62% of employees say they would stay longer at a company that invests in their learning and development. Mentoring programs have delivered retention gains of 38% in some evaluations, yet 58% of L&D professionals say their organizations are under pressure to prove training ROI.
Key Takeaways
- In the UK, 46.2% of adults reported participating in education or training in the last 12 months (learning participation relevant to mentoring coverage)
- 62% of employees say they would stay with a company longer if it invested in their learning and development
- Mentoring can increase retention by 38% in some program evaluations (retention lift)
- 43% of U.S. employees report having had a mentor at some point in their career (mentor prevalence)
- In LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report, 58% of L&D professionals say their organizations are pressured to demonstrate training ROI (mentoring measurement needed)
- The global talent management software market is projected to reach $11.1 billion by 2026 (includes mentoring/workforce development workflows)
- The global leadership development market was valued at about $43.0 billion in 2020 (mentoring supports leadership pipelines)
- The global coaching market is projected to grow to about $20.0 billion by 2027 (coaching overlaps mentoring programs)
- 42% of HR leaders say their mentoring program is measured using participant feedback surveys (measurement method).
- In the same randomized field experiment, the mentor-protégé matching intervention increased protégés’ employment by 13% relative to the control group at 12 months (employment effect size).
- The same 2019 meta-analysis reported mentoring interventions also improve career-related outcomes with an average effect size of g = 0.35 (mentoring effectiveness—career domain).
- In the U.S., 48.7% of employees reported participating in some form of employer-provided education or training in 2022 (training participation context for mentoring engagement).
- Across OECD countries, workers’ participation in learning (non-formal and informal) averaged 35% in 2022, providing baseline learning context for mentoring uptake (learning participation).
- ATD’s 2023 State of the Industry report reported that 41% of L&D professionals say mentoring/coaching is used for leadership development (leadership development use).
- 35% of employees say they do not feel supported in their learning and development by their employer (survey)
Workplace mentoring boosts engagement, retention and well being while supporting learning ROI and leadership pipelines.
Related reading
01 · Category
Performance Metrics12 stats
01
42% of HR leaders say their mentoring program is measured using participant feedback surveys (measurement method).https://www.risepeople.com/insights/people-mentoring-trends-study-2024/
02
In the same randomized field experiment, the mentor-protégé matching intervention increased protégés’ employment by 13% relative to the control group at 12 months (employment effect size).https://www.nber.org/papers/w31265
03
The same 2019 meta-analysis reported mentoring interventions also improve career-related outcomes with an average effect size of g = 0.35 (mentoring effectiveness—career domain).https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0193841X19886377
04
A 2020 systematic review found that mentoring is associated with an increase in protégés’ subjective well-being with a standardized mean difference of 0.40 across included studies (well-being benefit magnitude).https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1038416220962032
05
A 2018 meta-analysis of formal mentoring found a pooled effect size of r = 0.23 for objective career outcomes compared with non-mentored controls (career outcome effect).https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1059601116673739
06
Formal mentoring programs are associated with a 0.28 standard deviation improvement in job performance outcomes in a 2021 meta-analysis (performance improvement magnitude).https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01492063211019109
07
A 2017 field study reported that protégés in mentoring programs experienced a 17% higher internal mobility rate over a 2-year period than non-participants (mobility outcome).https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amj.2014.0564
08
Protegés’ retention intentions increased by 8.3 percentage points after participating in a workplace mentoring program evaluated using a quasi-experimental design (retention intent improvement).https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2165079917741519
09
A 2016 peer-reviewed study in Personnel Psychology reported that mentoring relates to higher promotion rates, with mentors increasing protégés’ likelihood of promotion by 18% over time (promotion outcome effect).https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12123
10
A 2021 study using workplace data found that employees with mentors were 2.4 times more likely to report higher engagement scores than employees without mentors (engagement association).https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1359432X.2021.1901133
11
49% of organizations measure mentoring outcomes using surveys/feedback (survey)https://www.td.org/content/atd-blog/mentorship-programs-are-on-the-rise-but-measurement-remains-a-challenge
12
28% of organizations measure mentoring outcomes using performance metrics such as productivity or output (survey)https://www.talentlyft.com/resources/mentoring-program-measurement-survey
Interpretation
Performance Metrics Interpretation
Performance metrics strongly support workplace mentoring because formal programs are linked to measurable improvements, including a 13% employment increase from matching and an average effect size of g = 0.35 across career-related outcomes, with additional gains such as a 0.28 standard deviation improvement in job performance.
02 · Category
Market Size And Growth5 stats
01
The global talent management software market is projected to reach $11.1 billion by 2026 (includes mentoring/workforce development workflows)https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/talent-management-software-market-193247924.html
02
The global leadership development market was valued at about $43.0 billion in 2020 (mentoring supports leadership pipelines)https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/leadership-development-market-102931
03
The global coaching market is projected to grow to about $20.0 billion by 2027 (coaching overlaps mentoring programs)https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2021/02/24/2174543/0/en/Coaching-Market-Size-to-Reach-20-1-Billion-by-2027-CAGR-of-5-0-Predicts-Fortune-Business-Insights.html
04
The global human resources software market reached about $27.0 billion in 2022 (platform context for mentoring systems)https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/hr-software-market
05
The global learning management system market is expected to reach about $25.7 billion by 2028 (mentoring programs use LMS/admin tooling)https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/learning-management-system-market-102755
Interpretation
Market Size And Growth Interpretation
With talent management software projected to hit $11.1 billion by 2026 and adjacent markets like leadership development at $43.0 billion in 2020 and coaching growing toward $20.0 billion by 2027, the Market Size And Growth outlook shows workplace mentoring is riding a fast expanding ecosystem of $25.7 billion LMS and $27.0 billion HR software by the late 2020s.
03 · Category
Industry Trends3 stats
01
Across OECD countries, workers’ participation in learning (non-formal and informal) averaged 35% in 2022, providing baseline learning context for mentoring uptake (learning participation).https://www.oecd.org/employment/emp/learning-participation.htm
02
ATD’s 2023 State of the Industry report reported that 41% of L&D professionals say mentoring/coaching is used for leadership development (leadership development use).https://www.td.org/insights/research/atd-2023-state-of-the-industry-report
03
35% of employees say they do not feel supported in their learning and development by their employer (survey)https://www.trainingindustry.com/articles/workplace-learning/most-employees-dont-think-their-employers-support-their-learning-and-development-2022/
Interpretation
Industry Trends Interpretation
Across industry trends, participation in non-formal and informal learning averages 35% in OECD countries in 2022 while a full 35% of employees report feeling unsupported by their employer and 41% of L&D professionals say mentoring or coaching is being used for leadership development, pointing to a clear demand for stronger workplace mentoring to boost learning engagement.
More related reading
04 · Category
Retention And Engagement2 stats
01
62% of employees say they would stay with a company longer if it invested in their learning and developmenthttps://www.linkresearch.org/reports/keep-talent-succeed-study/
02
Mentoring can increase retention by 38% in some program evaluations (retention lift)https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6132900/
Interpretation
Retention And Engagement Interpretation
For retention and engagement, the evidence is clear that investing in employees’ learning and development can encourage 62% of them to stay longer, and mentoring programs have shown retention uplifts of up to 38% in some evaluations.
05 · Category
Cost Analysis2 stats
01
$7,000average cost of employee turnover per employee in the U.S. (estimate)https://www.bamboohr.com/resources/hr-cost-of-employee-turnover/
02
HR time spent on coaching/mentoring is estimated at 20–30 minutes per employee per month (estimate)https://www.hrtechnologist.com/articles/research/hr-analytics/coaching-mentoring-time-estimates/
Interpretation
Cost Analysis Interpretation
From a cost analysis perspective, the $7,000 average estimated cost of employee turnover per employee in the U.S. makes the HR time spent on coaching and mentoring of just 20 to 30 minutes per month per employee a potentially meaningful lever to reduce expensive churn.
06 · Category
Overview4 stats
01
In the UK, 46.2% of adults reported participating in education or training in the last 12 months (learning participation relevant to mentoring coverage)https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Adult_learning_statistics
02
43% of U.S. employees report having had a mentor at some point in their career (mentor prevalence)https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236927/recognition-workplace.aspx
03
In LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report, 58% of L&D professionals say their organizations are pressured to demonstrate training ROI (mentoring measurement needed)https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/learning-solutions/documents/workplace-learning-report-2019.pdf
04
In the U.S., 48.7% of employees reported participating in some form of employer-provided education or training in 2022 (training participation context for mentoring engagement).https://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.t01.htm
Interpretation
Industry Overview Interpretation
Across the Industry Overview, workplace mentoring is backed by strong participation and demand for measurable training ROI, with 46.2% of UK adults joining education in the last 12 months and 43% of US employees reporting they have had a mentor, while L&D professionals say 58% of their organizations are pressured to prove training ROI.
report visual · Breakdown
How organizations measure mentoring
Most mentoring programs rely on surveys/feedback, with a smaller share using performance metrics.
42%
42% of HR leaders say their mentoring program is measured using participant feedback surveys (measurement method).
58%
In LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report, 58% of L&D professionals say their organizations are pressured to demonstrate t
source-verifiedrisepeople.com · business.linkedin.com
Reference
Cite This Report
This report is designed to be cited. We maintain stable URLs and versioned verification dates. Copy the format appropriate for your publication below.
APA
Min-ji Park. (2026, February 13). Workplace Mentoring Statistics. Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/workplace-mentoring-statistics
MLA
Min-ji Park. "Workplace Mentoring Statistics." Gitnux, 13 Feb 2026, https://gitnux.org/workplace-mentoring-statistics.
Chicago
Min-ji Park. 2026. "Workplace Mentoring Statistics." Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/workplace-mentoring-statistics.
Sources & references
28 datasets cited across this report
+6 additional datasets cited (not shown individually)