Who is a Learning Partner?

Kasia Mikolajczyk was the first Learning Partner at the SoftServe office in Wrocław. A Learning Partner is a person who determines the individual educational needs of the associates. There are learning partners in almost every office. Their job is to collect data on the professional development needs of the team and to help manage their career growth.

At that time it was a new position in the company and something that Poland hadn’t seen before. Kasia worked in this position for two years. “It was an inspiring experience,” she says. “You see what works and what doesn’t; you get feedback from people, and you build relationships with them.”

Kasia Mikolajczyk says that she was driving the internal educational programs of the Polish SoftServe associates, including trainings, coaching, and leadership development programs, etc. Learning partners are a link between SoftServe University and local associates.

“My role was to ensure that our associates had access to all the learning and development opportunities they needed - necessary skills to perform their work and achieve goals.” Now Kasia occupies the position of Leadership Capabilities Manager.

Understanding what employees need

To make the team development process effective, the company analyses the learning needs of its associates and tallies them with the company targets and those of specific local offices. The goal is to find the optimal solution in the given conditions.

Learning partners are responsible for the analysis of all company data, from strategic goals to the results of employee surveys. For example, as Kasia Mikolajczyk explains, if a company wants to provide technical training, it needs to understand what technologies are currently used in projects in Poland and what related skills employees need.

“We collect insights from all possible sources - from HR managers to local project managers. We also directly ask employees about their needs. This allows us to analyze data from very different perspectives which we use when creating educational programs,” Kasia Mikolajczyk explains.

She says that the most popular are soft skills courses, as they are universal and relevant for all associates.

“We are constantly looking for ways to improve associates’ experience, simplify processes, and figure out how to make employees retain what they learn instead of forgetting everything immediately after the workshop is over,” says Kasia Mikolajczyk.

As part of this process, a local SoftServe University team was created, including internal foreign language teachers, IT Academy mentors, etc.

Why is it important for a company to support the professional growth of its employees?

“We at SoftServe believe that our associates should decide how they want to grow professionally and when the right time is to do it. This is their personal responsibility. As learning partners, we are here to encourage, help and lead them in the right direction, making sure solutions are there.,” explains Kasia Mikolajczyk.

The company provides a wide range of learning opportunities for its associates. In this sense, SoftServe University is like a real university with its own departments where you can choose what to study and what best suits your work profile.

There is no limit to the potential of our associates. It all depends on their experience. If you do not know how to do something now but are willing to learn from your mistakes, you will grow professionally. And this is the approach we take at SoftServe. Here you are the manager of your own self-development.

BY KASIA MIKOLAJCZYK | LEADERSHIP CAPABILITIES MANAGER

She says that employee development is highly beneficial for companies. And a key company goal is to guide their employees along this path, by, for example, giving them the opportunity to try out different directions, and supporting their continuous professional development. The more opportunities a company offers, the easier it is to retain talents.

“Almost every company has internal leadership development programs. Clearly, it is important for companies to have effective leaders. But it is the way this is done that distinguishes a great company from a good one. SoftServe does a fantastic job with its leadership development programs because we combine different experiences and learning methods to make them as relevant as possible to real work,” says Kasia Mikolajczyk.