Covanta's Mentoring Program
Challenge
Covanta is committed to developing and supporting its talented and diverse employee population. In today's competitive labor market, Covanta identified the need to implement a formal, company-wide mentoring program to grow and retain top talent and promote a diverse, engaged and innovative workforce.
Actions
The overall purpose of Covanta's Mentoring Program is to provide a mechanism by which employees will enter into a professional and personal development relationship to accelerate development in specific areas, foster career growth, expand networks, as well as, improve cross-functional knowledge sharing. The objectives of the Mentoring Program are to:
- Develop and enhance relevant interpersonal/leadership skills and effectiveness needed for growth, advancement, and/or future
- Identify/leverage a wider potential internal talent pool
- Enable stronger communications, interaction, and collaboration between groups, reducing silos and interpersonal
- Foster a healthy company culture that maintains a respectful, unbiased and inclusive work environment.
Covanta's Mentoring Program is a twelve-month engagement open to all Covanta employees. Participants are high performing employees with a minimum of 1 year of service, representing a cross section of business units, disciplines and geographic locations with a minimum of 25% representation from diverse demographic groups. Mentors must have a minimum of 10 years of professional experience.
Outcomes
The first wave of Covanta's Mentoring Program launched in September 2017 and concluded September 2018. Thirty-five mentoring pairs participated in the program. Thirty-four percent of the participants were from diverse demographic groups. The mentoring program participants rated the program an overall 4 out of 5.
Mentors rated the opportunity to share their knowledge and expertise as most valued, followed by gaining insights and perspectives of different employee groups Gob, diverse ethnic backgrounds, gender, etc.) as the second highest benefit of the program. Mentees indicated that the program helped them gain knowledge and skills to perform their job better, as well as, the program guided them on how to identify and achieve their long-term goals as the most beneficial aspects of the program.
Contact
Sandra J. Jackson
Quote
At Covanta, we believe that people are our most valuable asset and the diversity and inclusion of our workforce is key to our success. By embracing diversity, we are fostering a work community that opens minds and opportunities - which helps Covanta grow stronger as a company. I'm proud to sign on to the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion pledge as we continue work towards a complete culture of acceptance, tolerance and individuality so we can all learn and grow together.