Summary. Mentorship can be one of the most effective ways to develop talent, transfer experience, and preserve valuable knowledge within an organisation. But simply pairing an experienced employee with a new colleague is not enough. Based on research involving 324 mentors and mentees in manufacturing, this article explores why mentors and mentees need different kinds of support — and why management and HR also play an important role. The key lesson is simple: great mentorship is not just about finding the right people. It is about building the right system around them.
Mentorship is hardly a new idea. For generations, experienced employees have helped younger colleagues learn their jobs, solve problems, and understand how an organisation really works.
But today, mentorship should play a much bigger role.
When experienced employees leave an organisation, they take more than technical skills with them. They may also take years of practical experience, judgement, relationships, and knowledge that has never been written into a manual.
A strong mentorship system helps organisations pass that experience to the next generation.
Mentorship is not simply about transferring knowledge. It is about turning today's experience into tomorrow's capability.
Your Best Employees Are Not Automatically Your Best Mentors
Many organisations choose mentors from their most experienced or highest-performing employees. It makes sense — but being excellent at a job does not automatically make someone excellent at developing other people.
Experienced employees may already be strong in technical knowledge, communication, and problem solving. What they may need as mentors are different capabilities: how to teach, how to give useful feedback, how to motivate others, and how to help younger employees think independently.
This means organisations should ask two questions:
Who has the experience to become a mentor?
And, just as importantly:
What support will help that person become a better mentor?
Great mentors are not simply selected. They are developed.
Mentors and Mentees Need Different Things
One of the clearest findings from our research is that mentors and mentees do not want the same kind of development.
Among the mentees surveyed, 48.24% ranked knowledge as their first priority, while 44.71% ranked skills as their second priority. Mentors showed a different pattern: 40.26% ranked broader abilities as their first priority.
The reason is easy to understand.
A new employee may be asking:
What do I need to know? How does this process work? How do I use this system?
An experienced mentor is more likely to be asking:
How can I lead better? How can I influence people? How can I help someone solve problems rather than simply giving them the answer?
So a sustainable mentorship system should not give everyone the same training.
Mentees may need more knowledge and practical skills. Mentors may need more leadership, problem-solving, teaching, and influencing capabilities.
Different people need different support.
Mentorship Is More Than a Two-Person Relationship
When we think about mentorship, we usually picture two people:
Mentor ↔ Mentee
But there are actually four important players:
Mentor + Mentee + HR/Programme Leader + Management
Our research found that mentors and mentees both recognised that support from management and HR or programme leaders can affect how much they engage with a mentorship programme.
Imagine asking an experienced employee to mentor someone but giving them no time to do it. Or launching a mentorship programme without clear expectations, resources, recognition, or follow-up.
The programme may exist on paper, but it will struggle to create meaningful development.
When mentorship fails, the problem may not be the people. It may be the system around them.
Management therefore needs to treat mentorship as an investment in future capability rather than an extra task. HR needs to provide structure and resources. Mentors need support to develop others. And mentees need to take responsibility for their own learning.
Sustainable mentorship happens when all four work together.
From a Mentorship Programme to a Talent System
So how can organisations build mentorship that lasts?
Start with the development need rather than the programme itself.
Ask what employees need to learn, which experienced people can help them learn it, and what those mentors need in order to succeed. Then give both sides enough time, resources, guidance, and recognition.
Most importantly, connect mentorship with the wider talent system.
Recruitment brings people into an organisation. Training helps close their capability gaps. Mentorship allows experience and knowledge to move between people. Leadership development prepares strong employees for greater responsibility.
These activities should not operate separately.
The original research brings these ideas together into a sustainable mentorship support model connecting alignment, experience, programme launch, effectiveness, and continuing support.
For leaders, the bigger lesson is straightforward:
Do not measure the success of mentorship simply by how many mentor–mentee pairs you create. Measure what people become because those relationships existed.
A mentorship programme can be launched by HR.
A sustainable mentorship system needs the organisation behind it.
Great talent needs great mentorship. And great mentorship needs a system.
Instead of asking, “Do we have a mentorship programme?”, organisations should ask a more important question:
“Have we created an environment where people are willing and able to develop the people who come after them?”
When the answer is yes, mentorship becomes more than guidance.
It becomes part of how an organisation builds its future.
About the Authors
Yun Zeng is a talent development professional, PhD researcher at Yonsei University, and HR Manager at SANY Group. An SPHR®-certified HR professional and ATD professional member, he has extensive experience across Ford, IKEA, CATL, and SANY, with a focus on talent development, organisational capability, and customised workforce development in manufacturing.
Simin Yang, PhD, is an economics scholar associated with the China University of Political Science and Law. Her research interests include economics, sustainable development, innovation, and related areas of economic and organisational research. She has collaborated on research examining topics including managerial decision-making, green innovation, market competition, and sustainable organisational development.
Wei Hsiang Hsu is a postgraduate student at the University of Queensland. His work focuses primarily on business research, cost management, and budget control.
Recommended Reading
This article is adapted from:
Zeng, Y., Yang, S., & Hsu, W. H. (2025). Building a Sustainable Mentorship Support Model in Manufacturing: Integrating Recruitment-Training Alignment and Stakeholder Engagement. Educational Administration: Theory and Practice, 31(1), 579–586.