The payoff.

• Position: Showmethe way

While most benefits of mentorship might seem obvious, there are a few advantages that you may not be familiar with. Consider the following:

"John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach at UCLA, said, 'Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating,'" says Osaki. "Mentors draw on their individual experiences and wisdom to enable the mentee to perform at a higher level, instill the confidence to do things they haven't done before or set sail in a direction they hadn't thought of.

"Our mentoring program has a positive effect on our firm culture," he continues. "We strive to create a mentoring culture to raise the level of communication we hope will bind people together through trust."

"Junior staff members learn from their colleagues who have what we like to call 'tribal knowledge' and other firm-specific knowledge that isn't easily learned during their new-hire orientation or found in a manual," says Nicholson. "Mistakes that have been made by senior staff might now be avoided by the junior staff, creating an efficiency we may not have had without this type of coaching and mentorship."

But that's not all. A good mentorship program can be something that give's you a recruiting edge.

"As the director of recruiting and audit partner at WNC, I'm...