Buddy, coach and mentor: how these roles facilitate an accommodation and a development of a specialist
During an establishment, a specialist in a company can be supported by various other colleagues with the aim to assist in adaptation and development.
Oleksandr Korytskyy, Levi9 Technology Services Delivery Lead, talks about the roles of buddy, coach and mentor, and the stages when a specialist is supported by those roles.
Buddy
The first step of a specialist in any company is the onboarding: introduction to a structure, a management, a team. In some companies during this period, a buddy accompanies a newbie. Involving another person into the newbie’s integration process is more of an emotional component, often substituted by video instructions and documentation. That’s why assigning buddy is not widely spread.
But it works well in Levi9. Buddy, or companion, is an alumni coworker assigned to a newbie for the onboarding period, assisting in faster company integration. This role can be well played by team lead, senior specialist, project colleague, et al. Usually a buddy is already working in a company for a long time, knows processes, documentation, knows people. Buddy can advise useful reading and video instructions. And if any issue arises in a task, a buddy can provide useful tips how to solve it.
Buddy’s support during onboarding can be useful to any new specialist in a company despite one’s experience and position: counting from trainee, beginner and up to direction manager or department manager.
Coach
A coaching stage begins when a specialist has already accommodated a bit in a company, dove into a project and qualified from probation or entry period.
A coach role can be well played by team lead, manager, or any other coworker, responsible for a growth of a specialist. A coaching involves communication about future targets, OKRs and other milestones, stages and criteria of a growth required for a successful career. During one-on-one meetings of a coach and a specialist, simple and eternal questions are discussed, like
- Which direction or technology is interesting for a development to a specialist
- What skills are planned to be mastered
- How a specialist wants to move ahead
- Does a specialist want to move ahead
The latter question is discussed more and more often due to unpredictability of events in Ukraine and world and changes in IT market. Some people are comforted by taking the same roles and position and don’t want to change a company or move, for example, to a management position.
Mentor
When a specialist is feeling a part of a team and has a development plan in hand for the following months, it can shift to mentoring. A more experienced colleague (a mentor) and a specialist (mentee) start their collaboration. A mentee usually strives to equal with one’s mentor or even overqualify one’s mentor, like Jedi and Padawan in Star Wars.
Nowadays, a term “mentor” is being misused and abused and used whatever the situation is. For example, it is said “a mentor will review your code”, however a mentor’s roles is to direct and motivate, but not diving into technical issues. Mentor is a leader and a role model for a mentee and support one emotionally. A mentor is only suggesting development options based on mentor’s own experience, mistakes, achievements and understanding “the way it should be”. And a mentee is able to choose what’s the comfortable option and if it suffices in the first place. A mentee is solely responsible for a decision to go for an option A or an option B.
Why a mentor is needed and how a mentor can help?
It is important that the mentorship is a bidirectional process. Only in the way that both sides share the mentorship responsibility, it would be alive and productive. There are no limits in experience for mentorship, as it fits for beginners and junior specialists the same way, as for senior roles or team leads. A higher level manager or leader is not a god and is not an evolution peak – they require mentors as well.
Mentorship practice is quite spread. E.g. 84% of Fortune-500 companies have mentorship programs. A mentorship makes a business more efficient, as it involves, sustain and advances specialists in a team. On top of that, it can strengthen and improve a corporate culture, as it supports inclusiveness and helps in adjusting relationships inside a company.
With a mentorship support, specialists feel more confident, more productive and 5 times more often get promoted in positions and salaries. A mentorship has a positive impact on mentors as well. E.g. mentors are promoted 6 times more often compared to those without mentees. It is bound to the fact that a specialist is diving deeper into a subject and improves in the area while trying to explain it to another person.
A summary?
Adaption and development of any specialist in a company is a gradual process, not a boost from stale to full gallop. At first a specialist helped by a buddy is introduced to a working structure, processes, and a team. After accommodation in a team and taking on responsibilities, a coach helps a specialist to form a development road map in a company. And even afterwards, by getting a mentor’s support, a specialist expands the own expertise and can take a different angle on one’s development by joining forces with an experienced mentor.
The best, but not mandatory, scenario is when a company has all three levels: onboarding, coaching and mentoring. A specialist’s development in a team is a continuous self-learning process and improvement of the skills. But it’s always better to have one more person who can help as a specialist in task execution, coordination and inspire to new lap of development.
First published here: https://happymonday.ua/baddi-kouch-mentor-yak-spryyayut-rozvytku-fahivtsya
