Mentoring: Current Trends

As organizations race to compete our increasingly complex and global economy, they are re-defining traditional strategies supporting their most important asset – their human capital. Mentoring, one such strategy, is the focus of this article.

Mentoring - A Definition

Earliest definitions characterize “mentoring” as a sustained relationship between a younger, less experienced individual (protégé) and an older, more experienced individual (mentor) dedicated to achieving long term success and fulfillment (R.J. Burke, 1984; K.E. Kram, 1985). Based on current trends outlined below, this definition is quickly becoming obsolete.

Mentoring - Current Trends

Formalized Mentoring Programs on the Rise

Consider the following statistics:

• 71% of Fortune 500 companies have a mentoring program (“Mentoring Programs Still Have a Place in the 21st Century,” Lydell Bridgeford, Employee Benefit News, August 1, 2007)
• 69% of surveyed companies representing a wide variety of industries, have formal mentoring programs, and of those, 74% have mentoring programs dedicated to women (Catalyst, 2006)
• 60% of UK business leaders have had a mentor, and of these, 97% said they had benefited from the advice given (DDI, 2005)
• 47% of organizations recently surveyed have mentoring programs (The Coaching/Mentoring Practitioner Consensus Survey, The Institute for Corporate Productivity, 2007)

And, do these mentoring programs produce positive outcomes?

A recent meta-study of 151 studies on mentoring and found that over 90% reported evidence of positive outcomes from mentoring programs (B.C. Hansford, L.C. Ehrich and L. Tennent, 2003).

Mentoring Increases: Salaries, Promotions, and Retention

A comprehensive study in 2006 by Gartner, a Connecticut-based research firm of over 1,000 workers over a 5 year period, revealed the following benefits of mentoring:

• 25% of employees who enrolled in a mentoring program had a salary-grade change, while only 5% of workers who did not participate in a mentoring program had a change
• Mentors were promoted 6 times more often than those not in a mentoring program
• Mentees were promoted 5 times more often than those not in a mentoring program
• Retention rates also were higher for both mentees (72%) and mentors (69%) than for employees who did not participate in a mentoring program

Earlier research, cited below, creates the foundation for the above findings.

• Mentees experience higher career satisfaction, career commitment, career mobility, and positive job attitudes (B.R. Ragins, J.L. Cotton, and J.S. Miller, J.S, 2002).
• Mentoring also benefits the organization by reducing turnover, increasing organizational commitment, promoting knowledge transfer, and making earlier identification of key talent (C. Gibb, 1999, and G.L. Lewis 1996)

The Changing Face of Mentoring

The old model of “your boss is your mentor” has gone by the wayside. Below are the new innovative approaches being reported.

• Short-term, goal-oriented mentoring – focuses on specific goals for a set time limit
• Peer-to-peer mentoring – pairs young employees with each other
• Speed mentoring – time-limited meetings (usually 1 hour) where a mentee is matched with a mentor focusing on quick-hit information and networking
• E-mentoring – virtual mentoring done through email where a mentee is matched with a mentor
• Reverse mentoring – matches senior executives (the mentees) with younger people (the mentors) to help them stay up to date in a fast-changing world(Patricia Kitchen, “Mentors' odyssey picks up a thoroughly modern pace”, CHANGING @ WORK, November 2005)


• Job-Fit Related mentoring – fitting specific mentors to particular jobs (Evan Offsteing, Jason Morwick and Amit Shah, “Mentoring Programs and Jobs: A Contingency Approach,” Review of Business, 2007)
• Mutual Learning, Adaptation and Change – focus on learning partnership leading to mutual growth and development (Neil Katz, “Enhancing effectiveness in mentoring,” Nation’s Cities Weekly, February 2007)

Current Challenges for Mentoring Programs

With formalized mentoring programs on the rise, organizations will need to establish ways to measure their success. Consider the following challenges reported by the research:

• Less than 20% of the organizations in The Coaching/Mentoring Practitioner Consensus Survey (The Institute for Corporate Productivity, 2007) believe their mentoring programs are good or excellent.
• 62% of organizations in the same survey said mentors are used by 5% of fewer workers.
• Mentoring was found to be least effective for the highest-performing employees (Gartner, 2006)
• Spontaneous, quickly created mentoring programs increase the possibility of staff turnover, gender or racial bias, overburdening mentors leading to job decline, and financial costs (B.C. Hansford, L.C. Ehrich, and L. Tennent, 2003)

It is clear that organizations need to take a comprehensive approach as they consider creating a mentoring program, or update an existing one based upon the innovative trends underway.