LifeGuides, the category-defining provider of Professional Mentoring for managers and leaders, today announced a strategic investment from SHRM, the world's largest HR professional society. The investment deepens a five-year relationship that grew from client to strategic partner to investor, and it comes as SHRM's People Manager Qualification + Professional Mentoring by LifeGuides (PMQ+) delivers a documented 4x to 11x ROI per cohort, validated against SHRM and Wharton School benchmarks. LifeGuides will use the investment to expand its Professional Mentoring services, addressing a manager effectiveness gap that has cost U.S. employers $223 billion in turnover over the past five years.
TEMPE, Ariz., Sept. 18, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- LifeGuides®, the leading provider of Professional Mentoring for managers and leaders, today announced a strategic investment from its partner SHRM, the world's largest HR professional society. As a subset of LifeGuides Professional Mentoring services, the company is defining the category for Non-Clinical Mental Health ("NCMH") for its partners in healthcare and employee benefits. LifeGuides is taking peer support to new heights of professionalism—as it addresses strategic opportunities across the spectrum of human capital management.
The SHRM investment marks the next chapter in a relationship that began five years ago, when SHRM first became a LifeGuides client for its 500 employees. In 2025, SHRM then launched a strategic partnership to embed LifeGuides as a key component of its manager training program: SHRM's People Manager Qualification. That training is now SHRM's People Manager Qualification + Professional Mentoring by LifeGuides (PMQ+). PMQ+ LifeGuides is a joint learning and development offering that pairs Professional Mentors with award-winning, skill-building and edutainment content. The combination is powerful and effective in teaching early- and mid-career leaders to manage.
A Relationship Rooted in a Shared Purpose: People First
Few organizations understand the everyday pressures facing people managers better than SHRM. As LifeGuides has scaled its Professional Mentoring model into workplaces across the country, SHRM was there from the start: first as a client, then as a strategic partner, and now as a strategic investor.
"Our decision to invest in LifeGuides was clear. At SHRM, we look for organizations that are scaling rapidly and redefining the future of work— enterprises tackling today's most critical workplace challenges. Our PMQ+ offering has shown us the direct value of pairing skill-building with fully human Professional Mentors—not just a bot or AI. This model supports people managers, not just with the training, but with the mentorship and support to put ideas into practice. This offering creates tangible ROI and proven impacts on people and operations," said Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., President and CEO of SHRM. "As AI and automation continue to transform the world of work, SHRM's investment reflects our conviction that the workplace of the future needs to sustain a deeply human component alongside the technology reshaping it." Since 2022, Taylor has served as Chairman of LifeGuides Social Impact Council, which has put him close to LifeGuides social impact and human-centered mission.
Jim Link, SHRM CHRO, who has been a member of the LifeGuides Strategic Advisory Board for six years and was a key partner in bringing LifeGuides to SHRM's employees, said, "We at SHRM have seen firsthand what LifeGuides means for our own employees and their families. It's become one of our most-used employee benefits, just behind traditional healthcare, because it meets people where they are, in the middle of real life. When something works this well for our own team, investing in LifeGuides is more than strategic—it's good business," said Jim Link, Chief Human Resources Officer of SHRM.
Derek Lundsten, CEO of LifeGuides, added: "The results that we are seeing from our Professional Mentoring services, partnered with SHRM, are proof of a bigger shift in talent management. Organizations are done treating manager development as a box to check. They are realizing their frontline managers are the single biggest lever for breakthrough business outcomes, and that skills alone do not change behaviors. Proactive, ongoing mentoring does. That's exactly what our community of Professional Mentors delivers, and the demand we are seeing from clients reflects it. SHRM's investment is a strong signal that when you invest in people first, the business results follow."
Mark Donohue, LifeGuides Founder & Chief Commercial Officer, said, "Through our Mentors and Guides, LifeGuides was created to advance a future of work grounded in human connection, peer mentorship, and lasting impact for every client. Our model is enhanced by AI and exponential technologies, yet LifeGuides isn't in competition with AI. We are steadfast in our belief in the unique and irreplaceable role of humans helping humans reach their full potential. Our revenue has grown by more than 100% per year over year for several years, a testament to the value we create. We're blessed to have the trust of so many respected Fortune 2000 enterprises, reflected in our impeccable client retention rate."
Expanding Professional Mentoring to Serve the Masses—What Comes Next
The investment reflects a moment when the "manager effectiveness gap" has become an expensive, well-documented problem for employers. SHRM's own research shows one in three workers say their manager cannot effectively lead a team, and 60% of new managers fail within their first 24 months. This contributes to the $223 billion U.S. organizations have lost to turnover over the past five years. Replacing a manager costs 50% to 200% of their salary when factoring in additional training, onboarding, and lost productivity, and HR professionals now spend nearly 28% of their time addressing problems caused by poor people management. Companies that get management right see the opposite effect, with profit margins rising by as much as 25%.
PMQ+ LifeGuides is built to close that effectiveness gap. Validated against SHRM and Wharton School benchmarks, the program delivers a documented 4x ROI per cohort, with full-model estimates showing returns as high as 11x. Ninety-five percent of PMQ+ graduates say they are more likely to stay with their organization, 87% report gaining the confidence to manage a team, and 100% state that LifeGuides mentoring provided value they couldn't get elsewhere.
What separates PMQ+ from conventional leadership training is the intuitive design and technology platform, which empowers every manager with a personalized experience and is grounded in a deeply human-to-human model. Most L&D programs end at the workshop. PMQ+ pairs SHRM's award-winning training courses with 12 months of unlimited, on-demand access to a community of Professional Mentors. The service is disruptive to the L&D sector, since it is priced at a quarter of the price of typical consulting or executive coaching. The combination of the price and proven ROI democratizes access to world-class mentoring for managers. Furthermore, every PMQ+ participant, and all of their adult family members, receive unlimited access to LifeGuides broader Non-Clinical Mental Health support, which offers experienced peer support across 500 events of everyday life topics.
LifeGuides is expanding its Professional Mentoring into new industries and manager populations—with a focus on hiring managers from the same industry as the clients served, so that relatability and experience are magnified in value. LifeGuides is building toward a future where every people manager, not just the lucky ones in a forward-thinking organization, has a talented mentor in their corner. Professional Mentoring is no longer a nice-to-have layered on top of training. It's becoming the infrastructure organizations build their people strategy on.
About LifeGuides
LifeGuides® is the category-defining provider of Professional Mentoring for early-career managers and people leaders. As a subset of LifeGuides professional mentoring services, the company is defining the category for Non-Clinical Mental Health ("NCMH") for its partners in healthcare and employee benefits. LifeGuides is taking peer support to new heights of professionalism—as it addresses strategic opportunities across the spectrum of human capital management. Through a proprietary platform, LifeGuides connects individuals with certified Mentors and Guides, who have navigated the same or similar career and life events as the member is navigating today. LifeGuides offers its services to organizations—either as part of a benefits package or of an enterprise's learning and development program. Satisfied clients include a breadth of Fortune 2000 enterprises. As one of our members said, LifeGuides is "More Casual than Therapy, More Qualified than a Friend"®. Discover LifeGuides at www.lifeguides.com.
About SHRM
SHRM is a member-driven catalyst for creating better workplaces where people and businesses thrive together. As the trusted authority on all things work, SHRM is the foremost expert, researcher, advocate, and thought leader on issues and innovations impacting today's evolving workplaces. With nearly 340,000 members in 180 countries, SHRM touches the lives of more than 362 million workers and their families globally. Learn more at SHRM.org.
Media Contact
Macie Marinetto, LifeGuides, 1 7034315189, [email protected], lifeguides.com
SOURCE LifeGuides
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