Maximizing employee talent and skill sets is a critical challenge for small businesses. Often small business employees shoulder the same workload as entire departments at multinational corporations. Despite a fraction of the budget and resources, small business owners need to creatively attract and retain top talent to compete in the marketplace.
Mentorship and reverse-mentorship are not only viable strategies for internal learning and development initiatives, but also for business continuity. Usually, the absence of one indispensable employee leaves the business vulnerable to supply chain and process disruption. Mentorship is a low-cost mechanism for the cross-pollination of expertise, including technical, professional, and soft skills.
This tip sheet is intended for:
- Small business owners who want to offer training programs to their employees
- Learning and development professionals at small businesses
Use this tip sheet to:
- Craft your mentoring and reverse mentoring programming
- Assign mixed aged teams on high stakes projects