Mentoring at Coveros

Our people are our most important asset. We have found that mentoring is the best way to support the growth of our people.

The purpose of mentoring at Coveros is to help employees succeed by finding ways to add value and contribute to the company’s growth. Success within the company means growing professionally, helping Coveros deliver value to customers, making contributions towards company growth that results in profit share success, and doing professionally fulfilling work. The mentor is also responsible for helping the mentee learn about how Coveros operates and helping them fit in.

At Coveros, everybody has a mentor and almost everyone is a mentor. Mentors are most likely at or senior to the mentee’s experience level in the company’s career progression plan. If the mentor is as the same level, it will be an employee with substantially more experience.

At Coveros, the mentor has five fundamental responsibilities:

• Help their mentee achieve career success
• Help their mentee balance work, life, and growth
• Help their mentee become a trusted advisor
• Help their mentee make contributions towards company growth that results in profit share success
• Play the role of employee advocate in our trusted advisor model

Achieving Career Success

Professional growth really means becoming a better consultant and technologist: a person who is able to increasingly solve bigger and more complex challenges our customers face. Successful mentoring also specifically relates to the mentee’s chosen career track. Mentors help their mentees discover what their career aspirations are (if they don’t already know) and work together with their mentee to build a plan for growth in their chosen track.

In a collaborative fashion, mentors and mentees use job descriptions and success profiles to agree on an assessment of where each person is with regard to ability to deliver results against the expectations of their current and next higher career band. Then they draft a plan describing the way they will work together to move the mentee from the starting point to the desired endpoint on the career progression plan. The mentor should guide, coach, and provide expertise, but the mentee owns the process of their career growth.

Balancing Work, Life, and Growth

At Coveros, while we are always focused on delivering great results for our customers, we also want to ensure our consultants have a healthy balance between work, life, and growth. We want our consultants to understand the customer’s business so they can provide better advice to our customers. We also want them to understand the consulting business so they can participate in account decision making. We want our consultants to have a sustainable career and personal growth rate balance. Ultimately, we want our consultants to experience the personal growth that helps them gain the trust of our customers.

In a collaborative fashion, mentors and mentees evaluate contributions to past and current project work and discuss future customer and project opportunities. They explore issues of job and company satisfaction. They work together to draft a plan to address identified issues and achieve mentee job satisfaction. The mentor should guide, coach, and act as a mentee advocate to account leads or partners. The mentee owns their professional and personal fulfillment and growth.

Becoming a Trusted Advisor

Because of their experience, mentors play a fundamental role in helping mentees identify opportunities where they can make an impactful difference for our customers. This is normally the result of seeking increasing responsibility on the projects as well as demonstrating personal leadership in technical areas while being mindful of the business implications for our customers.

Making Contributions Towards Profit Share Success

Based on their experience, mentors can influence their mentees’ investments in areas resulting in company growth which are rewarded via the Coveros profit share program. The employee measurement areas of people, profitability, and projects provide a framework to guide and evaluate those investments and contributions. Collaboratively agreeing on a target, a plan, and reviewing progress on the plan’s implementation will facilitate achievement of the target.

Mentors are the first line of response for Coveros-related questions a mentee might have. In addition to helping mentees understand Coveros culture, policies, and procedures, mentors can help their mentees feel a sense of immersion, and belonging, within the Coveros team by encouraging participation in group discussions, brown bags, and other shared learning activities.

Being a Trusted Advisor

During a period of several years, employees will move from project to project at Coveros but potentially retain the same mentor. A mentor can uniquely model the influence of a trusted advisor on employee lives by guiding decision making and personal investments.

Specific Activities

Mentoring is a highly collaborative endeavor. In order to succeed, the mentor/mentee partners should consider:

• Agree to meet at least once a month. Physically at first and, if needed, evolve to virtual meetings
• At the beginning of the year, agree on goals and plans for
  • Career growth
  • Personal, professional, and job satisfaction growth
  • Company growth contribution
• On each meeting, review the following:
  • Progress against the career growth plan
    • Adjust if necessary
    • Decide on desired progress prior to the next meeting
  • Progress against the personal, professional, and job satisfaction growth plan
    • Adjust if necessary
    • Decide on desired progress prior to the next meeting
  • Progress against the company growth contribution plan
    • Adjust if necessary
    • Decide on desired progress prior to the next meeting
  • Challenges the mentee is facing
  • Identify mentee areas of improvement
  • The mentee’s overall sense of job and company satisfaction
• Conduct a quarterly retrospective on the mentoring relationship

Mentors should take the initiative on the following

• Collect feedback on the mentee from project team members
• Submit a promotion recommendation, when the mentee is ready for consideration