Should Businesses Use Mentoring for Succession Planning?

Yes, mentoring should be used by businesses as a succession planning tactic, but only when it is structured, measurable, and tied to real business results. Ad hoc mentoring is not enough. A good program helps to identify high potential employees early on by revealing who’s really driven. Who sets goals and meets them, shows up consistently for their mentor and indicates real readiness for the next step?

Mentoring provides high performers with exposure to other parts of the business outside of their current role, which is hard to replicate in other ways, beyond identification. That real-time guidance and cross-functional visibility provides the well-rounded experience succession planning requires.

And mentoring is a critical tool for retention. The employees who have high potential and who see a clear path for development and feel that the organisation has invested in them, are far more likely to stick it out. That, after all, is the whole point of succession planning.

The three benefits (identification, exposure, and retention) together make mentoring a strategic tool, not just a nice bonus to have in your program.