MENTORSHIP INSIDER | SEPTEMBER 2026 Mentorship as a Retention Strategy: Lessons from Women in the Skilled Trades
Recruitment brings people in. Support helps them build a career.
Across Canada, businesses are facing a workforce challenge that goes beyond filling open positions. In the second quarter of 2026, 24.4% of Canadian businesses expected recruiting skilled employees to be an obstacle over the following three months, while 16.1% expected retaining skilled employees to be an obstacle. Among businesses with 20 to 99 employees, those figures rose to 43.9% and 28.8%.
The distinction matters. Recruitment opens the door to an industry, but retention depends on what happens after someone arrives. New workers are learning more than technical skills: they are learning workplace expectations, building relationships, and trying to understand whether there is a future for them in the field.
This is especially relevant in skilled trades, where women accounted for only 11% of Red Seal apprentices in 2023 and remain underrepresented in several higher-paid trades. When people enter a workplace where they have few role models or limited access to experienced professionals who understand their experiences, a trusted source of guidance can make a meaningful difference.
Why retention requires more
People do not leave an industry only because they cannot do the work. They leave when they cannot see a path forward, feel disconnected from their workplace, encounter an unsupportive environment, or do not know who to turn to when a problem arises.
A Government of Canada evaluation of the Apprenticeship Incentive Grant for Women found that 41% of survey respondents in male-dominated Red Seal trades identified mentorship from a co-worker or supervisor as something that helped them continue progressing in their apprenticeship. That finding is best understood as evidence that support is needed, not as proof that mentorship alone determines whether someone stays.
Research beyond the skilled trades points in a similar direction. A longitudinal case study of formal mentoring for women in a UK police force drew on 68 interviews and four focus groups. Participants described mentoring as supporting skills, professional networks, and confidence, with self-confidence emerging as a particularly strong theme. The study focused on one organization, so it does not establish a universal result, but it illustrates how an experienced colleague can help people navigate in a different male-dominated industry.
Retention matters at both the individual and organizational level. People need the opportunity to build experience and advance. Organizations need to retain the knowledge and skills they have invested in developing. Mentorship can support both goals when it is connected to the real challenges people face at work.
How mentorship can support good retention
Formal education and technical training teach people how to do the work. They do not always teach people how to navigate workplace relationships, raise a difficult issue, find opportunities for advancement, or decide what to do when something goes wrong.
A mentor can help bridge that gap. They can share experience, help a newer employee think through options, explain how career progression works, introduce professional contacts, and point to training or development opportunities. Just as importantly, they can help someone see how their current skills connect to a longer-term career and/or different career path.
A 2023 Ontario study of small and medium-sized employers in the electrical trades found that employers viewed ongoing educational support, management expertise, hiring resources, and apprentice onboarding tools positively within an employer mentorship program. The study also surfaced barriers related to trade stigma, equity, workplace mental health, recruitment, and retention. Its lesson is not that mentorship solves those problems. It is that structured support- which can include mentorship- can help address gaps that technical training alone does not cover.
Mentorship therefore works best as a complement to “people-first” workplace practices, appropriate training, competitive compensation, and a strong organizational culture. It can give people a place to ask questions and build perspective, but it cannot compensate for conditions that make a workplace unsafe or unsupportive.
A Nova Scotia example: Let's Connect
The Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency's Let's Connect: Mentorship for Women Apprentices program provides a practical example of mentorship designed around retention and progression to certification. The program supports women apprentices in the 39 Red Seal construction and manufacturing trades by pairing them with experienced tradespeople for guidance, career development, and support throughout the apprenticeship journey.
The relationship lasts six months, with mentors and mentees participating in four to six meetings. Participants can decide when and how they meet, while mentors and mentees receive training and resources to support the relationship. The flexibility within a structure matters: a mentor can respond to the questions and situations that arise during an apprentice's actual work experience, rather than offering only a one-time orientation or solution.
That structure gives an apprentice a consistent person to return to while navigating workplace challenges, developing a career plan, and thinking about their future. It creates a practical support relationship alongside formal apprenticeship training, without suggesting that mentorship can remove every barrier a participant may face.
What other Canadian initiatives show
Let's Connect is part of a wider Canadian effort to make retention and progression part of workforce development. The federal Women in the Skilled Trades Initiative funds projects that recruit, retain, and support women apprentices in the 39 eligible Red Seal trades. It includes mentorship by female role models, women-in-the-skilled-trades networks, and efforts to create more welcoming and supportive training and work environments.
Examples include the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum's National Mentorship Program for Women Apprentices in 39 Red Seal Trades, designed to provide mentorship and wraparound services for 160 women across Canada. The Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium's Women in Advanced Manufacturing Skilled Trades initiative is another example, with a focus on supporting women apprentices and increasing retention and completion in Red Seal programs.
Taken together, these initiatives show a shift in how mentorship is being used. It is not only an informal benefit available to people who happen to find a supportive colleague. It is increasingly being built into broader efforts to recruit, retain, and help people progress in industries where they remain underrepresented.
What this means for workforce development
Workforce development does not end when someone completes initial training or new-organization onboarding. People continue to face challenges as they gain experience, change roles, and take on greater or different responsibilities. A new employee may need help understanding workplace expectations. An apprentice may need advice about a difficult situation. Someone with several years of experience may need guidance about leadership or advancement or coaching a younger employee.
For organizations, the practical question is not simply whether to offer mentorship. It is how to connect mentorship to the points where employees need support. That means listening to employees, setting clear expectations, preparing mentors and mentees to engage, and making it easy to adjust a match or ask for additional help when the relationship is not working.
Done well, mentorship creates a bridge between experienced and newer people. Experienced professionals can pass on knowledge that might otherwise be lost, while newer employees gain access to perspectives and professional connections that can take years to develop independently.
A practical call to action
Organizations designing or strengthening a mentorship element of their workforce development or retention initiatives can start with five questions:
• What gets in the way of participants or students staying in your program or employees staying in your organization? Use participant feedback, interviews, or surveys to identify the actual barriers rather than assuming the answer.
• What is the relationship meant to support? Set a clear purpose, boundaries, duration, and expectations for meetings and communication.
• Who needs to be matched with whom? Consider each person's goals, experience, trade, and preferred form of support, and provide a way to revisit the match if needed.
• What do mentors and mentees need to succeed? Provide preparation, conversation guides, regular check-ins, and a clear route for escalation when an issue is outside the mentor's role.
• How will we know whether it is helping? Track engagement, confidence, connection, progression, and participant feedback, not only the number of meetings or final retention rates.
Mentorship cannot make an unsafe or unsupportive workplace worth staying in. But when it is intentional, well-supported, and connected to the challenges participants actually face, it can provide something training alone cannot: a trusted person to help navigate the path ahead. Retention is not about persuading people to stay at any cost. It is about making a sustainable career possible.
Sources and further reading
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