Thinking of investing in mentoring? Don't delay in reading this piece from Nick Williams.

Workplace mentoring initiatives are often seen as a luxury, rather than a necessity. Whilst they can provide invaluable support in employees’ professional development, it’s likely that you’ll have a fight on your hands when it comes to getting the budget for one. To give you a helping hand, we’ve shared some of the different ways to sell a mentoring initiative to your finance department.

Improved productivity

Mentors can help employees carry out their job roles to a higher standard. By exposing them to new ideas and ways of thinking and providing helpful advice, they can support them in finding better ways to work and using their time more wisely. A mentor will also give employees more confidence in their job roles. The more confident they feel, the happier they will be, helping to increase workplace morale and achieve higher levels of productivity. 

An increase in productivity has a direct link to an increase in profits. This will definitely please your finance department and should be one of the ways you justify the cost of a mentoring initiative to them.

Fewer mistakes

Mistakes can be costly for any business; so one way you can sell a mentoring initiative to your finance department is by telling them that that it will result in fewer mistakes being made. 

Seeing as your employees will be turning to their mentors for advice, they will make fewer mistakes on the job, cutting losses to the business. Rather than consulting managers with minor issues, they will be able to consult their mentors instead, freeing up time for managers to spend on other core business tasks.

Lower turnover

High staff turnover rates are extremely costly for businesses, especially when you’ve factored in the cost of recruitment and training. The good news is that employees in mentoring relationships tend to have greater job satisfaction, which results in a more positive working environment.

If staff are happy in their jobs, they’re much less likely to leave, resulting in lower turnover and reduced costs. You can’t put a price on employee loyalty. Tell that to your finance department.

Identify and retain talent

Mentoring initiatives can also help you to identify talent within your organisation. Mentors will guide employees along the right path, help them develop their skills and knowledge and show them how they can progress in their careers with your business.

By setting up a mentoring initiative in your organisation, you can reduce the risk of losing talented employees to outside competitors. It will enable you to retain your employees and move them into more advanced positions, which can save on the cost of recruiting externally.

Talent is extremely valuable to your business. Make this point when selling a mentoring initiative to your finance department.

Improve employer branding

It’s not just your employees that are likely to appreciate a mentoring initiative but those looking for employment too. Mentoring initiatives are extremely attractive to job seekers and will go a long way in improving your employer branding.

Having a mentoring initiative in place says a lot about your business. It tells prospective candidates that you are willing to invest in their futures and develop a culture of personal and professional growth. This can give you a significant edge of your competitors and will offer a great ROI in the form of hiring new talent with minimal PR/advertising.

Speed up the process of onboarding

Mentoring initiatives can help to streamline the process of bringing on new hires, as well as redeploying existing employees into new roles. Studies have shown that the first month of a new hire is critical to the success of an employee’s future within an organisation. Mentoring will ensure new employees have the support they need during this crucial learning phase.

Knowledge management and retention

Knowledge is power and therefore extremely valuable to your business. If key individuals hold knowledge and they leave your business, then you will lose that knowledge with them. An effective knowledge management and retention strategy is therefore essential to your business and something that can be assisted with the help of a mentoring initiative.

A mentoring initiative will encourage your knowledgeable employees to share their wisdom with others in the organisation. This not only benefits other employees but also reduces the risk of your organisation losing its most valuable asset (the knowledge held by these key employees). 

It can also benefit your key employees too, as they will be able to feel more confident in delegating tasks to their peers, freeing them from the burden of only being the only one who can do certain tasks.

Conclusion

Whilst mentoring initiatives don’t come cheap, their value far outweighs their expense. With a little encouragement (and all these points to back you up), you should have no trouble selling the initiative to your finance department.

Nick Williams works for Acuity Training, who provide hands-on professional training from their two UK offices. Nick works as an assistant on Acuity’s communication and assertiveness courses