Mentoring and regular development conversations are linked to higher engagement, improved performance and stronger skill development.
CIPD, 2023
Mentoring in Minutes
Greatmentoringdoesn'ttakehours.Itjusttakesintention.
A practical video series that helps you support your apprentice to grow in confidence, capability and independence, a few minutes at a time.
Step 01 · Play the intro
What is mentoring?
The Series
High-impact mentoring, in minutes.
In today's fast-changing world of work, mentoring has never been more important, but finding time to build mentoring skills is hard. Mentoring in Minutes gives you high-impact insight in just a few minutes at a time; each short video focuses on a different aspect of effective mentoring, with quick, actionable ideas you can use straight away.
01
Watch
Short, practical videos, a few minutes each.
02
Reflect
Pause-and-reflect prompts you can use straight away.
03
Apply
Try one small change in your next conversation.
04
Progress
Build your skills step by step, at your own pace.
The Journey
Step 1 of 12 · What Is Mentoring?
Step 01
What Is Mentoring?
Supporting growth through guidance, experience, and meaningful conversations.
Mentoring in an apprenticeship is about helping your apprentice succeed in their role, develop their skills, and grow in confidence. It's more than supervision or task-setting. It's a working relationship where you share experience and help them make sense of what they're learning day to day.
- Having regular, focused conversations
- Setting and reviewing clear goals
- Offering guidance, feedback and encouragement
- Asking questions that build confidence and thinking
- Supporting your apprentice through challenges
- Recognising progress and celebrating success
Step 02
Mentoring Skills and Behaviours
How you listen, ask, and respond shapes your apprentice's development.
Great mentoring isn't just about what you know. It's about how you support others. Effective mentors are good listeners, supportive, clear communicators, consistent, curious, and positive role models.
- Active listening: give time to speak and show you're listening before responding
- Asking questions: "What do you think?" to encourage thinking
- Building trust: be consistent, reliable, create a safe space
- Sharing experience: use real examples from your own work
- Encouraging independence: help them find their own solutions
- Being supportive: recognise effort and progress
Step 03
Setting Effective Goals
Clear goals give direction, focus, and motivation for progress.
Without clear goals it's easy for apprentices to lose direction. Effective goals are clear, realistic, relevant and time-bound, and agreed together, giving your apprentice ownership and motivation.
Set goals together
- 1What do you want to achieve?
- 2Why is this important to you?
- 3What's the first step you'll take?
Try this
Break bigger goals into smaller steps. It helps your apprentice stay focused, build confidence, and see progress more clearly.
Step 04
Supporting and Monitoring Progress
Regular check-ins keep development on track and build momentum.
Setting a goal is only the beginning. Progress happens through regular support, guidance and check-ins. Consistent conversations help your apprentice stay focused, overcome challenges and keep moving forward.
Keep conversations on track
- 1REVIEW: What progress has been made since last time?
- 2REFLECT: What helped that progress?
- 3IDENTIFY: What's getting in the way right now?
- 4PLAN: What's the next step?
Step 05
Empowering Through Questions
Asking the right questions builds thinking, ownership, and independence.
Great mentoring isn't about always having the answers. It's about helping your apprentice find their own. The right questions create space for thinking rather than filling it with answers.
- What's really going on here?
- What is the most important part of this situation?
- What might you be overlooking?
- What could you do differently?
- What would success look like here?
- What will you do next?
Step 06
Giving Effective Feedback
Feedback helps build awareness, confidence, and continuous improvement.
Done well, feedback helps your apprentice understand what they're doing well, where they can improve, and what to do next. It's a conversation, not a one-way message, and how it feels matters as much as what is said.
A simple feedback approach
- 1Describe: clearly explain what happened, with specific examples
- 2Explain: highlight the impact of the action or behaviour
- 3Explore: ask questions to encourage reflection
- 4Move Forward: agree clear next steps
- Being too vague
- Giving too much at once
- Focusing only on what went wrong
- Not allowing time for response
- Moving on without agreeing a next step
Step 07
Unlocking Barriers
Support apprentices to work through challenges and build confidence.
Every apprentice hits obstacles. Your role is to help them name what's getting in the way, think it through, and take a clear next step, building the confidence and independence to work through challenges themselves.
Try this
When something's stuck, slow down and ask: What's getting in the way right now? What's within your control? What's one small step forward?
Step 08
Motivating Your Apprentice
Connect learning to purpose to maintain motivation and engagement.
Motivation isn't just enthusiasm. It's helping your apprentice stay focused and committed. It grows through consistent support, not one-off moments: recognise effort, keep goals visible and achievable, and adapt when motivation dips.
- Goals feel unclear or too large
- Progress isn't recognised
- Feedback is inconsistent or unclear
- Challenges feel overwhelming
Step 09
Encouraging Reflective Practice
Reflection turns everyday experience into meaningful learning.
Learning doesn't just come from doing. It comes from thinking about what's been done. Reflection helps your apprentice make sense of experiences, build self-awareness, and decide what to do next.
Experience → Learning → Action
- 1What did you do? What was the outcome?
- 2What worked well? What didn't go as expected? What have you learned?
- 3What would you do differently next time? What's your next step?
Step 10
Stretching to Potential
Challenge and support help apprentices grow beyond their comfort zone.
Growth happens just outside the comfort zone. Stretching means encouraging new tasks, offering chances to lead, and challenging thinking supportively, balanced with the right level of support so it feels achievable, not overwhelming.
The stretch balance
- 1Too little: comfort zone, limited development, reduced engagement
- 2Right level: builds confidence, encourages learning, develops new skills
- 3Too much: overwhelm, loss of confidence, reduced motivation
Step 11
Growth Mindset and Resilience
Encourage a 'not yet' mindset to build resilience and confidence.
A growth mindset helps your apprentice see challenges as opportunities to learn. Instead of focusing on what they can't do yet, they focus on what they can develop over time, and small shifts in your language can change how they think.
- Willingness to try new or difficult tasks
- Openness to feedback and learning
- Seeing effort as part of improvement
- Persistence when things are challenging
Step 12
Supporting Apprentice Wellbeing
A supportive environment helps apprentices feel safe, focused, and valued.
When your apprentice feels supported, valued and able to talk openly, they're more likely to stay engaged and progress. Wellbeing isn't about solving every problem. It's about creating a safe environment. You don't need all the answers; being present makes a difference.
Wellbeing check
Try this
If you have concerns about wellbeing, follow your organisation's processes and seek support from the appropriate teams.
The Mentoring Mindset
Mentoring isn't telling. It's developing.
Mentoring is more than supervision or task-setting. It's a working relationship where you share experience, ask great questions, and help your apprentice understand not just what to do, but why it matters.
✕Instead of this
- Giving answers quickly
- Taking over when things get difficult
- Focusing only on tasks and completion
✓Try this
- Ask first, then guide
- Focus on learning, not just completion
- Support them to work through challenges themselves
"The goal is not to direct. It's to develop independent thinking."
Why it matters
When mentoring is done well, apprentices grow, and organisations thrive.
For your apprentice
- Builds skills, knowledge and confidence
- Applies learning in real work
- Stays motivated and focused
- Learns through reflection and feedback
- Develops resilience through challenge
- Takes ownership of their progress
For your organisation
- Improves team performance and productivity
- Increases engagement and retention
- Closes skills gaps faster
- Builds a stronger learning culture
Mentoring leads to…
Apprentices
who are more confident and capable
Teams
who perform better and stay engaged
Workplaces
that grow stronger and more productive
Your Role
Your role isn't to have all the answers.
You're not there to do the work for your apprentice. You're there to…
→
Guide
Share your knowledge and experience
◇
Support
Create a safe space to learn and grow
↑
Challenge
Stretch thinking and encourage development
♦
Encourage
Build confidence and resilience
Great mentoring helps apprentices become more independent, capable, and confident over time.
Did you know?
The research is clear.
Mentoring supports increased confidence, career progression and professional development.
Institute of Leadership, 2024; EMCC Global, 2023
Using questioning techniques supports stronger problem-solving, independent thinking and more effective learning.
CIPD, 2023; EMCC Global, 2023
How feedback is delivered has a direct impact on how it's received. Clear, respectful feedback keeps apprentices open and engaged.
CIPD, 2023
Mentor self-check
How are you doing?
Tick what you already do. There are no wrong answers. This is a moment for you to reflect on what's working and where to focus next.
Take a moment. Reflect on the last week.
The full guide
Take the whole journey with you.
Prefer to read? The complete Mentoring in Minutes guide brings every step together, with checklists, reflection prompts and practical tips.
Impact Futures Group
Mentoring
in Minutes
in Minutes
The complete guide
FAQ
Questions, answered.
The essentials of everyday mentoring, in one place.
You don't need to be.
A mentor's role is to support learning, encourage thinking, and help apprentices apply their learning in the workplace. The most effective mentors don't provide all the answers—they help apprentices develop the confidence and skills to find solutions themselves.
Use your experience to guide conversations, ask questions, share examples, and encourage reflection. If specialist knowledge is needed, support your apprentice to identify the right resources or colleagues who can help.
Start by understanding the reason rather than focusing on the outcome.
Apprentices may fall behind because of workload pressures, confidence issues, competing priorities, personal circumstances, or uncertainty about expectations.
A good conversation might explore:
- What's getting in the way?
- What support would help?
- What is the most important priority right now?
- What is the next achievable step?
Small, manageable goals often help apprentices regain momentum and confidence more quickly than focusing on the bigger end goal.
Not everyone is comfortable speaking openly straight away.
Building trust takes time. Try asking open questions, allowing thinking time, discussing real workplace examples and celebrating contributions when they do engage.
Remember — silence isn't always a problem. Sometimes apprentices need time to process their thoughts before responding.
The strongest mentoring relationships are built on trust, consistency, and psychological safety rather than the frequency of conversations.
Mistakes are an essential part of learning.
Instead of focusing on blame, focus on understanding:
- What happened?
- What caused it?
- What has been learned?
- What could be done differently next time?
A positive response to mistakes helps apprentices build resilience and confidence. Research consistently shows that people learn faster when they feel safe to discuss challenges and setbacks openly.
Your apprentice may be ready when they:
- Complete tasks consistently well.
- Begin solving problems independently.
- Need less day-to-day support.
- Show curiosity and initiative.
- Demonstrate growing confidence.
Development happens when people are stretched just beyond their comfort zone. The key is providing enough challenge to promote growth while maintaining enough support to ensure success.
Disengagement is often a sign that something else needs attention.
Possible causes include:
- Unclear goals.
- Lack of confidence.
- Feeling overwhelmed.
- Limited challenge.
- Not understanding the value of the apprenticeship.
Rather than focusing on motivation itself, explore what's causing motivation to drop. Often, recognising progress, providing clarity, and reconnecting learning to career goals can quickly improve engagement.
Absolutely.
Some of the most impactful mentoring takes place during normal working activities, including:
- After completing a task.
- Following a customer interaction.
- During problem-solving discussions.
- Whilst reflecting on successes or challenges.
- During routine workplace conversations.
Mentoring is most effective when it becomes part of everyday workplace culture rather than something that only happens in formal meetings.
Effective mentoring doesn't require lengthy meetings.
Even short conversations of 10 to 15 minutes can have a significant impact when they are regular and focused.
The best mentors create multiple opportunities for meaningful conversations throughout the month rather than relying solely on formal reviews.
Consistency is more important than duration.
Confidence develops through experience, achievement, encouragement, and reflection.
You can help by:
- Recognising effort as well as results.
- Acknowledging progress regularly.
- Breaking large goals into smaller steps.
- Providing constructive feedback.
- Creating opportunities for success.
Research shows that 87% of mentors and mentees report increased confidence through mentoring relationships, making confidence-building one of the most common outcomes of effective mentoring.
A useful mentoring principle is:
“Support the thinking, not just the task.”
When mentors solve every problem, apprentices become dependent. When mentors guide apprentices to identify solutions themselves, they develop confidence, capability, and independence.
Ask questions before offering answers and encourage apprentices to explore options before stepping in.
Look for gradual changes such as:
- Increased confidence.
- Greater independence.
- Better decision-making.
- Improved communication.
- More ownership of learning.
- Increased willingness to take on challenges.
Mentoring impact is often seen in behaviours before it is reflected in results.
Research suggests that mentees learn critical skills faster, report higher engagement levels, and are significantly more likely to progress into positions of greater responsibility.
Mentoring benefits apprentices, mentors, and organisations.
Studies have found that:
- 96% of mentees say mentoring is valuable.
- 89% of people who have been mentored go on to mentor others.
- 87% of mentors and mentees report greater confidence.
- Employees with mentors are more engaged and more likely to stay with their organisation.
- Over 70% of Fortune 500 organisations use mentoring as part of their people development strategy.
The reason is simple: people learn best from a combination of experience, support, challenge, and reflection.
Trying to be the expert instead of being the guide.
New mentors often feel responsible for having all the answers. In reality, the most effective mentors spend more time listening, questioning, and encouraging reflection than giving advice.
A simple rule to remember:
“Tell less. Ask more. Listen most.”
If your apprentice leaves a conversation with more clarity, confidence, and ownership than when they arrived, you're mentoring effectively.
Start building mentoring into your everyday practice.
Because great mentoring doesn't take hours. It just takes intention.