What does a mentor need for an internship or apprenticeship to work?
A mentor needs time, preparation, and support of their own for an internship or apprenticeship to work, because the mentor is often the person who shapes, day to day, whether a participant learns the job or struggles alone. Sometimes a mentor is assigned on top of a full workload, with no time set aside and no guidance about the role. Then mentoring tends to shrink to answering questions when there's a spare minute. Participants may notice, and some may conclude they're a burden or that the organization isn't invested in them.
Good mentoring pairs high expectations with meaningful support. It gives participants real work, explains the context behind it, and lets them work through manageable problems themselves while knowing someone will help if they need it. In a registered apprenticeship, the federal standards also require qualified training personnel and adequate supervision on the job. No single mentor should have to be everything to every participant, so it helps to share the support across a supervisor, a mentor, and peers.
How can the work itself push interns and apprentices out?
The work itself can push interns and apprentices out when it's either too trivial to learn from or too unsupported to manage. Someone who spends a placement filing, cleaning, or waiting for instructions may decide the field isn't for them, or that the organization doesn't see them as a future employee. Someone handed responsibilities without enough explanation may feel out of their depth and leave before anyone notices they're struggling.
Supervision that assumes context a newcomer doesn't have yet creates a similar problem. Experienced employees often forget how much they know about the equipment, the vocabulary, the unwritten rules, and who to ask. Participants also need to understand what the placement could lead to, such as a job offer, a next step in the apprenticeship, or a reference. When that's unclear, people make their own decisions about whether to keep going.
What outside the job affects whether participants stay?
What happens outside the job affects whether participants stay as much as what happens at work, especially for people who are also students, parents, or working a second job. Class schedules, shift times, transportation, childcare, money, health needs, and an overall workload that leaves no room for rest can all push someone out of a placement that is otherwise going well. A participant who is overwhelmed by these pressures may need practical help or a different schedule more than encouragement.
Whether participants feel they belong in the workplace matters too. People who are new to a field, or who don't see many others like them in it, may read an ordinary setback as a sign they don't fit. Mentors and supervisors can help by treating mistakes as part of learning and by noticing when someone has gone quiet. If your question is about students leaving an education program before they finish, Students start our program and don't finish. Why? covers that. If it's about employees who leave your organization, Our younger employees and our newer immigrant employees leave first. What are we missing? covers that.
How do we find out which of these is happening here?
You find out which of these is happening in your organization by asking the people involved, because each group sees a different part of the placement. Participants who left can tell you what made it harder to stay, and participants who stayed can tell you what helped. Mentors and supervisors can tell you what they had time and support to do. Ask in a way that lets people answer candidly, which may mean someone other than their supervisor asks the questions.
Then act on what you learn and tell participants and mentors what you're changing and what you can't change. If nothing happens after people give feedback, the next group is less likely to speak up. For a fuller way to judge whether the program is meeting its goals, How do we know whether our work-based learning program is working? covers what to look at and when.
The Grantibly perspective
Angelika's perspective
I'm particularly interested in the relationships between people and their supervisors, mentors, and leaders, and how those relationships influence their sense of belonging, motivation, agency, wellbeing, and willingness to stay. How people interpret their experiences, how they're treated, and whether they feel valued and capable matter as much as an organization's policies.
Support shouldn't mean rescue. The aim is to maintain high expectations while providing meaningful support, and to encourage agency instead of stepping in every time a challenge comes up. And the people providing that support need support themselves. Programs should build systems of support so no single mentor has to be everything to everyone, and so mentors don't burn out.
We're interested in both individual and organizational responsibility. People can develop resilience and better ways of working, but that alone isn't enough. Organizations and leaders also have a responsibility to create the conditions that help people grow and thrive.
