Oftentimes, mentoring programs are thought to be for bigger enterprises. After all, they’re the ones with the big budgets, right? But, in reality, mentoring isn’t something that should only be considered by large corporations. That’s because it has a plethora of benefits for all business types and sizes—including midsized companies.
What’s more, these programs are budget-friendly, meaning you don’t have to break the bank to access them. Therefore, without further ado, let’s explore some of the awesome benefits these programs provide.
7 Benefits of Mentoring For Midsized Companies
1. Knowledge Sharing
Mentoring is a surefire way to ensure that tribal knowledge is passed down and shared with other employees. As Robert Sher shared in an article for Forbes, while once fledgling start-ups are evolving into thriving midsized companies, “the core knowledge remains rooted in a small group of senior leaders with careers winding down. Unless the expertise—and the culture—are spread, the excellence that propelled growth can dissipate.”
It’s important that small and midsized companies don’t let that happen and instead put practices in place that safeguard employees’ industry and organisational knowledge.
2. Cross-Functional Rapport
Smaller and midsized companies tend to also have smaller teams, which means some employees are working with a very small group of people most of the time. And—oftentimes—this can lead to a lack of a sense of belonging. How can this feeling be remedied? By having those with less exposure to people outside of their team connect with colleagues via mentoring.
Additionally, because smaller and midsized companies often require more cross-functional cooperation, it helps to build good working relationships between teams and their members.
3. Career Development Support
In any company, supporting junior team members in advancing their careers is important, but in smaller and midsized companies, junior employees might not feel that support exists. Mentoring is a great way to show them that career development support is available whenever they need it.
Moreover, that same support increases employee retention. In fact, in some professional industries, 26% of employees report leaving their companies due to a lack of career development opportunities.
4. Engagement and Support for Remote Employees
As more and more companies go remote, the need for engagement and support for remote employees is skyrocketing. For medium-sized companies that work across different regions, employees away from the main headquarters can feel a bit isolated from the majority of the company, which can lead to disengagement.
Thankfully, applying remote mentoring best practices can help build organisational commitment, safeguard retention, boost engagement, and increase job satisfaction.
5. Guidance and Support for All Employees
Smaller and midsized companies in a growth or scaling phase experience a lot of changes in rapid succession. Therefore, they need to support their teams and employees throughout these periods of flux.
Mentoring programs allow employees to lean on and learn from one another amidst a shifting work environment, increasing overall organisational adaptability and agility.
6. Innovation
For medium-sized companies that compete with large corporations or in a very competitive market, mentoring fosters innovation, which is essential if these businesses want to compete in the short- and long-term.
The guidance and advice provided throughout mentoring programs tend to not only lead to more innovation, but to more efficiency and effectiveness as well.
7. Fewer Barriers to Implementation
In certain cases, smaller and midsized companies actually have a leg up when it comes to starting mentoring programs. This is because—due to the smaller size of the organisation—the program is easier to start and manage. Decision making is more agile, tends to happen faster, and overall there’s less organisational red tape.
On the other hand, smaller companies usually don’t have access to larger data sets on goal setting and other key metrics. Thankfully, Mentorloop is here to help. Our software helps you easily gather and compile all the data, analytics, and reports you need to set up your program, make it more effective, and prove its worth.
Just because your organisation isn’t a massive company doesn’t mean it won’t benefit from a mentoring program—or that it’s not a good investment. As you can see, the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Whatever size your organisation is, you can start building a culture of mentoring with Mentorloop today.
