Part 1/3 of our interview series on further education
“Training is a waste of time, only beginners need it.” We regularly encounter this and other prejudices in the IT industry. I spoke to my colleague Andrea, who absolutely does not share these views. She has been with AKQUINET tech@spree for 15 years and has a wealth of experience with further training.
How many of your 10 training days do you use?
Lately, I have been using all of my training days. There have been years when I didn’t make it, but I always try. Usually that means attending one or two big training courses a year.
In addition to traditional training, there are many different ways to get further education.
For example, we regularly have lectures held by colleagues on a wide variety of topics, so-called design festivals. You can also research or read about topics of your own choice. I once had a reading group with two colleagues, in which we read a book together chapter by chapter and discussed it every week on a fixed day. In principle, you can also take a week from your training time and do a small project to learn something. Any form of self-study is possible. There are also activities like “yoga in the lunch break”, which is extremely good for me.
Which training courses in recent years have you particularly enjoyed?
All in all, I’ve done a lot of training courses, because I’ve been in this for 15 years. One particularly good one, for example, was a training course on “Sales” from Edutrainment, which I attended with a few colleagues. I really enjoyed it and it was very, very entertaining. The leader had a double talent as a trainer and comedian. For months afterwards we would say “yes exactly” in a certain way and everyone who had been there would laugh. That, according to the trainer, was the goal of paraphrasing, a technique for active listening: to get the other person to say “yes exactly.” And thanks to his comedy talent, every “yes exactly” was a little show. Overall, it was really cool, also because there was a lot of role play. It’s not for everyone, but I’ve always found that you learn a lot from role-playing. The good thing about it is that the fun you have really makes you remember a lot more. Not only the active listening, but also the sales aspects, even though it’s been years now.
What characterizes a good trainer?
A good trainer definitely responds to the situation of the participants. He or she relates to their expectations and builds a relationship with them. A good preparation of the content and a good pace are also important. It should not be too slow, because then many drop out, but also not too fast, because then you don’t retain anything and it becomes very exhausting. All the training courses that I enjoyed and still remember today were always with a large active part. For example, we once had an in-house communications training in which the trainer also worked a lot with role plays. It created a great flow and the atmosphere was extremely good. You could also bring situations from your everyday working life to the training, which were then worked through together, that was very helpful.
When the participants are brought into conversation with each other and you are involved in what is happening, you understand everything better and it sticks better.
What other training courses have you attended over the years that have stayed in your memory?
The training course on emergency behavior was unforgettable for me. Fortunately, I’ve never had to use the content, but it really took away my fear of taking action in an emergency. It brought home all the things I just said that make for good training. The point was that what you learn in first aid training for your driver’s license scares most people because it’s taught in a way that’s far too complicated. And this trainer, a paramedic, at some point made it his business to educate people about how easy it actually is to help in the event of a cardiac arrest.
How important is further education to you?
Extremely. I also like to read a book on specialist topics privately from time to time, but if my employer didn’t support that at all and I had to do things like that completely in my free time, it would be difficult for me with two children and limited time. I don’t know if the lack of support would be a knock-out criterion for me, but an employer where everything else is right probably has a positive attitude toward continuing education. In our case, it fits in with the overall attitude. I used to be a project manager, which made me see from a leadership perspective how important it is for people to keep learning about different topics. Of course, it’s ideal if you learn something that you can immediately transfer to your everyday work. But even if that’s not the case, I think that training courses always broaden your horizons and give you the chance to deal with a topic away from the project. It frees up your mind.
Without further training, we would also fall by the wayside in our industry, it’s impossible without it.
Like this? Feel free to check out the other parts of our interview series:
JavaLand Insights with Thieu and Frank (2/3)
Looking at the big picture – further training in systemic organizational consulting (3/3)
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