Mentoring is arguably the most cost-effective developmental intervention an organisation can introduce. It has significant positive impacts upon the participants (both Mentors and Mentees), the organisation and key third parties such as Mentees' line managers.

Taking each of these separately:

Benefits for the organisation

Retention

The most measured benefit for organisations lies in retention. Research data suggests that only one in five employees looking for a new job searches for a new post in the same company; for those with a Mentor, the figure rises to four out of five. Seventy-seven percent of American companies report that mentoring programs were effective in increasing employee retention.

Recruitment

Having a mentoring program is a significant factor in selection of an employer. Mentors also provide a very cost-effective resource to re-capture talented employees who have moved to other organisations. When these employees are ready to move again, the first person they often talk to is their former Mentor, if they have had a good mentoring relationship.

Induction into the organisation is typically improved by mentoring. People become acclimatised up to twice as fast as normal. At senior management levels, where the track record of success in external appointments is not high in general, mentoring is believed to make a substantial difference in acceptance of the new manager.

Other key areas of organisational benefit include:

• Promotion - mentoring programs play a key role in a Senior Executive's career advancement and, for women in particular, is one of the most effective ways of enhancing their advancement. Almost no one makes it to the top without a Mentor.
• Personal and professional development - the majority of Executives who have been mentored cite mentoring as one of the most important aspects of their development.
• Productivity - productivity increases significantly as Mentees feel much more motivated when they are being mentored.
• Succession planning - many companies find that mentoring provides a clearer picture of the talent pool available, and helps people position themselves more clearly against the likely needs of the business.
• Merger and acquisition - establishing mentoring relationships across the two organisations helps build trust and overcome cultural differences, making the integration process faster and more efficient. (It also helps keep key people, who might otherwise have left through uncertainty about their future.)
• Diversity management - mentoring has proved to be one of the most important elements of diversity programs.

When an organisation has a strong cadre of effective Mentors, it has an extra impact upon the overall culture of the organisation. A number of organisations have used mentoring as the starting point for changing from a culture that was hostile towards learning, to one that is very supportive of learning behaviours.

Benefits for the Mentee

These are very wide, but the most commonly reported are:

• Greater clarity about personal development and career goals
• Being able to discuss, in an open and unthreatening environment, issues about their career and development
• Improved networking
• Practical advice on organisational politics and behaviour
• The opportunity to be challenged constructively
• Transfer of knowledge and, in particular, judgement
• Having a role model

Various research data suggest that Mentees achieve greater confidence in their own potential and ability, feel more secure in their role (especially at senior levels) and earn more than their non-mentored counterparts. There is also data to suggest that having a Mentor is a critical factor in the career success of 80 per cent of UK chief executives.

Benefits for the Mentor

The most frequently cited benefits for Mentors are:

• Their own learning (often Mentors report as much and more learning than Mentees)
• The opportunity to practise good developmental behaviours outside their direct line responsibilities
• Development of their own self-awareness
• Greater understanding of other areas of the business and/or of other cultures

Recent research among women leaders, who are being mentored by more senior males, indicates that more than half of the Mentors feel more secure in their roles.

Benefits for the line manager

Line managers in effective mentoring schemes typically comment upon:

• The value of a “second opinion” - someone the Mentee can take issues to, who does not have a direct involvement
• Improvements in the Mentee's relationships with peers and the line manager him/herself
• A clearer sense of purpose and direction on the part of the Mentee

The bottom line for mentoring is that it achieves a great deal of change for relatively little cost.

Australian Business Mentors
leaders in mentoring and mentor training programs