by the Skills Accelerator team
National Mentoring Month 2023 is now upon us, and if you’ve had a professional mentor yourself, you’ll know that the benefits last all year round.
There is an extensive body of scientific evidence that people who’ve been supported by a more experienced colleague go on to have more fulfilling, higher performing careers than people whose professional development did not involve mentoring.
If you’ve never considered mentoring before, here are some of the benefits you may be missing out on, according to a range of studies.
1. A career kickstart
If you’re just starting a new job or career-changing, working with a mentor can ease your transition from one role to another, according to a report by the US Office of Personnel Management.
Your mentor will usually be a more senior colleague from the same organization, who knows how things work there and how to thrive. Their experience means they can help you form ideas, develop new perspectives, and adapt more quickly and easily to work in general, and your workplace specifically.
2. A wider network of contacts
The same report also notes that having a mentor increases your network. Because they’re already embedded in your organization and your profession, your mentor will have valuable contacts they can introduce you to. The contacts you make through your mentor will form the foundation of your own professional network, and may remain an important part of it for the rest of your career.
3. Higher pay
Researchers at the University of South Florida, Tampa, analyzed 43 different studies comparing people with mentors to those without. The analysis found that over their careers, people who have been mentored tend to receive greater compensation than their colleagues who have not.
4. Better chances of advancement and promotion
The University of South Florida researchers also found that people with mentors are more confident about their opportunities for career advancement than their non-mentored colleagues. And that confidence may well be justified: the researchers’ analysis showed that people who have been mentored receive more promotions than people who have not.
A mentor’s experience can help you gain a clearer picture of how your organization works, where it’s headed, and what part you could play in its future. A survey of 170 sales and marketing professionals revealed that those who had received mentoring felt more informed about the future course of their organization and believed that it provided opportunities for them to grow their careers.
5. Job satisfaction
Ultimately, we all want to feel satisfied and fulfilled at work, and mentoring can help. The University of South Florida analysis showed that people who have been mentored feel more satisfied with their careers than their colleagues who have not benefited from mentoring.
The benefits aren’t all one-sided, either. Mentors themselves also enjoy more successful careers and report greater job satisfaction than their non-mentor colleagues, according to an analysis of 18 different studies on the subject.
The evidence couldn’t be much clearer: mentoring works. The findings from these and other studies are why we made mentoring such a central part of Pearson Skills Accelerator. Because we’re here to help people make progress in their lives through learning, and the research shows again and again that mentoring increases people’s chances of a successful, rewarding career.