The Savvi app offers digital training on the job
Working life is not standing still and the need for further training is great. A recent study on further training by the digital association Bitkom shows that 31% of those surveyed have spent more time on further training since corona in March 2020.
In the coming years, the majority of respondents would like to be able to organize their own continuing education (75 percent). 63 percent want both private and professional further training to be part of a modern life. In addition to specialist knowledge, soft skills are particularly in demand here. And the pandemic has brought new challenges for companies: For example, managers have had to deal with how to effectively lead a team and manage projects while working from home.
Julian Fornoff, co-founder of the MediaTech Hub Accelerator startup Savvi, is a psychologist and has worked extensively in HR and consulting during his career. What he always lacked when it came to employee development was an app-based training program that also focused on soft skills. Together with his co-founder Colin Weitmann, he developed Savvi, an app that offers professional development training for managers, as well as topics such as mental health and resilience. The team pitched their idea to the Startup Service at the University of Potsdam and received the EXIST start-up grant.
“Mental health, leadership, hybrid leadership from the home office, training for young professionals, productivity topics, agile management – we currently have a basic range of programs on offer,” says Fornoff.
Individual microtraining thanks to personality test
The Savvi team is continuously expanding the program. The app is aimed directly at companies that purchase licenses for their employees. Anyone training with Savvi downloads the app and fills out a personality questionnaire based on skills. Detailed questions such as “Am I good at giving feedback?” or “Can I plan and meet deadlines well?” identify key skills, development potential and also validate the respondent’s weaknesses in the professional field.
Based on the comprehensive questionnaire, the app creates a personal “skill profile” and suggests individual training sessions to users, which can be easily integrated into their daily work routine with approximately half-hour sessions several times a week. Managers who realize that they do not enjoy feedback meetings and would like to do better in the future can receive a personally tailored offer in 30-minute daily “learning nuggets”, for example. The program includes short videos showing how to conduct such conversations well and practical tasks to prepare for them. The whole thing is supplemented by gamified elements such as quizzes or small daily challenges that keep employees actively involved in the topic every day. Those who opt for a program on mental health, for example, are introduced to topics related to this with various focal points, such as a video that contrasts perfectionism and pragmatism and provides valuable tips for the daily work context. There are also small tasks in which you have to formulate your own goals or question your behavior.
“You dive through these mini impulses virtually every day. Our aim is to work purely on an app basis. But depending on the customer, we work together in very different ways. For example, if there are classic all-day training sessions, we look at how we can use the app to continue the internal training sessions over time. We also work with some customers on a holistic basis, which means we provide trainers on site. It depends on the situation,” explains founder Julian Fornoff.
The digital training plan is based on an algorithm that CTO Colin Weitmann is continuously developing. The team either develops the content itself and relies on internal expertise or works closely with training institutes. The company is well positioned in areas such as resilience and leadership and cooperates with sales trainers for sales training.
E-learning offers are very exciting for the B2B sector
The market for professional development is large – on-site training, coaching, workshops, webinars. This is important for employees, but also offers many advantages for companies. Qualified employees are a market advantage, and in times of a shortage of skilled workers, they also bind them more closely to the company and make it more attractive as an employer.
At the same time, learning formats will become shorter in the future and take place less often in person – this is also predicted by the Bitkom study from 2022 for the next five years.
Savvi is aimed specifically at companies with between 300 and 7,000 employees. There are often many young professionals and dual students who typically have a need to learn. And the younger target group is also more app-savvy, says Fornoff. Apprentices are an exciting target group for medium-sized companies and there are junior staff programs on offer for larger companies. “We look for companies that have a certain learning culture. Some corporations have their own apps and a dozen e-learning providers. That’s not where we see ourselves. We see ourselves at companies that offer further training in the traditional sense and now want to add a digital learning management system or are looking for innovative impetus for younger employees.”
Since the MediaTech Hub start-up’s app has been on the market, it has already won over well-known companies such as Gorillas, MLP and Commerzbank. It is particularly important for Savvi to further explore the app’s potential with case studies and feedback discussions and to evaluate it using the app’s analytics: Which pages do employees spend the most time on, which buttons do they click? In addition, Savvi’s UX designer conducts in-depth interviews with users and observes how they use the app.
Like every start-up, they are currently in a process between product development, customer feedback and sales. This is challenging, but also important for further development. Where can I distribute my product efficiently beyond my network? As a start-up, you shouldn’t underestimate this issue, because what good is having the best product if you can’t find customers?
So how effective is app-based work? “If it’s a topic for which there is awareness, such a learning method via app makes sense. If you’re still at the very beginning, then I would go into personal contact to provide information, recommend on-site training or book a trainer to accompany you,” says Fornoff, describing his assessment.
The fact that the app can be used on the go and in-between meals and provides small impulses every day to guide you through the chosen topic makes the learning method sustainable and helps you to work on yourself every day. You can achieve a lot with habits, says Fornoff.
Employee leadership can be trained in the same way that others train their muscles.
More about the MTH Blog
The media technologies of the future are already being used today – not only in the entertainment sector but in a wide variety of industries. For our MediaTech Hub Potsdam blog, we talk to tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and researchers once a month and tell the stories behind their innovative business models, ideas, projects and collaborations.
