When you think of influential people from the world of business, Richard Branson is a name that’s likely to feature pretty high up on your list. With a multi-billion pound empire that has included transport, music, and even his own private island getaway retreat, he certainly knows a thing or two about creating and sustaining huge success.

With that in mind, it might pay to carefully consider his latest comments on the value of mentoring.

Speaking via a recorded message to an event on mentoring hosted by Purple Cubed, he said: ‘I am often asked what the link between a promising business person and a successful business person is, and mentoring always comes to mind. Giving people advice on how to achieve their goals is often overlooked in British businesses.’

The lesson here is really quite clear. Though formal training and development programmes will always have an important role in any business, it’s time to start paying serious attention to the alternative options that could give your staff the capacity to shine.

A huge difference can be made by creating and implementing learning and development systems that will give staff members at all levels a chance to shine. They could work alongside skilled and understanding mentors  in your business or work with external coaches who can help them to overcome their barriers to success, look at challenges in a different light, and help your employees step into their full potential.

So perhaps it’s not actually that fancy e-learning platform that you really need. Or maybe that external trainer or expensive training course that you’ve had in mind wouldn’t get you the very best return on your investment. It could be the case that you could reap the biggest rewards by going back to basics and enabling great conversations between your employee and their mentor or coach about how they can reach their career goals.

Are you ready to take the advice of Richard Branson, and try a different approach to the ongoing development of your staff? We’ve got some great case studies from our clients about mentoring and coaching programs that have helped them to improve employee performance. So why not give us a call today for an initial chat to see how we can help you to take your employees performance to another level?