At Skills, the first training and HR agency in Serbia, we believe that investing in people, their education and skills, is a key component of every company’s success. We offer much more than “ordinary” training as we develop programmes to meet the needs of our clients
Although leadership, sales and developing influencer skills courses are being sought today as often as they were 20 years ago, there is a growing interest in assertive communication, resilience training or the ability to get up after a fall and do better next time, and in neuro-training.
When the first training and HR agency in Serbia was born 23 years ago, our companies hardly knew the expression ‘human resources’. We had long been the only ones in this business, and today, with no paid advertising, we can boast of nearly 40,000 participants and an impressive client list of more than 360 companies. Most of them, indeed 87%, came to Skills on a recommendation.
Skills was the first and for years the only one in this business in Belgrade and in Serbia. Today there are between 400 and 500 similar companies. But despite this, interest in Skills’ training has not flagged, among other things because it provides only in-house training – training for a single client.
Combining knowledge, skills, passion and innovation, working on yourself, listening to clients’ needs and requests, developing new programmes and constantly learning – the entire Skills team, starting with founder and CEO Dragan Djordjević, build upon the original story.
New: the original Brain-centric programme
“Most companies ignore the emotions and habits of their staff as an integral part of human behaviour, which has a negative effect on productivity, communication and results”, explains Dr Nikolaos Dimitriadis, a certified trainer, consultant and regional director of the International Faculty of Sheffield University, Citi College, Western Balkans, who holds neuro-training.
“This increases the level of stress and the risk of chronic illness and absenteeism, which ultimately has a negative effect on business results. Neuro-training allows you to become familiar with the main principles on which the human brain works, to develop empathy, creative thinking, focus, influence, collaboration and determination. because these are the qualities that business leaders need.”
“It started 23 years ago when after all the work I had done, I realized I was born to teach”, explains Mr Đorđević. “I worked in tourism and hotel management, in management and organization, I lived in Tunisia and London, I studied at every job and from all the people I worked with. I knew what a client was and how to recognize their needs and expectations, then I learned how to provide it.”
That Đorđević has found a winning combination – a great team and the right programmes – is shown by the list of satisfied clients who were initially able to choose from just a few training courses: today there are almost 40.
“This is the century of knowledge, not of technology. Technology is only the result of knowledge, learning, improvement and refinement”, says Đorđević, emphasizing that technology is not foreign to him. Quite the opposite.
People and communication have always been dearer and closer to him than computers, even though he is an IT engineer by profession, but this certainly makes it easier for him to adapt his work and his training to the times.
That is why Skills’ training premises experiencecenter.rs are equipped with high-definition AV systems and Samsung tablets for interactive training.