The Mentoring Pledge · powered by Mentessa

One hour a week is all it takes to make a difference.

A public commitment for people and organizations: give one hour a week — just 2.5% of a working week — to mentoring someone else. No budget line. No extra hours at the office. Just time that already exists, pointed at someone who needs it.

Sign the pledge See the case for employers

Every mark is one hour of a 40-hour week. One gold mark is the whole ask.

Why it matters

Knowledge that stays in one head helps only one person.

Work is changing faster than any single career can keep up with alone. The people who adapt fastest are rarely the most talented in the room — they're the ones with someone to ask. Mentoring is how expertise moves sideways and downward through an organization instead of staying locked in silos, and it's one of the most consistently under-used tools for closing skills and opportunity gaps at work.

78%

Young adults with a mentor are 78% more likely to volunteer regularly in their community.

130%

And 130% more likely to go on to hold leadership positions themselves.

25%

Roughly a quarter of employees report being dissatisfied in their current role — often citing a lack of guidance or training as a driver.

The case for employers

The cheapest retention tool you already have on payroll.

You don't need a new budget line for this. Mentoring built into the working week is one of the few interventions that improves retention, onboarding speed, and internal mobility at close to zero marginal cost — because it uses time you're already paying for.

Loyalty is shrinking — mentoring is a proven counterweight

The average time an employee stays in a job before moving on has dropped by nearly 30% since 1980 (from roughly 834 days to about 600 today). Employees with a mentor consistently report higher job satisfaction and are less likely to say they've considered quitting in the past three months.

It's built into hours you're already paying for

The pledge asks for 2.5% of a working week — one hour out of forty. No offsite, no external trainer, no new line item. It's a scheduling decision, not a budget decision.

It shows up in how people see their own career path

Employees who have a mentor are more likely to say their company gives them real opportunities to advance — a perception that's hard to manufacture any other way and directly linked to why people stay.

Faster ramp-up, fewer silos

New hires with a mentor get access to their mentor's existing network from day one — cutting the time it takes to feel useful, find the right person to ask, and stop re-solving problems other teams already solved.

1 hr / week

is the entire commitment. Compare that to the cost of re-hiring for a single role you lose to disengagement, and the arithmetic tends to work out in your favor.

Global alignment

Supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Mentessa, which powers the Mentoring Pledge, builds its work around the UN Sustainable Development Goals — and mentoring is one of the most direct ways an organization can act on them from the inside.

SDG 8

Decent Work & Economic Growth

Mentoring builds the skills and confidence people need to grow into better, more secure work — without anyone leaving their job to get there.

SDG 9

Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure

Cross-team, cross-discipline mentoring breaks down silos and helps organizations innovate by combining expertise that otherwise never meets.

SDG 10

Reduced Inequalities

Access to networks and opportunity isn't distributed equally by age, background, or income. Mentoring is one of the more direct ways to close that gap.

SDG 11

Sustainable Cities & Communities

Stronger, more connected workplaces ripple outward — mentored employees are markedly more likely to stay engaged in their communities too.

Mentessa has been recognized by NASDAQ Milestone Makers for its work advancing SDGs 8, 9, 10 and 11 in the workplace.

Sign the pledge

Make it public. Make it count.

Whether you're signing for yourself or on behalf of your whole organization, this is a simple, visible commitment: one hour a week, given to someone else's growth.

2.5% of a 40-hour week — that's the entire ask, no more, no less.

✓

You're signed.

Your certificate downloaded automatically. Welcome to a growing community of people who mentor on the clock, not off it.

Arguments and figures adapted from the Mentoring Pledge business model study (2022), with sources including Mentoring.org (2022), LinkedIn Workforce Confidence data (Wronski & Cohen, 2019), and Van Hove/Kaufmann (2017) on job tenure trends. The Mentoring Pledge is powered by Mentessa, an SDG-aligned mentoring platform.