Reverse Mentoring at QA InfoTECH

There is a strong mentoring program at QA InfoTech, an Independent Software testing company located in Noida and USA. QA InfoTech promotes nurturing of talent by pairing up competent professionals for mentee’s development. For us the pairing up of competent Professional does not necessarily mean that Mentors are always Senior and people from Organization. We encourage young employees who have more experience and knowledge in a particular domain and have the right attitude and great communication skill to feed expertise up the corporate ladder. We identify high-performers in various Groups within the Business and map out a program where the chosen Mentors can be responsible for the Intellectual Growth. In this program both the partners are equally responsible for its success despite their inequality in experience and knowledge.

The young mentors provide brilliant ideas about the new things the group could do to add value. Some of our initiatives that fall in reverse mentoring are – organizing a Testing Fest called ‘Qualloquium’, and Saturday Knowledge Sharing Forums.

‘Qualloquium’ is a forum where young Employees with expertise in Independent Software Testing Industry, mentor all employees about any new Technology that they have implemented in a Project or have developed a new tool that has supported our clients by ensuring faster time to market at comparatively lower costs. Young Engineers also provide  the Senior Managers insight into areas like changing Technology, upcoming trends, using Social Media Marketing effectively, changing mindsets & expectations of the younger generation, new business concepts etc. This has helped in improving decision making for the Senior management as it brings a lot of associated inputs in terms of feeling of employees, new development around the industry, best practices etc. and create more close knit relationship with juniors. These Young mentors have made us a better leader and more in touch with today’s Business environment. It is a part of natural evolution of learning as business in the digital age is constantly changing.

We have Saturday forums every other Saturday, where young engineers share their knowledge with their peers and seniors, it includes any new initiatives they have taken and how it can be implemented while executing projects in Independent Software Testing services. These interactions also help us understand how such initiatives can be widely used to target newer verticals.

In addition to the usual mentoring programs, we encourage reverse Mentoring across all our offices. We ensure that the team members from all our offices are paired up with competent in-house Professionals for their Mentoring in various Technologies as well as other soft skills. There are lucrative incentives for the employees coming up with brilliant ideas and Technologies and mentoring their Senior and adding to their intellectual growth. It is a win-win situation for us as both Mentors and Mentee are extremely happy and satisfied and remain up-to-date with what’s going on in the Independent Software Testing Services Industry and within Organization as a whole. The mentoring sessions nurture the in-house talent to raise Leaders. It also facilitates resourcing the energy and enthusiasm of the young ones in the organization and having perfect fusion of their individual goals with those of the organization. It’s in everyone’s best interest to share knowledge.

We truly believe that the bottom-up feedback is extremely important for the growth of any organization. It breeds innovative thoughts and sense of ownership. It is also developmental for the high-potential reverse mentors as they learn about the challenges of senior management and gain a better understanding of leadership. Developing Leadership at all levels and building Organization’s intellectual capital through Mentoring programs is what we aim at.

Author Bio:- Bharati Kapoor, Vice President of Corporate Communication at QA InfoTech has years of experience working with Independent software testing, QA testing companies. With this article she highlights how reverse mentoring can help the QA Engineers. The present article, just like many other written by her earlier, is bearing in-depth analysis in the domain of software testing.