On June 20, 2024, the 2nd Alumni Day took place at ASH Berlin with 19 alumni, at which university members and graduates were able to exchange ideas and strengthen the connection. After a welcoming address by Vice Rector Prof. Dr. Gesine Bär, the participants discussed the alumni strategy of ASH Berlin presented by Kerstin Miersch, Alumni Manager of the university, and gave impulses for further development. Afterwards, the participants took advantage of two parallel workshops, each with a specific subject focus.
Prof. Dr. Elke Kraus, Professor of Occupational Therapy, led the workshop entitled "Evidence-based work in the therapy and nursing professions". The participants were particularly positive in their evaluation of the impetus for using evidence-based methods to improve quality and effectiveness in the therapeutic professions.
In her workshop, Prof. Dr. Claudia Winkelmann, Professor of Business Administration and Management in Health and Social Services and Professor of Quality Assured Structural Development in Studies and Teaching with a focus on continuing education, presented the concept of personnel development along life cycles with a view to the shortage of skilled workers in the SAGE professions. Among other things, the need for a rethink was discussed, as both the institution and employee perspectives are relevant, as is the promotion of long-term employees, career paths along the sine curve and horizontal career paths.
Overall, the Alumni Day provided a suitable framework for exchanging ideas and learning from one another, providing mutual inspiration and networking. For the first time, the Alumni Day was combined with the annual summer party organized at ASH Berlin. The Alumni Day ended in a very special atmosphere with talks, music and snacks.
The Alumni Day organizers, Kerstin Miersch and Dr. Claudia Winkelmann, met with Alumni Day participant and alumnus Marijo Zupanovic afterwards.
The current social entrepreneur studied physiotherapy at ASH Berlin from 2010 to 2013. After graduating, he successfully founded three physiotherapy practices with 45 employees in the south and center of Berlin. Valuable lessons can be learned from the feedback session for everyone involved...
Kerstin Miersch: Let's talk together about how we experienced the Alumni Day and why it was important for us. Mr. Zupanovic, would you like to briefly tell us what motivated you to come to the Alumni Day and invest a relatively large amount of time?
Marijo Zupanovic: There were several reasons. Firstly, it's been over ten years since I studied at ASH Berlin and I haven't been back to the university since. I wanted to see how the university has changed, which protagonists are there now. Secondly, I found the workshops incredibly interesting, especially the one on the shortage of skilled workers. I wanted to find more ways to better understand employees. Thirdly, I wanted to meet old colleagues and perhaps also establish new networks. Above all, I was interested in what problems other professions have and how they solve them. As a practice owner, I think a lot about how to organize my practices quantitatively but also qualitatively with my teams in such a way that we can begin to serve the large influx of patients. This is my biggest problem at the moment. This is precisely why I was happy to take this afternoon off. I'm delighted that we're reflecting on the Alumni Day together again today to see what we can do better so that alumni and networking are even more popular.
Claudia Winkelmann: Can you tell us more about your practices? What has happened in the ten years since you graduated and where are you now? This might also be interesting for students who say they want to become self-employed.
Marijo Zupanovic: I set up practices in Wilmersdorf, Lichterfelde and Zehlendorf with my partner, Filip Lisicki. After graduating, I initially worked as a freelancer. I later got together with Filip Lisicki and we both founded physioup, our first practice, in 2013. We quickly needed a lot of staff and benefited from the fact that I had networks at ASH Berlin. There were colleagues at the time who also studied here and promised me that they would switch to me when I was self-employed. That worked really well. I was able to build up a large interdisciplinary practice relatively quickly and recruit the necessary practice managers from the inner staff for the other practices. Without exception, practice managers who represent my values, which I helped to develop with the support of the lecturers at ASH Berlin. These values work very well for and with my employees. At the same time, I make sure that we continue to grow so that we can provide patients with the best possible care. To do this, I try to use all the options that present themselves.
Kerstin Miersch: Our alumni days should mutually reflect the interests of the alumni and the university. We know that our alumni are also busy and that we need to make an attractive offer. Were you able to network, were you able to talk to employers about how the problem is solved for you? Were you able to meet former colleagues? Was the workshop what you expected it to be? Was the workshop also practice-oriented?
Marijo Zupanovic: I learned a lot from the workshop. The saturation phase in particular, which Ms. Winkelmann talked about, was very interesting. I was able to find my own experiences there. That's how my employees experience it, that's the reason why they leave the company. It used to be that you started with one employer and wanted to be there for your entire working life. This "mindset" is over. I also had to realize that as an employer. I am currently trying to communicate with my employees in this way, as you recommended, what did you call it Ms. Winkelmann? Cooperation talks. I want to avoid my employees reaching the saturation phase too early. I'm interested in how much trust and how much additional responsibility my employees want to have in order to be satisfied in the company and to stay there. Accordingly, I try to live this in the same way. I have discussed this directly with my business partner so that our employees can develop for as long as possible in the growth and maturity phase and not look for a new employer. That's the one thing that really helped me a lot, so thank you once again.
Unfortunately, the networking and meeting colleagues didn't quite work out. I had the feeling that the Alumni Day wasn't very well received. But there's always a beginning. I will definitely promote it. It was worth it. So I would talk to my fellow alumni, regardless of whether they are employees or employers. At the same time, I am an internship supervisor at physioup for the 4th and 5th semester interns at the Wannsee School. I would also promote the alumni day and the university there.
Kerstin Miersch: I would like to go into more depth here. We always have discussions here at the university about whether we offer workshops that fit in with the content of our degree programs. We thought that topics such as personnel development or the shortage of skilled workers would fit - I hear from many degree courses that this is a problem. And are we able to find ourselves in the same room and talk about common interests despite all the differences in content? I can think of even more ad hoc.
Claudia Winkelmann: What interests do you mean, Ms. Miersch? Would you like to name a few?
Kerstin Miersch: For example, pay for specialists in the health and social professions, working conditions such as fixed-term contracts in the health and social professions, appreciation in general, recognition of activities that are caring and nurturing - in my opinion, there is also a lot of need for development in all the degree courses we offer. However, we also have people at the university who say: No, we do these workshops separately because we are so different in our training ideas. If we look at the list of participants, we see that alumni from all the major degree programs at ASH Berlin actually took part. So we were interprofessional. So it's not the case that the topic of personnel development only concerns health professionals, but also social work, education and training professionals.
How did you find the mix of professional groups? Was it a good fit or was it rather unfavorable?
Marijo Zupanovic: It was a perfect fit because, in the end, we are all pulling in the same direction. We want to improve healthcare and social services in Germany and it can't just be a manager problem or an employer problem, it's also an employee problem. If you don't have enough colleagues, you have to work more to get the work done in some way. If this increases the respective stress potential and thus reduces appreciation because you simply can no longer manage everything together, it's a joint problem. These are not separate issues in terms of content. These are issues for everyone, regardless of whether I am an employer or an employee, whether I work in a care facility, physiotherapy practice, youth club or daycare center. We need people, we need to develop processes to make the work evident and efficient. I agree with you 100 percent, we can't have working conditions that are so bad that people change jobs at some point only to encounter the next bad working condition. Instead, we need to make working conditions attractive again. That is why it is important that employers and employees come closer together and that a university like ASH Berlin works in this direction. ASH Berlin develops social skills that alumni can further develop as future employers and employees. So that the employer not only sees his point of view, namely the figures, satisfied patients and so on and so forth, but at the same time it must be seen how all this fits into the life concept of the employees. That's why I think a meeting like this alumni day is brilliant. People with different perspectives can exchange ideas. I thought it was a shame that so few people took part. But I'm convinced that will change. To do this, we need to hold it more often. Everyone must be able to benefit, an employee must be able to walk out of the event and say, wonderful, now I've had my say. The employer must benefit and think, yes, maybe I could attract more employees this way. The university must benefit by enrolling more students in this way.
Claudia Winkelmann: What topics should be addressed at the next Alumni Day so that we can arouse greater interest among alumni?
Marijo Zupanovic: There is a lot of talk about money these days. I want to understand how important the topic is for employees. At the same time, as a practice owner, I want to be able to explain that we have a huge discrepancy in the rules that the health insurance companies impose on us. For example, I studied osteopathy on the side. Among the students, there were colleagues in Dresden who only earned 16 euros. In contrast, I employ young professionals in my practices at 23 euros. There simply shouldn't be such large discrepancies, especially as health insurance companies in Germany pay our services more or less the same.
Claudia Winkelmann: How often would you like to see an Alumni Day like this and how long do you think would be appropriate? We have held the Alumni Day in both face-to-face and hybrid formats. Which format best suits your goals?
Marijo Zupanovic: For my taste, the workshops could have been even longer. We could certainly have had more discussions. Otherwise, I think organizing the event as a hybrid is the right thing to do. We heard the main criticism from participants: for many, an afternoon in the middle of the week is inconvenient, especially if alumni are working. But with long-term planning, an employer who sees value in Alumni Day will give employees time off. I support anything that helps to ensure that Alumni Day has a much greater resonance and that at some point more than 100 people take part. Like a tree that is now taking root and growing branches and twigs year after year.
Kerstin Miersch: I would like to reinforce that once again. Of course, it is also in our interest that alumni strengthen us in the field as ambassadors. They have been well qualified by us, pass it on directly or indirectly and promote us in this way. To stand up and say that without the Alice Salomonn University of Applied Sciences Berlin, I would not have been able to realize my practices in the form and with the social values that I do today, is simply wonderful, thank you very much for that Mr. Zupanovic.
It's not about establishing measures that go in the direction of an advertising block, but about naming positive things. That is of course a wish. At the same time, I can also think of the following answer to the question of why we should meet in an alumni network: To strengthen interprofessional collaboration. There are many professional reasons for a university to bring different professionals together and not to separate them.
Marijo Zupanovic: You raise exactly the right point. Everyone needs to be at the same table. That's why I'm in favor of interprofessional work, so that the individual disciplines know about each other, their goals, content and methods and the mutual boundaries. As an employer, I also work with occupational therapists and speech therapists. During my training, I had no connection at all with these professions. These professions and the interprofessional collaboration in my practices are now essential for the care of our patients.
