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Sonoma Partners

Sonoma Partners

A 35-person, $4 million consulting company in Chicago

The Challenge: Helping employees adapt to a lean, fast-paced, small-company culture.

The Solution: A mentoring program.

How It Works: Every new employee is assigned a mentor from his or her department to help them learn more about Sonoma’s culture and goals. That gives the newbies someone to go to lunch with and ask questions that seem too obvious, silly, or numerous to pester a manager with. “These are things that anyone at the company could talk about. But it might mean more coming from a peer than from the CEO, who they might feel has to answer questions a certain way,” says founder and CEO Mike Snyder.

Cost: About $1,500 a over the course of a year for lunches.

Fringe Benefits: Mentors are usually people that Snyder thinks have the potential to become managers. Says Snyder: “This is an opportunity to show that they’re ready to manage.”