In our first story, we talked about career development at Insightful. However, we all know that our skills don't magically enhance overnight. This is why here we would like to walk you through the way we actually support our team members to expand their level of competencies, preparing them for their current and new responsibilities and roles.
With this goal in mind, we implement educational and learning activities so that our team members can develop and improve technical, soft, and leadership skills. Depending on the skill one wants to work on, external education or internal training can be the two directions to take.
External education is something we more often use when it comes to developing technical and soft skills. In Insightful, depending on which knowledge and skills they would like to expand, each of our team members can choose various learning activities, such as books (both e-books and hardcover), online and in-person training, courses, seminars, webinars, conferences, and other similar opportunities for professional growth.
Mastering technical knowledge and skills through education and learning gives our team members confidence in their roles as it helps them remain equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to accomplish their everyday tasks and slowly prepares them for taking the next step towards a more senior role in their area of expertise.
Stevan Djordjevic
Senior UI Designer
“At the beginning of this year, I had the opportunity to take a UX/UI Design course at SAE Institute. I was very delighted that I was able to choose my course, and enrol in the one I had been fond of for a very long time.
During the course, I took part in different UX and UI lectures while at the same time having practical assignments which really helped me apply the theoretical knowledge I gained.
Even during the course, I immediately implemented certain things at work and look forward to implementing more in the upcoming period.
This course helped me expand my knowledge and skills, especially in the field of user experience, made me feel more prepared to take over new responsibilities, feel more confident to take initiative, and encouraged me to continue to develop myself professionally.”
Nevena Popov
HR Administrative Associate
“In the spring of this year, I started my education in the field of HR Administration as I had been promoted to a position of an HR Administrative Associate.
Through this course, I got more familiar with this part of HR as I was able to gain more theoretical knowledge while at the same time going through practical examples of real-life situations.
This course helped me further develop and improve myself, made it easier for me to dive into my new role, and challenged me professionally even more.
Now, I look forward to my next course which will be about English for Workplace, as I would like to improve that skill, as well.”
On the other hand, to excel in any role, it is important to have soft skills as well, to match employees’ technical skills. Some examples include interpersonal skills, collaboration, communication, active listening, empathy, time management, change management, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
Nikola Zivkovic
Customer Success Representative
“As the essence of my job is to understand our clients’ needs and create a personalized experience for each of them, I have gone through training related to customer engagement.
This course presented the topic in a very interesting way using lots of practical examples. That way it helped me focus more on empathy, communication, and adaptability, grasp my clients’ needs and how my solution can help them.
I am currently attending a course related to API, as I would like to further improve my tech knowledge in order to be able to find solutions for my clients more efficiently.”
Marko Savic
Junior DevOps Engineer
“Great thing about Insightful is that it offers its team members the option to choose the educational activity of their choice and in that way provides an opportunity for them to develop themselves both professionally and personally.
To me, the quality of education is important. This year I have decided to improve my English skills. Working with a native English teacher for the past six months, I have improved not only my conversational English but grammar and knowledge of the language in general.
Besides conversational English, these classes have also helped me become more confident in approaching my colleagues and clients completing my tasks more efficiently.”
Our team is a peculiar mix - we are a local startup, with an international team. That is why we support all of our team members interested in learning more about the Serbian language and also getting more familiar with the Serbian culture. This process turned out to be not only a learning experience but also great fun for the participants, strengthening their relationship with the team, providing an outlet for daily activities, and a bridge to overcoming challenges that come with working from remote destinations.
Levon Gevorgyan
Backend Developer
“I like not only programming languages, but languages in general. When I joined Insightful I thought it was a great opportunity for me to start learning Serbian and be able to practice it with my colleagues.
As I speak Russian, it has been easy for me to learn Serbian, especially grammar. What I like the most about it is its phonetics where each sound corresponds to only one letter which makes pronunciation much easier.
I am currently finishing A2 level and look forward to practicing my Serbian with the rest of the team.”
Lastly, internal training is used to work on leadership skills in order to help our team members transition smoother to their new roles and hence, get to grips with the additional, more team-oriented responsibilities they will have in Insightful. As developing leadership skills is the basis for organizational development and an interesting and important topic altogether, we will tackle it further in our next story.
If you like our story and want to hear more about it or have any questions, feel free to ping us at jobs@insightful.io. Stay tuned for more stories to come. :-)
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