To offer their trainees more than just a company event, the Sparkasse has come up with a special concept for their trainees this year. The 25th Sparkasse Day was meant to be an event with added value for the trainees. Often, a separate event for trainees is organized both spatially and programmatically. At Sparkasse, the trainees were involved in the process in order to create lasting value for them. Especially for newcomers to the company, it is important to get to know the other employees in the company.

Sparkasse Day 2016: Room for Interactions

The Sparkasse Day 2016 was embedded in a series of tasks for the trainees. The recipe for success here was: providing space for interactions, whether offline or online. The concept was developed by agateno and implemented with blink.it.

These contact points were implemented in various ways:

Getting to know each other via video chat

The virtual kickoff for the Sparkasse Day took place in a webinar. Small trainee groups from different regions were formed. Each group participated in several virtual meetings under the guidance of a mentor. During the video chat meetings, the participants got to know each other better and worked on tasks together. The results were presented on Sparkasse Day. In this way, the trainees could meet other trainees and collaborate.

Learning and interacting with video impulses

For the preparation for Sparkasse Day, agateno created short impulse videos for the trainers of Sparkasse. This personal approach was well received. Each video contains brief content and ends with a question. Questions were integrated into the videos to avoid passive consumption. The trainees answer these questions and write their opinions and comments in the discussion feature. These video impulses with exchange enable the sharing of experiences and reflection before the event. An elegant solution to link learning and interaction. We were impressed by how intensively the trainees used the comment feature on blink.it.

Couchsurfing with a mentor

During the event, instead of going to a hotel, it's onto the couch! The participating trainees look for 'couch mentors' at the event location and spend the night at other employees' homes at Sparkasse. How better to convey corporate culture?

Learning-by-doing with the help of video

During Sparkasse Day, two trainees accompany each other and document their experiences. In the 'follow me around,' the trainees create their own videos with their smartphones. This 'learning by doing' approach is probably the best way to improve media competence and provide trainees with exciting tasks. At the same time, the trainees produce authentic content for the company. These contents do not have to be highly polished. Once a minimal standard is reached (bright light, understandable sound, and stable image), the self-produced content is much more credible for viewers. Not only videos were contributed; impressions of Sparkasse Day were also captured with the smartphone camera and shared through the social media channels of Sparkasse.

How the trainees experienced Sparkasse Day is reported by the trainees themselves: http://www.ausbildung-sparkasse-mainfranken.de/erstes-azubi-camp-am-sparkassentag-2016/

Conclusion from blink.it: This was Sparkasse Day 2016

The cooperation with agateno and Sparkasse was very exciting for us. The connection of offline and online in the preparation of the event fully corresponds to our motto: '...the best of both worlds.' Do you moderate or accompany large events? We are interested in your ideas and are happy to help you find out what opportunities there are with blink.it.