Mentoring in the Defense Industry Mentoring in the Defense Industry
What research says about mentoring in defense companies with long programs.
What this presentation covers
What this presentation covers
What this presentation covers
A sector short of skills
Defense firms compete for skilled people
An EU skills partnership for the sector aims to attract young talent and keep skilled staff.
What skill gaps cost
Skill gaps delay defense work
At one US shipyard, too few welders and ship fitters helped delay two submarines.
When people leave
Departures cost more than headcount
A case study in Australian defense traced four kinds of loss when staff left.
- Human capital lower output and productivity
- Social capital less organizational memory
- Structural capital less organizational learning
- Relational capital broken outside knowledge flows
Know-how at risk
Experience is the hardest thing to replace
Tacit, experiential knowledge is particularly at risk as experienced staff leave.
- Retirements experts leave for good
- Harder hiring more competition for talent
- Mid-career turnover people leave halfway
Clearance and need-to-know
A clearance alone does not open topics
Need-to-know is a separate decision, tied to tasks on a classified contract or program.
- Clearance who may be trusted with access
- Need-to-know why this person needs it for the task
Matching rules
Set matching rules with your security office
Pair within a program for technical depth, and across programs for career talk.
- Unclassified topics by default
- Technical pairs within one program
- Career pairs across programs
- Meeting places approved by security
Senior and early-career engineers
Pair senior engineers with new ones
Ask each senior engineer to mentor one early-career colleague in every program phase.
Career growth
Mentoring helps careers, but modestly
Mentored employees did better on pay and career satisfaction, though effects on pay were small.
- Pay a small effect
- Career satisfaction higher when mentored
Checking results
Measure whether your programs work
GAO found US depots had not assessed their training and apprenticeship efforts.
- Time to proficiency per new hire
- Retention after a year mentored and not
- Meetings held per pair, per quarter
- Successors ready per critical role
Sources
The research behind this presentation
- European Commission (2026) Pact for Skills: Aerospace & Defence ecosystem and large-scale skills partnership European Commission, Pact for Skills
- U.S. Government Accountability Office (2018) DOD Depot Workforce: Services need to assess the effectiveness of their initiative to maintain critical skills (GAO-19-51) U.S. Government Accountability Office, report to congressional committees
- U.S. Department of Defense (2020) National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (NISPOM), 32 CFR 117.3 Acronyms and definitions Code of Federal Regulations, Title 32, Part 117 (eCFR)
- Massingham, P. (2008) Measuring the impact of knowledge loss: More than ripples on a pond? Management Learning, 39(5), 541-560
- DeLong, D. W. (2004) Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce Oxford University Press, New York
- Allen, T. D., Eby, L. T., Poteet, M. L., Lentz, E. & Lima, L. (2004) Career benefits associated with mentoring for protégés: A meta-analysis Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(1), 127-136
Agree on the rules with security first
Then pair senior and early-career engineers on every program.