A good place to start off your career if you are willing to be patient and to be tolerant
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Flexibility, mostly very friendly colleagues, international community. If you are young, looking for experience, international and motivated, this is a good place to start. If you are experienced, want to upgrade your career and have a family/ bigger responsabilities, better look for another place to work. Being fair: Learnship is OK as an employer, there is a lot of room for improvement and in general they do make an effort but in general the experience is as good as it can be. I have seen worse things.
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
What I have mentioned before and what others have mentioned in their reviews. To current colleagues: your frustration is understandable, I feel that also every day. But this is not the only workplace in the world, you all are young and clever: do not waste your time working poorly and bitching around not only about the company but also about other colleagues. Get a good grip, set your life goals straight and look for a better job if you are unhappy and think that the company is horrible.
Verbesserungsvorschläge
Work in improving the interaction between teams. There is a lot of antagonization and frustration. Improve the salary and offer more benefits to those who prove motivation and results! (not only sales people, please, as it currently happens).
Arbeitsatmosphäre
In general it was OK. However, since 2020 the atmosphere has become quite tense due to the corona crisis and the uncertainty that has come along: there have been constant structural changes that do make you feel insecure about your future in the company and if whether your team will stop being relevant for the company and your contract will be terminated without further notice (this happened to a whole team and we were quite shocked by this). I also have to say: Account Management can be quite passive aggresive when it comes to defending their client's position even if their client is being a total jerk. I do wish that Account Management/ Sales people were more considerate towards other departments. It is understandable that they are trying to save their numbers but they sommetimes can turn against you if they think that your actions will mean losing money/ the friendship of their client. I wish that HR was aware of this situation: things are too focused on numbers, selling, breaking rules to keep the client smiling. But well, if you are a young professional you should understand that this happens in many companies and that you can always look for a better job somewhere else.
Kommunikation
There have been efforst to improve internal communication by the management as for example instating company updates on a regular basis. I am very thankful for that. However, events on a small scale and that affect your job directly are sometimes communicated in a very ambiguous way. Everyone is always wondering, sugggesting things, gossiping around. I wish our team heads were not afraid to being open and to communicate what is going on so that we can prepare ourselves better. It is exhausting for our mental health, to be honest. But other than that the management/ HR does try their best to keep an open communication channel.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
The vibe between teams can be quite unfriendly sometimes. I believe the reason behind this is the fact that most of the colleagues are young and sometimes one does not know how to handle difficult situations properly and things are taken personally instead of thinking that everyone is doing their best in the best way they can/ they are willing to. However, members of the same team mostly treat each other well, which helps you go through the day. But I can say that most of the time one is treated with respect. There are though known cases of male colleagues who harass female colleagues in office partys/ events when they get too tipsy with drinks. I am not sure if the colleagues who were harrassed reported these situations but HR shows to be open to receiving anonymous reports via the HR mailbox or via anonymous brief by post.
Work-Life-Balance
You work the usual 8 hours between 8 am-6 pm depending on the department you are working in. If you become a parent and ask for a reduction of hours you do get the flexibility. Also if you are not a parent but you want more free time for your self you can talk with HR and get a reduction of hours as well. Learnship has finally taken Home Office into cosideration for the future, which allows you to save commute time. I applaud this and I hope that they install this permanently, not only during the corona crisis.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
There are many team heads/deputies who are there because of other people moving on to other departments/ leaving the company and they have stayed long enough in the company to reach that point. So they might have the knowledge of the product and the processes but they really lack the talent of leadership and professional experience to fill their position. They have good intentions, no doubt, but they definitely could make use of a better attitude towards other colleagues and a more team-spirited mind. I am not sure if they cannot see that their teams do not feel supported and trusted. Maybe invest in more professional coaching for them? Maybe chose team heads/ deputies based on their experience AS WELL as their aptitude for such a job?
Interessante Aufgaben
Quite tricky to say. It depens on the department you are working in and the current projects taking place. However, there is a considerable amount of outdated, manual processes that need to be improved/ re-structured urgently. Learnship is trying to move to a more automatic system to avoid unnecessary manual work so that you can concentrate on duties that are indeed interesting, that is something I praise. Be prepared for a lot of repetitive chain work where you will do your part and most probably the other chain/ team will not do their part due to a lack of motivation/ time/ communication and you will go back to zero with nothing and super frustrated.
Gleichberechtigung
I do not think that there is discrimination based on your gender/ race/ cultural background. Actually I was surprised by the amount of female colleagues and cultures working here when I started. There are many people working here from all over the world and that is something that I really like of this company, I feel like my job will speak for itself and I will not be tagged for my origin as it has happened in other places I've worked before where.
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
There aren't colleagues who are older than 50, I think. Most colleagues are in their 20s, 30s, start-up like. But his also means a lot of people who do not know how to keep it professional in stressful situations because they simply do not have enough work experience. Be prepared for that too. If you are emotionally intelligent I think you will do fine with that.
Arbeitsbedingungen
Quite OK. Yes, hardware can be quite old, we had office chairs for years that caused back pain and the Cologne offices are like an oven in summer. During the heatwave of 2019 you were offered to do Homeoffice if you had a laptop (mostly management/ team heads), others had to stay because there wasn't any other option but at least they get you ice popsicles, I think that was a compassionate gesture at least. During the corona pandemic they did efforts to send everyone in homeoffice as soon as it was possible (I know from friends and relatives who were FORCED to go to their office until this very day in other companies, no exceptions were made). I am thankful that Learnship took charge of things and made sure that everyone could do HO. It took Learnship years to change working conditions and it is still taking them time to offer better ones, but at least they are doing something.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
We do not engage in such activities,I think we could do more about this.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
The salaries are quite low, sometimes you will have to take over more responsabilities without a pay rise but they made this clear in my interview and it is clearly stated in the contract that we all were free to sign or not. So yes, the salaries are indeed less tha OK but we were aware of this and we all got the contract translated to understand that this would happen, so I think people could complain less about this, we are adults and signed the contract on our free will. Not an ideal salary for people with family, with a load to carry at home. OK for foreign students who need to make a living in Cologne but sure there will be sacrifices made. No job benefits besides job ticket and 1x Homeoffice weekly in normal circumstances as well as a program for discounts, that is, not year utilities, bonuses or weihnachtsgeld. If these are important for you, you should look for other jobs, definitely.
Image
On the outside it seems as we carry a good portrait thanks to the marketing strategies and the product innovation. But mouth to mouth Learnship is getting a very bad reputation as an employer. Quite sad, actually because it could be much better.
Karriere/Weiterbildung
Many people have complained that there aren't any chances for improvement. If you consider the high personel rotation and that many are young professionals who find better places to work and leave, you will see that, if you do your work and keep it professional, you will understand that it is all about selling yourself and moving things to get them going well for you. If you only go, do your work, go back home and do not show your potential, do not expect them to offer you chances for improvement. They do offer language courses for employees but it takes quite some time until you can figure out if you are getting one or not. I think they could offer workshops, coaching to the employees and keep them motivated to learn and better themselves.