We have always had a culture of learning at Gofore and to help, we have Gofore Academy supporting our employees.
In today’s world, a lot of learning happens through work. We believe that working and creating together is the best way to learn new things. The best solutions and brightest ideas are usually born when we do things together.
Gofore Academy: to remove obstacles to learning
The purpose of Gofore Academy is to pave the way for Goforeans in professional development matters or as we put it: to remove obstacles to learning. Gofore Academy offers specially tailored internal trainings to our employees. Academy also helps to find information on external learning events and trainings, what are the hottest certifications in our industry now, and what to do if you quickly need to learn a new skill.
At Gofore we have a wide variety of domain expertise needed in the IT consultancy business. We have developers, designers, testing specialists, management consultants, project managers, and more. The skills needed to master one’s domain are supported through guilds, teams, and other peer support groups. Gofore Academy serves all our specialists regardless of their domain.
Gofore Academy’s internal training offering is focusing on skills needed in consulting work. Some might call them soft skills, but in fact, they are the most complex skills there is when your job is to work together with other people. The ability to look at things from the other person’s perspective is the core skill we believe everyone should master. For a successful collaboration to happen we need to understand each other better.
Finding your own intrinsic motivation
We respect and value all individuals and their uniqueness and different wishes. Everyone has their own learning dreams, and we encourage everyone to take time to find out what tickles them and makes their eyes sparkle. What motivates you? After you have found that out, plan your journey and start taking concrete actions towards that goal. Of course, help is provided for making the personal development plan. Having a plan is a baseline for all development actions. And we do hope that once people have made their plans, they also share them internally with People Leaders and colleagues to help the dreams come true.
Internal trainings bring our people together
Gofore Academy has a good network of trainers that we collaborate with. Both internal and external ones. Having trusted partners who know our company, our values and ways of working is important. The reason we love the internal trainings so much, is the fact that they bring our people together, from different parts of organization, roles or even countries everyone has an equal opportunity to participate. Internal trainings are constantly being praised for introducing people with each other.
Some skills we have covered in our internal trainings organized by Gofore Academy are:
- presentation and communication skills
- influencing and interacting with people
- social media
- self-leadership skills
- facilitation skills
- basics of agile
- understanding customer experience
In 2021: over 50 internal trainings, and over 600 participants
In 2021 Gofore Academy organized over 50 internal trainings. The trainings had over 600 Goforeans as participants. We have chosen the training topics from the needs arising in the company. We are constantly keeping our eyes and ears open for the current and future training needs which serve Goforeans in the best possible way.
For example, we have wanted to support our feedback culture and have tailored a special training for giving feedback. And even though we work together and have support from each other, the work of a modern knowledge worker is independent, and you need the skills and tools to lead your own work-life balance and wellbeing. For that need, we also offer a training series.
In addition to instructor-led internal trainings we have provided an online learning platform to our employees to help them learn i.e., technical skills when there is a need for that. With the help of an online learning platform, it is easy for you to take over maybe a new programming language when you can fit it into your schedule and study at your own pace.
Learning and renewing continuously
We want to offer Goforeans learning and development possibilities they need and wish. And when succeeding in that, people can learn new skills relevant to their development at their time in Gofore. We are learning in everyday work and having support from our colleagues sharing knowledge with each other through teamwork, in guild happenings, hackathons, and other peer support we have going on. And spice that up with learning possibilities that Gofore Academy offers. Sounds like a good combination, doesn’t it?
