# The Who, What, and Why of Phiture’s Monthly Learning Day

- Link: https://phiture.com/blog/the-who-what-and-why-of-phitures-monthly-learning-day/
- Published: 2020-03-31T10:40:52+01:00
- Author: Rachael Davies

![Learning day at Phiture](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/roman-
kraft-X1exjxxBho4-unsplash-1024x768.jpg)

With an ever-growing team across more than 20 nationalities, now more than ever,
Phiture is looking to the future and encouraging employees to think ahead as well.
We want Phiture to be an environment where people don’t simply come to work every
day and work on the same things, but that they have the space to learn new skills
and develop as professionals and individuals.

That’s why 2020 kicked off with a three month trial of the brand new Phiture Learning
Day. The last Friday of every month sees Phiture employees given a day off from 
regular work to spend the day at home on a course of their choice mainly on Udemy
for Business, an online platform with a wide range courses to learn a variety of
skills from. These courses range from Motion Graphics Design to Master Psychology,
leadership training to Python for Marketers. One quality they all have in common
though: the potential to help every Phiture employee expand their professional potential.

 

![Katja Profile](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Katja-Profile--225x300.
png)

Katja, Head of HR at Phiture

“It all started with interactive workshops to discover Phiture values, vision, and
mission,” says Head of HR Katja. “We split our teams into groups, depending on how
long they’d been with the company and asked each group ten questions about what 
they value at Phiture and what they want to see in the future. We wanted to understand
the employees’ perspectives on what the main qualities of Phiture are that make 
people like working here. We were also keen to find out what they are missing, and
what makes us unique as an employer and a company.”

These workshops gave Katja some key learnings that were influential in formulating
the Phiture Learning Day: “Many people, especially newcomers and junior employees,
said that they valued the growth opportunities that Phiture offers and the internal
knowledge sharing between junior and senior employees throughout the company. Across
the company, employees also mentioned the importance of being thought leaders in
the industry. Of course, if you’re going to remain a thought leader, you need the
chance to develop yourself. We wanted to give people that chance.”

“One of the core values at Phiture is to empower our employees and give them a chance
to grow both professionally and personally,” Katja continues. “The idea of offering
a learning platform, where everyone can access any kind of course wherever and whenever
they want just fit directly in with what we believe in. As we also understand that
any kind of development needs time, we decided to offer up dedicated time each month
for everyone to focus on their growth and development. That’s how we came up with
the idea of the ‘Phiture Learning Day’. 

“As we are growing we also created a career path for everyone at every level and
in every department that goes alongside a training or learning path. Courses will
be assigned to individuals by talking with their managers. The aim is to align their
individual preferences with their training plan to best support growth where it’s
wanted and needed. These two strategies go hand in hand to hopefully support our
employees see the personal growth they’re aiming for.”

![Jorieke the learner of the month](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/
03/Image-from-iOS-10-300x225.jpg)

Jorieke, Junior ASA and UA Consultant, the Learner of the Month in March

At the end of the first Learning Day, the entire Phiture team came back together
through a video call where we all discussed our learnings and whether we would recommend
a course to anyone else. 

“Knowledge sharing is another one of Phiture’s core values that we have identified,
so it’s important that we share our learnings at the end of each Phiture Learning
Day. It’s especially useful for us all to rate courses and recommend them to one
another,” explains Katja. “This then helps us to understand which courses are good
and fit our needs and everyone joining Phiture will benefit from it.”

By the end of the day, everyone had not only added new skills to their roster but
also squirreled away recommendations for next month’s Learning Day. Design Team 
Lead Stuart enjoyed his course so much that he’s making it a compulsory part of 
training for his team so that they can reap the benefits as well.

![William Working Student](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/88916640_630190424220854_7828932561154093609_n-
240x300.jpg)

William, Working Student, the Learner of the Month in February

“The Figma course did exactly what I wanted it to do,” he said. “Establish the building
blocks of efficient workflows. It also helped me to unlearn some bad practices that
I learned while trying to get a grip on the program through trial-and-error. 

“The importance of this becomes magnified when you add in the aspect of collaborative
teamwork on a single project, where processes and transferability are paramount.
This is why I intend to make this course mandatory for all designers at Phiture.”

As well as honing the skills they use every day, the Learning Day offers Phiture
employees the time and resources to explore areas outside of their day-to-day tasks.
Members of the design team experimented with branding techniques from marketers,
ASO consultants explored coding languages. Anything was up for grabs, so long as
it fits into their plan for personal development.

Looking to the future, Katja has high hopes for the Learning Day. “I’d love everybody
to take it on as an opportunity to grow themselves. The enthusiasm from the team
would mean we could integrate it fully into Phiture’s structure as a company.

![Bellen, Junior Growth Consultant](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/
03/83180187_176124473697018_4726471410773455662_n-300x300.jpg)

Belen, Junior Growth Consultant, the Learner of the Month in January

“Perhaps employees will want to use the resources on Udemy in their own time for
their personal development as well. By sharing the courses, everyone will inspire
one another to try new courses, and managers can use course recommendations to better
inform training plans for future employees, just as Stuart did for his team. If 
something works well for all of the current ASO consultants, for example, we should
incorporate into training future ones. The end goal is for people to know that they
can grow with us.”