August 23, 2019, Johannesburg, South Africa – Knight Piésold Southern Africa has redefined what it means to be a mentoring company, creating a supportive, enabling environment that encourages professional development for its employees, the industry, and the broader Southern African community. Knight Piésold has differentiated itself from the market and was recognised as the winner in the Mentoring Company of the Year category at the 2019 Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) Aon Engineering Excellence Awards. This award was received with great pride and honour, having received a commendation in 2018.

The CESA Aon Engineering Excellence Awards recognises remarkable achievements in the consulting engineering industry in celebration of innovation, quality, outstanding workmanship, and professionalism. At this year’s awards, leaders in the built environment gathered at the Vodacom Dome on August 14 to celebrate industry achievements. Knight Piésold was also awarded in the Best International Project and CESA Job Shadow Initiative categories.

Knight Piésold targets hiring the right employees and supports them in progressively building their careers to ultimately become the company’s future leaders. Knight Piésold has developed a Workplace Development Plan—a talent management framework—for employees that contributes to the development of better trained and engaged employees and assists in maintaining a highly qualified, experienced, and stable workforce. This plan includes a Candidacy Programme, a formal and structured approach to mentoring, plus three other mentorship programmes. All programmes have fostered a mentorship culture, where time spent on coaching and guiding employees has become the norm.

The Candidacy Programme, a rigorous and structured programme, is focused on developing candidate engineers, technologists, and technicians through professional registration, centred around the milestones set by the Engineering Council of South Africa. The Emerging Leaders Programme aims to expose new professional engineers to business operations, such as human resources, finance, and business development, thereby developing their potential for future leadership positions within the company.

In addition, Knight Piésold has taken mentoring a step further, targeting not just its employees but also the industry and the broader Southern African community. Its programmes transform the lives of school learners through its School’s Mentorship Programme and of university graduates through its Student Mentorship Programme. The programmes highlight the importance of studying mathematics and science to encourage learners in grades 8-12 to pursue engineering at the tertiary levels. In 2019, Knight Piésold awarded bursaries to 10 learners and those who are in their first year of civil engineering studies are being mentored by Knight Piésold’s civil engineers throughout their degree.

“Our current leaders and mentors are passionate about teaching and sharing knowledge to develop the future leadership of the company,” said Mevashnee Naidoo, HR Director. “We wish to acknowledge and thank all our candidates, mentors, mentees, and management and HR teams for their time and commitment and for making our programmes a success.”