How Mentoring Can Help You Retain Top Talent

Build smarter mentoring programs that help you attract and retain top talent in a shifting job market

If you’re still leading with salary and a ping-pong table in the break room, you’ve already lost. Retaining top talent in 2025 demands more than perks and polished employer branding. 

Today’s jobseekers (especially in Australia’s talent-short market) are far more strategic. They’re not just hunting for a job; they’re choosing a future. And if you don’t understand what they actually want, they’ll walk — fast.

This isn't a theory. It’s the cold, hard gap between companies that attract high performers and those that can’t even get past the screening stage.

Let’s break it down.

Understanding the Modern Jobseeker

If you’re lumping all jobseekers into one category, stop. You’re speaking to two very different audiences with wildly different expectations: Millennials and Gen Z. 

They might both want purpose and flexibility, but how they define those — and how they expect you to deliver — is where the nuance lies.

To build talent strategies that actually stick, you need to understand what drives each group. Here's how they compare, and what that means for your hiring and retention playbook.

It’s not about catering to generational stereotypes — it’s about designing experiences that reflect what your future workforce actually values. 

If you’re still leading with old-school assumptions, you’ll keep attracting the wrong people and losing the right ones. Build your strategy around what matters now, not what worked a decade ago.

4 Key Drivers of Attraction

You don’t win top talent by posting a JD and hoping for the best. You win by understanding what actually pulls great people in — and it’s not a foosball table or vague talk about “innovation.” 

Here’s what matters now:

1. Purpose That’s Real, Not Polished

People want to work somewhere that means something. Not just for profits — for people, planet, and purpose. The catch? They can smell corporate BS a mile away.

Your mission needs to:

• Be clear enough to repeat in a sentence
• Show up in everyday decisions, not just your about page
• Connect each role to impact — not just business KPIs

This isn’t feel-good fluff. It’s a filter. If your purpose isn’t clear, the right people won’t even apply.

2. Competitive Pay — and Radical Transparency

Salary still matters, but it’s no longer the only metric. What’s changed is how openly people expect to talk about it.

• Publish salary bands.
• Be upfront about how bonuses, raises, and equity work.
• Don’t make candidates dig for details — lead with clarity.

And stop playing the “competitive pay” game. Candidates have Seek, Glassdoor, and peers. If your offer doesn’t stack up, they already know.

3. Flexibility and Autonomy Are the Baseline

You’re not offering flexibility — you’re expected to have it. The question is whether it’s real or just words.

• Do people have control over when, where, and how they work?
• Are outcomes measured, or is presence still king?
• Is hybrid truly supported, or just grudgingly allowed?

Autonomy is the real attraction. Flexibility is how you prove trust — and trust is what locks in loyalty.

4. Growth That’s Tangible, Not Theoretical

No one wants to feel stuck. If your career paths are foggy or your L&D is stuck in compliance mode, talent won’t stay — or even start.

What top candidates want:

• Clear development pathways
• Skills they can use beyond your org
• Access to real mentorship (we’ll get to that next)
  
  

If you’re not building talent from day one, you’re bleeding it by year two.

These drivers aren’t nice-to-haves. They’re non-negotiables. If you’re not delivering on them, someone else is — and they’re already interviewing your best candidates.

RELATED: How to Improve Employee Retention with Mentoring

Mentoring: A Competitive Differentiator

Mentoring isn’t a “nice extra,” it’s a high-impact, low-cost retention and development strategy — and most organisations are underusing it.

If you want to attract and keep top talent, especially Millennials and Gen Z, mentoring needs to move from the margins to the centre of your people strategy.

Why Mentoring Matters More Than Ever

• Connection beats content: People don’t stay because of a training module. They stay because someone invested in them.
• It fast-tracks capability: Mentoring accelerates learning, builds confidence, and flattens the org chart in the best way.
• It creates a sticky culture: Mentoring builds trust, loyalty, and community — things that no LMS can buy.

And here's the kicker: jobseekers are actively looking for this. Career growth and internal mobility are top retention drivers, and mentoring directly fuels both.

Make Mentoring Strategic, Not Sporadic

If your version of mentoring is “grab a coffee with someone senior,” that’s not a strategy — that’s improv.

Here’s how to do it properly:

• Formalise your structure: Set goals, timeframes, and roles. Mentoring should feel like a program, not a favour.
• Diversify your models: Use 1:1s, peer mentoring, group mentoring, and reverse mentoring. Different people need different formats.
• Match with purpose: Use data, interests, and career goals to drive matching — not just seniority or availability.
• Measure impact: Track participation, feedback, retention, and promotion rates. Prove the ROI.

When mentoring is done right, it becomes a magnet — not just for new hires, but for internal talent who see a path forward with you.

Mentoring is Your Talent Advantage

If you’re serious about retaining top talent, mentoring isn’t optional — it’s operational. It’s how you turn potential into performance, and employees into advocates.

Most organisations won’t make the effort. That’s your edge. 

Build the framework, promote the hell out of it, and make mentoring part of your EVP. Your future leaders are already looking for it.

How Mentoring Helps Retain Top Talent

Mentoring isn't just about knowledge transfer — it’s about making people feel seen, supported, and invested in. That emotional and professional connection is exactly what keeps high performers from jumping ship when recruiters slide into their inbox.

The organisations that retain top talent are the ones that prioritise growth over gimmicks — and mentoring is one of the most effective, scalable tools to do it. But it only works when it’s structured, supported, and taken seriously.

If you’re ready to take mentoring from an ad-hoc initiative to a strategic asset, work with a mentoring supplier who actually gets it. Brancher helps Australian organisations design, launch, and scale mentoring programs that deliver results — not just tick boxes.

Because if you want to retain top talent, you need more than good intentions. You need a system that delivers growth, connection, and long-term loyalty. Let Brancher help you build it. Book a demo today.