong desire to be a mentor, just
as the mentee has to possess a strong
desire to learn from you. You must be genuinely excited to spend time with the person and ultimately guide the individual in
elevating his or her career — mentoring
mustn’t be a self-centered activity or a
résumé builder.
Instead, elements of warmth, compassion, altruism and friendship are necessary characteristics of a successful mentor
relationship.
A mentor has to be willing to invest the
time and commit to the follow-through.
Extend an open-door policy to encourage
the free-flowing exchange of ideas, concerns and problem-solving strategies.
Make yourself available on weekends and
evenings to go over growth plans, answer
questions or provide feedback. Ensure that
he or she has a fulfilling personal life as
well as professional life.
There’s one simple test that captures the
difference between a mentoring team that
flourishes and one that flounders: When
your mentee ultimately skyrockets to success, are you genuinely happy, even if it
surpasses your own success?
If the answer is a quantifiable ‘yes,’ then
you have discovered an invaluable reward:
In putting out your hand and returning to
the world what the world gave to you, you
have given someone else the opportunity
to shine. There’s no greater, more empowering feeling than that.
HERB COHAN is the senior vice president for AIT Worldwide Logistics, Inc., headquartered in Itasca, Ill. Spanning numerous nationwide locations and an ever-increasing network of international partnerships, the global transportation and logistics provider delivers
tailored solutions for a wide variety of vertical markets and industries. Reach him at [email protected] or (800) 669-4248.
