How does Endava help coach its employees through their career paths?
Each Endavan has a career coach right from day one. This is one of the main advantages that we take into consideration when it comes to the development of our employees. We want them to thrive, find their calling and help them succeed in their career.
Technical skill development and learning to work with new tools are processes that are well-established in many tech companies, but employee career development is something that is often missing. People often lack someone to help them define their own goals and help and support in defining those goals to be more concrete by questioning and active listening.
As a people-oriented IT company, Endava organized its first Career Coaching Week at the Adriatic region level in March this year, dedicated to sharing knowledge about Career Coaching. Twelve Endava career coaches participated in a series of lectures and panel discussions, and the fact that an average of 400 employees from the Adriatic region attended each session shows how much interest there is in this topic.
The event was held under the slogan “When we grow others, we grow ourselves” – which is the main message of career coaching, and perhaps the answer to the faster development of the IT community in the region.
How it all started?
Five years ago, Endava recognized this need for personal career growth and mentoring and introduced its Career Coaching program that supports all employees from day one in defining and achieving further goals in their careers and helping them become the best they can be.
We identified the seniors and people who can become coaches, helped them with mentoring and training and gave them all the support they needed in order to help and inspire others.
Career coaching is more than just a program for increasing technical skills. When an employee joins the company or transitions to a new project or job, which is a tough process in itself, the program does its “magic”. It enables Endavans to benefit from the multiple career opportunities existent in the company.
What does it mean to be a Career Coach in Endava?
Guided by our core values, we believe that setting up a culture of feedback, knowledge sharing, and high performance is critical to creating an environment and a culture that breeds success. “Career Coach role is one of the key pillars that supports career growth of our fellow Endavans. While regular project engagement brings various opportunities to build the knowledge, career coach role provides additional support and perspective on how you can progress your career – either in your current role or in completely different directions. Working closely with colleagues and providing support in building careers, coaches grow their own skills, both soft and technical ones”, describes the role of CC Slobodan Bogdanović, Head of PDM and Career Coach in Endava Serbia.
How do our people see this program?
Most Endavans see the support of a career coach in clear identifying, planning, and achieving the set goals in their professional development as one of the greatest benefits of this program. “It is so nice to see people grow knowing that you helped them in their path and towards their goals. When people grow, they are usually happier in their lives, professionally and privately. Happy and motivated people create healthy working environments and bring productivity and business success”, said Robert Podlipnik, Senior Agile Project Manager and Career Coach in Endava Slovenia, about the key takeaways from Career Coaching programme in Endava.
There is no secret formula for success and no Career Coach takes the same path of guidance for every coachee, but the determination to share knowledge and advice, while listening and actively participating throughout someone`s career growth is what that is set in the program and all Coaches mindsets.
Kenan Mezildžić, Senior Developer and a Career Coach from Bosnia and Herzegovina, points out the importance of Career Coaching from his own experience: “Being a witness of someone’s success, and knowing that you’ve guided them to that point, is the feeling that keeps you going, and it represents the real evaluation of your own work and knowledge. We should not forget that being a coach also means that we need to show our learners how to be complete businesspeople, not only to develop tech skills. Tech skills are the easiest teachable thing in our business, but social skills and the correct personality are something we need the most in order to represent ourselves and our company in the right way.“
What are the key advantages of the Career Coach program?
There are multiple benefits we see in everyday life thanks to the Career Coaching programme both for people and for the organization at the same time. Maša Ristovska, the Head of People Development and Recruitment in North Macedonia highlighted the key takeaways:
– Improved performance and productivity: Coaching brings out the best in individuals and teams, something training doesn’t even aspire to do.
– Employee development: Creating long-term learning and behavioural change, not sending people on a short more skills-based training, which may or may not be the issue.
– Improved learning: Retention rates achieved through self-discovery and coaching are far greater than training alone or e-learning. Coaching focuses on learning to enable the application of the practices to the workplace.
– Improved relationships: By asking questions shows them they are valued. By gaining their input and opinion, they feel included. Improved relationships and success attained through coaching will change their perception of themselves and the workplace.
– Greater engagement: People undertaking to coach will feel valued and invested, as someone dedicates their time and expertise to help them. Coaching helps people discover their motivation as it taps into their core values.
– A life skill: Once a person undergoes coach development, it is a skill they have for life and can transfer to their social and family lives.
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