You do not need an HR team to run a mentoring programme.
Small teams give what they actually have: 30 minutes and hard-won experience. No scheme to build, no software to buy, no coordinator to hire. Your people mentor when it suits them, and you get the pipeline, the practice and the proof back.
- Smallest team we work with
- One mentor
- Time per session
- 30 minutes
- Set-up work for you
- None
Six reasons small teams do this.
Large companies fund mentoring for reporting. Small businesses do it for reasons that show up faster.
Meet people before you need to hire
Every session puts you in front of someone building the career you recruit for. When a role opens, you already know who is good, and you have paid no agency fee to find out.
Your first managers get practice
Promoting your best doer into a manager is the hardest step a small business takes. Mentoring is 30 minutes of listening, framing advice and giving feedback, with no direct report on the line.
Punch above your size on brand
You cannot outspend a big employer on careers marketing. You can be the company that gives someone half an hour when nobody else replied.
Keep good people interested
Senior staff in a small team run out of new ground. Mentoring gives them something meaningful to do with their experience without taking them off the work.
Proof for tenders and grants
Social value questions turn up in bids long before you have a CSR department. Sessions, hours and reach are countable figures you can put in an answer.
Nothing to administer
Matching, scheduling, time zones, safeguarding and mentor training are ours. Nobody in your business picks up a second job.
From decision to first session.
- 01
Tell us your size and goal
Pipeline, development, brand, social value, or all of them. We will tell you which programme fits a team your size and what it costs.
- 02
Sign up whoever wants to mentor
One person is enough to start. They read four short guides in the Mentor Academy and set the slots they can give each month.
- 03
We do the matching
Mentees are matched to your people on the job they are trying to get into. Sessions run in the browser, 30 minutes, no travel.
- 04
You get the numbers
Sessions, hours, topics and reach, counted the same way for every organisation, ready for a bid, a client or your own site.
Start with one.
Most small businesses begin with Give and add the others later.
Give
Your people mentor those outside the business. The simplest start, and the one that builds the pipeline.
Grow
Mentoring for your own team, including people you cannot develop internally because nobody senior does their job.
Redirect
A session for the candidates you had to turn down. In a small market, how you reject people follows you.
The barriers do not apply here.
- HR department
- Not needed
- Software to buy
- None
- Mentor training
- Included
- Minimum headcount
- None
The benefits for a small team.
What a ten-person business actually gets out of mentoring.
A hiring pipeline of people you already know how they think
Management practice for your first-time leads
No software to buy and no scheme to design
Proof of social value for tenders, grants and bids
A reason for good people to stay when you cannot match a big salary
Customers and suppliers who see what you stand for
Sessions that stay free for the mentee, funded by you
A tree planted for every completed session
A programme a ten-person company can actually run.
Big employers fund mentoring for the reporting. Small businesses partner with us because the return shows up faster: people you might hire, managers who get practice, and a story customers respect.
Tell us your team size and we will come back with the smallest programme that works.
Start with one mentor
No minimum team size, no scheme to design. One person giving 30 minutes is a live programme.
Hire without agency fees
You meet capable people months before a role opens, and you already know how they think.
Grow your first managers
Mentoring is management practice with the stakes turned down, which is exactly what a newly promoted lead needs.
Proof for tenders and grants
Hours, sessions and reach come back as figures you can drop straight into a bid.
- Smallest team we work with
- One mentor
- Time per session
- 30 minutes
- Admin on your side
- None
WHAT IT COSTS YOU
Half an hour, against everything you would normally spend.
Compare a mentoring session with the ways small businesses usually try to hire and develop people. The bars are hours of your team time.
Live within 30 days, impact inside 90
Onboarding, training, matching, scheduling and reporting are all run by us. Your people show up for 30 minutes at a time and nothing else lands on your desk.
Every partnership starts with an Academy
A live event at your office that gets your people signing up as mentors, with two Academy days a year included.
Live within 30 days
From sign off to the first sessions being offered. Onboarding, training, matching, scheduling and reporting all run by us.
Impact inside 90 days
Sessions delivered and the first report ready to share with your board.
A programme that works worldwide
Mentors and mentees connect across borders, so one programme reaches every market you hire in, on one contract and one dashboard.
The things people ask first.
We are five people. Is that too small?
No. One willing mentor is enough to start, and you can pause whenever the work gets heavy.
How much time does this really take?
Thirty minutes per session plus a short note afterwards. Mentors choose how many sessions they offer each month.
What does it cost a small business?
It depends on the programme and the number of sessions you fund. Tell us your size on the pricing page and we will quote for a team your size rather than an enterprise one.
Can we hire someone we mentored?
Yes. Mentoring is not a promise of a job in either direction, but plenty of good hires start as a conversation.
Do our mentors need experience mentoring?
No. The Mentor Academy has short guides on running a first session, asking better questions and safeguarding. Four of them take about fifteen minutes.
Does the mentee pay anything?
Never. Mentees are always free. Organisations fund the sessions.
Start with one mentor and one session.
Tell us how big your team is and what you want out of it. We will come back with the programme that fits and the price for a business your size.