How to study inside "Beeline": internal university

A little bit about recursion: the training of Beeline trainers is completed. I am the fourth on the left, in blue.

More than 20 years ago, D. Zimin, the company's founder, insisted that we should have an internal training program. Now we have a separate structure - an internal university that deals exclusively with the training of managers and specialists.

Who teaches what?
There are full-time coaches who are engaged in profile training. And there are functional trainers - these are specialists who spend a certain percentage of their time on training other people. For example, an engineer may devote 4–5 days a month to seminars on his work.
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What are the classes?
Free online courses are available, they can take any specialist. At the same time, call center staff often take courses for tops. There are special targeted courses, for example, for new technologies. There are regular courses like training for sales office staff. And there are courses on order: for example, when someone from the tops needs to sort out the topic, we find specialists.

How is rare technical knowledge transmitted?
For example, if there are only a couple of specialists in the country with the necessary profile within the company (for example, those who have practical experience in working with rare hardware) and need to be taught more, we call them to Moscow. And we gather from all over the country those who need this knowledge.

What is the structure of the university?
Simply, there are four departments: executive training, technical training (all engineers), service and sales (we have a network of call centers and retail sales offices — we need separate training for it) and support (technical issues, content collection for online courses, budget and so on). If non-technical training has a pyramid structure by region, then technical training is “a thing in itself”. The fact is that almost everyone has their own unique technical skills that can be useful at a certain moment right across the country. Therefore, university engineers have double submission: 80% of the time they work in their departments with their supervisor, but at the time of need they lead courses. One staff officer in Moscow manages all these people in Russia. He is looking for the best specialists throughout the country.

How can I become a coach?
As a rule, we either post on the intranet an announcement that we need a person with such and such qualifications, or the manager offers us a good specialist. Moreover, there is no such problem that a manager is afraid to give away his best engineer. On the contrary, this person will stay with him in the department for much longer. The fact is that participation in the work of the university is both a salary increase (not very large, but motivating), and the opportunity to travel, and simply diversity after technical work.

How is training for line employees?
Probably the best example is a call center specialist. First, he goes to work and, in the group of newcomers, studies the company's services for about three weeks, learns how to work with programs.

Then, after 3-4 weeks of independent work of the employee on the line, two days at the university, we develop the skill of working with clients - without technical details. For example, when I was an operator, I very well remembered such a case: a client confused the name of the service and asked to connect to his number redirection. And this service requires strict authorization for the full procedure, and its activation was then one of the most difficult for both the operator and the client. But in practice, the subscriber just wanted to know who called him when he was on the subway. Therefore, we teach very accurately identify needs. There are schemes for the fastest possible clarifications and confirmations so that both parties perfectly understand what is happening and will happen. During the course, we immediately correct the mistakes about too many terms in speech (we must speak clearly and simply, which means we need to know how to describe each service in a nutshell). Another frequent mistake - the operator wants to help and says: “You need this kind of service.” And we teach to explain exactly how it can be useful. We learn to understand when objections are a sign of a lack of information, and when they are really refusals. Trite learn to properly greet and call the name. There are specially cut calls that we analyze on the courses, and we are constantly updating them to match the current services.

So what is next?
When a specialist goes to a regular job, he has access to all online courses on the intranet — you can take them and improve their skills. Many started from the position of the operator, and then moved to the leadership. Actually, something similar happened to me too: the trainer came to us, then the manager suggested that I teach newcomers, I started - and off we went. Now I am teaching our functional trainers to teach other people.

There are people who can not speak?
Yes, but very rarely, just a couple of cases since 2006. In such circumstances, it is easier to pass the examination, make sure that another specialist understands everything and confirms his qualification - and after that he became a coach. It's easier for everyone.

How it all began?
Initially, just invited interesting people who are successful in business. They read their seminars for our then small company, or simply talked about life and work. And then it became more and more systemic. Now the company has a strong team of internal trainers. Only in 2014, five of our guys managed to get prizes at All-Russian professional competitions.

Want some theory and practice stories?
I teach functional trainers to work with people. That is, yes, I am a humanist who teaches technical experts to communicate with people and effectively transmit information. If it’s interesting, I’ll share with you a squeeze out of the express course for engineers “If you suddenly come out tomorrow” and their most frequent mistakes.