Friday morning, 8:45: Outlook reminds us that CommhAcademy will start soon. Little time is left to send a pending email, get some coffee and grab a seat in the kitchen – and get ready for another „lecture“! Leonie initiated the CommhAcademy, an attractive learning platform. She tells us why colleagues are rushing to the kitchen early in the morning.
Leonie, why is the CommhAcademy so popular?
Excellent coffee. Sometimes you will even find cake on the table – that is what gets the colleagues going (laughs out). No, jokes aside: they are interested in the many different topics that the CommhAcademy covers. For the last two years, we have been offering a keynote speech followed by a discussion every last Friday of the month. During each session, colleagues share their experiences with certain job areas or client projects – from storytelling to change consultancy, content marketing and video production. Anyone can learn from this and use it for their daily business – especially if they haven’t worked in those areas before. This is worth getting up “early”!
Why did you initiate the attractive learning platform two years ago?
During my first years as a consultant, I quickly realized that unlike experienced colleagues I lacked some knowledge for particular customer projects. I wanted to change this and started looking for ways to share company knowledge even better than before. This is how the idea of CommhAcademy was born – a regular 90-minute session on a specific topic.
So you want to have everybody to be on the same page?
More or less. Our company is growing. We cannot communicate every successful customer project, best practices or important project insight to all our colleagues immediately. So there might be different levels of knowledge. We want to share the existing knowledge with as many colleagues as possible. Since not every colleague needs the same information, the Academy provides a platform where we share our experiences and engage in discussions. With their new knowledge, colleagues can immediately tackle new tasks. This way, the Academy benefits both the staff and our customers.
What makes the CommhAcademy so successful?
I think its success is based on the mutual support of the colleagues. Participating is not a mandatory requirement – the colleagues join in on their own an according to their needs. They even design each session freely, as they suggest their own topics and contribute their content. We record each session so that those who are unable to attend a session can listen to it afterwards. In my opinion, it is the flexibility, the variety of topics and the gain of knowledge that make the Academy such an attractive learning platform.
The interview was conducted by Gabriele Lebek