Less a match made in heaven, more a match made by Microsoft; according to the software giant, turnover of talented employees has been halved in 18 months by matching them to experienced mentors using ‘dating agency’ software. In an article in Personnel Today (www.PersonnelToday.com) Gary Gilligan, Learning and Development Director at Microsoft UK, says that the organisation has transformed employee retention by introducing software that matches up senior professionals with ‘high potentials’ on criteria such as common (work) interests and expertise. The software can also determine the frequency of ‘dates’ that mentors and their professional prot_g_’s meet to troubleshoot career or role-specific problems. Internal research has found that nearly three quarters (73%) of those involved in the scheme had believed it was effective. We’d love to hear your feedback. E-mail us at mailto:theteam@chapple.ltd.uk with your thoughts.