How to Improve Employee Retention with Mentoring

Employee retention is not just a hiring issue or a pay issue. It is the outcome of how people experience your workplace.

When employees feel supported, connected, developed, and recognised, they are far more likely to stay. When they feel isolated, overlooked, burned out, or unsure about their future, retention becomes a revolving door.

Losing experienced staff hurts. Not only is there a drain on organisational knowledge, but replacement costs can exceed 200% of their annual salary. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2.3 million people left or lost a job in 2023. Out of this number, a third left their jobs for a better opportunity or just wanted a change. While there are various reasons why employees leave the workplace, the top reasons are usually within the employer’s control. Instead, the problem is with replacing highly-trained employees since related This is why employers need to know how to improve employee retention so they can avoid such costs. 

This is where mentoring matters.

Done properly, mentoring is not a side initiative or a nice-to-have. It is a practical way to improve the HR outcomes that shape retention every day: engagement, belonging, wellbeing, culture, and career growth. It helps people feel seen. It creates clearer pathways for development. And it gives organisations a structured way to build connection at scale.

If you want to reduce turnover, you need more than surface-level fixes. You need to strengthen the conditions that make people want to stay.

TL;DR

Employee retention is shaped by how people experience work day to day. When employees feel supported, recognised, connected, and able to grow, they are more likely to stay. The article argues that retention is not only about pay or hiring. It is about strengthening the conditions behind engagement, belonging, wellbeing, culture, and career development.

Mentoring stands out as a practical retention strategy because it gives employees guidance, clearer development pathways, stronger support networks, and a greater sense of belonging. In hybrid and complex workplaces especially, structured mentoring helps organisations reduce disconnection, support internal growth, and create the kind of employee experience that makes people want to stay.

Table of Contents

• Why Employee Retention Matters
• Why People Quit Their Jobs
• Why People Stay
• How Employee Retention Affects Your Organisation
• 8 Ways to Improve Employee Retention
• Hire the Right People
• Optimise the Onboarding Process
• Offer Better Benefits and Perks
• Recognise Employee Contributions
• Embrace Flexibility
• Create Career Growth Opportunities
• Invest in Employee Development
• Conduct Mentorship Programs
• Why Retention Is an HR Outcomes Issue
• How Mentoring Supports the Drivers of Retention
• Engagement
• Belonging
• Burnout Prevention
• Culture
• Why Hybrid Work Makes Mentoring More Important
• Why Top Talent Does Not Stay for Perks Alone
• Future-Proofing Your Workforce Through Development
• Informal Mentoring vs Structured Mentoring Outcomes
• Retention Is the Outcome. Mentoring Builds the Conditions for It.
• Why Brancher’s Structured Mentoring Approach Matters
• Frequently Asked Questions

Why Do People Quit Their Jobs?

The Wall Street Journal reported that 44.5 million Americans quit their jobs in 2023. This is a better number compared to the 50.6 million people who resigned in 2022. The top reason why they quit their jobs is that they sought higher compensation. The other reasons are: 

• Not challenging enough
• No clear path for growth
• No access to health insurance and employee retirement plans
• Felt undervalued
• No option for flexibility
• Had issues with a manager
• Burnt out from stress or overworking
• Not recognised for a job well done
• No clear direction from management
• Company culture doesn’t fit their values

Why Do People Stay?

With the reasons above, it can be deduced that employees who feel undervalued and unappreciated will look for opportunities elsewhere that provide what they are looking for. Compensation is important, but millennials favour opportunities for learning and 91% hope for rapid career progression.  

Other reasons why people will choose to stay in their current workplace include: 

• High engagement level
• Flexible work arrangements
• Clear career growth 
• Access to learning and development
• Fulfilling employee benefits plan
• Supportive management
• Great company culture 
• Support for the company’s mission

Employee engagement is a good measure of job satisfaction. This refers to an individual’s level of involvement and enthusiasm for their work. We’ve got an excellent article that gives tips on how to improve employee engagement in your workplace. 

How Does Employee Retention Affect Your Organisation

Every year, businesses in the US lose $1 trillion due to voluntary turnover. That’s because there’s more to it when an employee exits a company. Businesses face other costs, including: 

• Spending time and money to replace the employee
• Lower morale for remaining employees
• Reduced productivity during a new employee’s hiring and onboarding process
• Lost company knowledge and expertise

Here are eight of the best ways to retain employees, save your team time and money, and ensure you get the most out of your employee investment:

How to Improve Employee Retention 

Tip #1: Hire the Right People

It all starts with choosing the right individuals to hire. Although this means being meticulous in the recruitment process, it’s also important not to let the employee jump through hoops and loops before proceeding to the next step. The best way to do this is to be thorough during the interview process to understand if a candidate possesses the right skills for the role. This also helps avoid mismatches in the hiring process. 

Tip #2: Optimize the Onboarding Process

The onboarding process does not end with welcoming the newly hired candidate into the office. Instead, it should be a continuous process with proper training and development so employees have the support needed in their roles. Only two percent of companies practice an onboarding process that lasts up to one year. But this is the recommended practice to ensure the employee gets to prove “if they’re fully productive.” This transitions them into seasoned employees of the company.

Interestingly, 76% of employees want increased socialisation during onboarding (with a mentor or onboarding buddy aside from their leader). 56% ask for a mentor on day one.

Tip #3: Offer Enticing Benefits and Perks

This is a way employers can show that they care about the wellbeing of their employees. Health insurance, gym memberships, coffee and lunches are great ways to keep employees engaged and make a more favourable comparison when employees are considering a move. ESOP (Employee share) schemes are also great for retaining employees long-term and increasing their perceived investment in the organisation. 

Tip #4: Recognise Employee’s Contributions

Lack of recognition is among the top three reasons why employees quit their jobs. Another study found that 21.5% of employees who did not receive recognition for their hard work have attended job interviews. Gallup also found that recognition helps increase productivity and keeps loyal employees. Building a feedback and employee recognition culture can do wonders for any organisation. Employees want to feel appreciated and valued for their contributions to the company. If they do not get this recognition from their current employer, they are likely to look for validation elsewhere. 

Tip #5: Embrace Flexibility

The pandemic has shown that remote work is possible. And while there are companies that have implemented return-to-work mandates, others continue to offer flexible work arrangements. This study found that 66% of workers would immediately start looking for a new job if their option for remote work was taken away from them. Remote work has given individuals the ability to perform their jobs without the need to commute or relocate to another city. By offering flexibility, organisations can support employees and give them reasons to stay loyal. 

Tip #6: Create Opportunities for Career Growth 

Another reason why employees leave is because they do not have career growth in the organisation. Employees want to have career opportunities in their workplace. It gives them a goal to work towards and has a motivating factor for staying. Managers can sit down with the employees and talk to them about how they can achieve these goals and other opportunities that are available to them. 

Tip #7: Invest in Your Employees

Employee development is one of the important ways to retain top employees. Providing opportunities for skill development in the organisation can help encourage employees. And whenever necessary, prioritise internal hiring and promotions to reward employees. This gives employees enough reasons to stay in their current workplace. 

Tip #8: Conduct Mentorship Programs

Mentorship programs can help improve employee retention in any organisation. Since employees gain guidance from more experienced individuals, they get an understanding of how they can grow in the organisation. Mentoring also gives them support and a sense of belonging, which can be enough reasons to stay.

Often overlooked, mentoring programs based on collaboration can be a great way to provide employees with a deeper understanding of how the organisation operates and can provide them with exposure to other departments or programs where they may wish to move in future. 

A mentorship program can be a great way to keep employees motivated and in line with your organisation’s goals. If you plan to launch one, the best way to ensure its success is to make the right mentor-mentee matches. Brancher offers a unique mentoring program with science-based matches. Book a demo today to learn more about how we can help improve employee retention in your organisation. 

Why Employee Retention Is an HR Outcomes Issue

Every resignation creates more than a vacancy.

It drains organisational knowledge, disrupts teams, slows productivity, and puts extra pressure on the people who remain. Retention is not just about replacing headcount. It is about protecting performance, preserving culture, and creating an environment where people can do their best work over time.

That is why the strongest retention strategies do not focus only on exits. They focus on the employee experience before people start looking elsewhere.

When HR leaders improve engagement, create stronger support networks, build trust, and make development visible, retention becomes a natural outcome rather than a constant rescue mission.

How Mentoring Supports the Drivers of Retention

Mentoring works because it improves the everyday conditions that influence whether people stay, disengage, or burn out.

It gives employees access to guidance, perspective, and support beyond their direct manager. It helps people navigate change, build confidence, and feel more connected to the organisation around them. In other words, it strengthens the human side of retention.

Engagement: People Stay Where They Feel Invested In

Engagement does not come from posters, perks, or one-off initiatives. It comes from feeling connected to meaningful work, having opportunities to grow, and knowing that somebody is genuinely invested in your progress.

That is where mentoring makes a difference.

A strong mentoring program creates regular developmental conversations, clearer goals, and better feedback loops. It gives employees space to reflect, ask better questions, and connect their day-to-day work to longer-term growth. That sense of momentum matters.

When people feel stagnant, engagement drops. When they feel supported and stretched in the right ways, they are more likely to stay committed and contribute at a higher level.

If you want to go deeper on this, read more about how to improve employee engagement.

Belonging: Retention Improves When People Feel Connected

Employees are more likely to stay when they feel like they belong.

Belonging is not built through messaging alone. It is built through relationships. Through being known. Through having trusted people to turn to. Through feeling part of something larger than your job description.

Mentoring helps create that connection intentionally.

For new hires, it can speed up integration and make the organisation feel less overwhelming. For junior talent, it can build confidence and visibility. For employees in large or complex organisations, it can break down silos and make growth feel more accessible. For people navigating change, it can provide steadiness and perspective.

If retention is being undermined by disconnection, mentoring is one of the simplest ways to rebuild the sense of support and belonging people need to stay engaged.

Burnout Prevention: Support Is a Retention Strategy

Burnout is not just a wellbeing problem. It is a retention problem.

When employees are carrying unclear expectations, heavy workloads, low recognition, weak support, or ongoing isolation, burnout becomes much more likely. And once people are burned out, disengagement and turnover are not far behind.

Mentoring can help here in a very practical way.

A mentor can provide perspective when someone feels stuck. They can help a mentee make sense of competing priorities, talk through challenges, and recognise warning signs before things escalate. They can create a safer space for honest conversations and remind people that they do not have to navigate pressure alone.

Mentoring does not replace leadership responsibility or mental health support. But it does strengthen the support ecosystem around employees, which is exactly what many organisations are missing.

Explore more on how to prevent employee burnout and how mentoring supports mental health.

Culture: Mentoring Turns Values Into Daily Experience

A lot of organisations talk about culture. Far fewer build it in ways employees can actually feel.

Culture is shaped by what people experience every week: how support shows up, how knowledge is shared, how leaders invest in others, and whether growth is accessible or gatekept.

Mentoring helps make culture real.

It creates a visible pattern of support. It encourages knowledge-sharing across teams and levels. It helps people build trust outside formal reporting lines. And it reinforces the idea that development is not reserved for a select few.

If you want a culture where people grow, contribute, and stay, mentoring is one of the clearest ways to embed that into the employee experience.

It is not culture theatre. It is culture in action.

Hybrid Work Has Made Retention Harder and Mentoring More Important

Hybrid work gave people flexibility. It also exposed the cracks in connection, culture, and development.

When teams are spread across locations and time zones, it becomes easier for people to drift. New hires can struggle to find their footing. Mid-level talent can plateau quietly. Feedback becomes slower, relationships become thinner, and signs of burnout are easier to miss.

This is why mentoring matters even more in hybrid workplaces.

It gives organisations a structured way to create regular human connection where informal support is no longer guaranteed. It helps employees feel seen even when they are not physically visible. It creates consistency in development without relying on chance hallway conversations or overloaded managers.

If your retention challenges are being made worse by hybrid work, mentoring can help plug the exact gaps hybrid models tend to create.

Read more about mentoring in hybrid workplaces.

Top Talent Does Not Stay for Perks Alone

If you want to retain top talent, you need to offer more than compensation and surface-level benefits.

High performers are looking for growth, purpose, flexibility, and a clear sense that the organisation will invest in their future. They want opportunities to learn, expand their network, and see a path forward. If they cannot find that with you, they will find it somewhere else.

Mentoring helps make that path visible.

It connects high-potential employees with experience, insight, and development opportunities they might otherwise miss. It supports internal mobility. It builds confidence. And it shows people that growth in your organisation is not theoretical. It is real, structured, and supported.

That is one of the reasons mentoring has become such a strong differentiator in talent strategy. It is not just good for development. It helps make your organisation stickier for the people you most want to keep.

Read more about how mentoring can help you retain top talent.

Future-Proofing Your Workforce Starts With Development That Actually Sticks

Retention is not just about keeping people in place. It is about helping them stay valuable, adaptable, and ready for what comes next.

The organisations that hold onto good people are usually the ones helping them build the capabilities that matter over time: learning agility, better decision-making, career awareness, stronger networks, and the confidence to navigate change.

Mentoring supports all of that.

It turns development into something practical and ongoing rather than passive and forgettable. It helps employees build capability in context. It sharpens judgement. It creates space for reflection. And it gives people access to insight that accelerates growth far beyond formal training alone.

If you are serious about future-proofing your workforce, mentoring should not sit on the edges of your people strategy. It should be part of the core.

Read more about how to future-proof your career through mentoring.

The Difference Between Informal Mentoring and Real Outcomes

Most organisations already believe mentoring is valuable.

The real issue is execution.

Informal mentoring can be helpful, but it is inconsistent. It depends on who knows whom, who has time, and who gets access. That makes it hard to scale and even harder to measure.

If you want mentoring to improve retention, engagement, belonging, and development in a meaningful way, it needs structure.

That means:

• clear program goals
• thoughtful matching
• the right participant data
• guidance for mentors and mentees
• visibility into participation and progress
• a design that supports real outcomes, not just good intentions

Matching matters more than most organisations realise. The right pairings build trust faster, strengthen engagement, and give participants a much better chance of success. The wrong pairings do the opposite.

If you want to explore that side of the strategy, read more about how to match mentors and mentees.

Retention Is the Outcome. Mentoring Helps Build the Conditions for It.

The best retention strategies are not built around fear, pressure, or reactive fixes.

They are built around what people need to do good work and see a future in your organisation:

• stronger support
• better development
• more connection
• healthier culture
• clearer growth pathways

That is what mentoring helps create.

When done well, it improves more than retention alone. It strengthens engagement. It builds belonging. It supports wellbeing. It reinforces culture. And it helps organisations hold onto the people they have already worked hard to attract.

Ready to Build a Retention Strategy That Goes Deeper?

If you want to improve retention by strengthening engagement, belonging, culture, and employee growth, mentoring is one of the smartest places to start.

Brancher helps organisations design and run structured mentoring programs that are easier to manage, better matched, and built for real outcomes.

Book a demo to see how Brancher can help you improve retention through mentoring.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does mentoring improve employee retention?

Mentoring improves employee retention by strengthening the everyday factors that influence whether people stay: engagement, belonging, wellbeing, development, and culture. It gives employees guidance beyond their manager, makes growth more visible, and helps people feel supported and connected to the organisation.

Why do employees leave even when pay is competitive?

Employees often leave for reasons that go beyond compensation, including lack of growth, poor recognition, burnout, weak management, limited flexibility, and a culture that does not align with their values. The article’s point is that retention problems are often driven by employee experience, not salary alone.

What retention challenges does mentoring help solve?

Mentoring helps solve retention challenges linked to disengagement, isolation, unclear career paths, weak support systems, and burnout risk. It creates structured human connection, supports development conversations, and gives employees a stronger sense that they have a future inside the organisation.

Why is mentoring especially important in hybrid workplaces?

In hybrid workplaces, employees can miss out on informal support, visibility, feedback, and relationship-building. Mentoring helps close those gaps by creating regular connection, development, and support that do not depend on hallway conversations or constant manager availability.

What makes a mentoring program effective for retention?

An effective mentoring program needs structure, not just good intentions. The article highlights clear goals, thoughtful matching, participant data, mentor and mentee guidance, and visibility into participation and progress. Strong matching is especially important because it helps build trust, engagement, and better outcomes at scale.

Resources:

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4. Hufford, Austen; Guilford, Gwynn. (2023, July 6). The Wall Street Journal. Americans Have Quit Quitting Their Jobs. https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-have-quit-quitting-their-jobs-4feda9bb.

5. Gillespie, Lane. (2023, April 3). Bankrate. Survey: 56% of workers plan to look for a job in the next 12 months. https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/job-seekers-survey/.

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7. McFeely, Shane; Wigert, Ben. (2019, March 13). Gallup. This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247391/fixable-problem-costs-businesses-trillion.aspx.

8. Maurer, Roy. (2015, April 16). SHRM. Onboarding Key to Retaining, Engaging Talent. https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/onboarding-key-to-retaining-engaging-talent. 

9. McCain, Abby. (2022, November 13). Zippia. 27 Essential Employee Recognition Statistics [2023]: Need to Know Facts for Managers and HR. https://www.zippia.com/advice/employee-recognition-statistics/. 

10. Li, Lori. (2022, April 8). TinyPulse. 17 Surprising Statistics about Employee Retention. https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/17-surprising-statistics-about-employee-retention.

11. Gallup. (2016, June 28). The Importance of Employee Recognition: Low Cost, High Impact. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236441/employee-recognition-low-cost-high-impact.aspx. 

12. Travis, Ben. (2020, March 19). Bonusly. What is Remote Work, and Why is it So Popular?. https://bonusly.com/post/what-is-remote-work.