Mentoring is as old as civilisation itself and its story can be traced back to Homer’s Odyssey, where Odysseus – who is leaving to fight in the Trojan War – entrusts the care of his household and especially of his son Telemachus to mentor.

Since then, the word has evolved to mean friend, teacher, wise person and advisor. And even though centuries have passed since Mentor took Telemachus under his proverbial wing, mentoring is still a valued concept at home and at the office.

Within a corporate environment, mentoring programmes focus on pairing junior employees – mentees – with senior and experienced members of staff. Although this is the most common form of mentoring, there are other forms. Situational mentoring, for instance, is exercised in the short term and involves giving advice for a particular project or a specific time period. Reverse mentoring, as its name denotes, puts senior staff in touch with younger employees: the idea is to enable experienced staff to see the world with fresh eyes and an open mind.

Whatever form of mentorship is adopted, the value of mentors is that they have been there and done that and therefore can help mentees learn from their mistakes and successes. In fact, the transfer of experience and knowledge is one of the main aims of mentoring. The corporate environment is one that promotes rapid learning and mentoring is a valuable tool in helping employees acquire expertise, skills and knowledge in a direct way. According to Bersin by Deloitte, 80 per cent of learning is informal: mentoring is an informal way of learning that enhances productivity, helps employees align to a company’s strategy and most importantly, shortens the learning curve.

The role of the mentor is defined as someone who introduces young and new employees to a company, guides them on a project, helps them identify and secure resources, and provides personalised support. This enables the mentee to gain real-world knowledge: in this way, a mentor can be seen as a bridge between educational theory and actual business practice.

A mentor also helps engender self-reliance in young employees while helping them develop their leadership skills. The latter is especially important because in order to secure its growth, any company needs to have good leaders today but also invest in the leaders of tomorrow. This is crucial to the future of every company: a mentor can engage with a company’s future leaders, expose them to different areas of the business, and help them learn the skills they need to excel in their prospective new roles.

This is also an effective way to retain talent. New and young employees will be willing to invest their future in a company if the latter shows that it is willing to entrust its future to them. Moreover, through mentoring, employees feel engaged and appreciated in a supporting environment that invests in their growth and career development. In turn, this secures employee loyalty.

However, mentoring shouldn’t be a one-off exercise. Rather, it should be part of the culture of a company. Mentoring programmes should be a sustained effort that is given to all new employees. It is through this sustained effort that a company can achieve high staff retention, secure talent and nurture the leaders of tomorrow. In fact, research shows that more than 70 per cent of Fortune 500 companies offer a mentoring programme to their employees.

Mentoring is not just about the mentee. While a mentee will avail of knowledge and skills, a mentor will find fulfilment in sharing experience and in helping shape the future of a company.