THE MENTOR PROFILE IN THE FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY: A KEY ROLE FOR THE FUTURE OF THE WORKFORCE

The European Social Partners of the Footwear sector, IndustriAll European Trade Unions and the European Confederation of Footwear Industry (CEC) together with the Italian Footwear Association, Assocalzaturifici are working on a project to attract and retain young workers in the footwear sector.

In a research and survey to footwear stakeholders, it was concluded that one of the figures having a positive impact on the employment of people in a footwear company would be the possibility to be trained by an in-house mentor.

Indeed, there is general consensus among sectoral stakeholders at European level that mentoring, when effectively implemented in the workplace, has multiple positive effects and benefits towards all stakeholders involved (employers, mentors and workers), and favours employability, career development as well as can capitalize on older workers’ knowledge and keep them motivated.

Within this project, partners would like to establish the grounds and define the feasibility of a Mentor Certification scheme in order to promote mentoring in the footwear industry as a mean to facilitate the incorporation of newcomers into a company. There could be a certification process recognised by the industry, social partners and VET providers, the latter only if involved in the training offer.

As a first step, we are launching this survey to agree on the definition of a mentor profile, in order later on to consider elaborating what could be the certification process.

Part of the information included in this survey was developed within a previous education project[1] co-financed by the European Union.

Your know-how and experience of the industry and workforce is key to achieve our objective. The survey targets mainly managers and HR people working in footwear companies in Italy, Spain, Poland and Portugal.

_{[1] Be my Mentor in the Workplace project, co-financed Lifelong Learning Programme (2015) of the European Union https://bmw.ctcp.pt/}