When it comes to attracting and keeping the best tech employees, there’s one low-cost benefit that can make a huge difference. It’s true for most employees, but especially IT staff - they need to learn constantly. So helping out with that learning process can be a great way raise loyalty among IT employees, and raise the caliber of the whole staff. In a recent survey 51% of IT employees said at one point they’d benefited from having a mentor; 72% said their career growth would’ve easier if they’d had a mentor. The most obvious arrangement is to have experience employees mentor newbies. Mentoring is especially valuable to recent graduates who are new to the game, and it makes the mentors themselves feel more valued and thus more likely to stick around the organization. Here are some other keys to developing a top-notch mentoring program:

• Decide what knowledge you want the program to pass on - i.e., technical skill, business knowledge, or some combination of the two. The answer might vary from position to position and person to person.
• From there, decide the best person on your staff to give that information.
• Choose either a formal program, or an informal set-up. Both can be effective. In the formal set-up you can assign a longer-term employee to pair with each new hire. But in a smaller department, the informal approach might work better. Just ask experienced folks to help show newbies the ropes.