Insights from the Digital Communication for Public Officials Course: Enhancing Online Engagement and Innovation
Ivana Zlatanović, in her capacity as the Head of the Group for Quality Review for Financial Management and Control at the Serbian Ministry of Finance, recently participated in an online course that explored different aspects of effective, engaging, and goal-driven digital communication. Reflecting on the experience, Ms. Zlatanović highlights several factors that made this learning journey exceptionally meaningful.
“In the past year or two, I have had the opportunity to attend several CEF trainings and courses. Although I could write how much each of them helped me, I wish to reflect on the course Digital Communication for Public Officials.
In recent years, we have been focusing more and more on the online ways of working, and this training course was a chance for me to expand my knowledge and get acquainted with new tools to improve online communication.
The course lasted for several weeks, during which we learned about the evolution of communication, how to clearly communicate important information and achieve mutual understanding, and how to run online meetings that serve our purpose. Most importantly, we looked at different online tools, such as Mentimeter, Padlet, and Quizlet, that can support us in organizing interactive online events.
In the Central Harmonizing Unit, we have been trying to introduce innovations in our work. After attending the CEF training course, I applied the knowledge gained at the training course and used Mentimeter to organize our own training for internal auditors.
Since the use of online tools is a relatively new thing, both for us and for the internal auditors, who participated in this training called Competencies for the Work of Internal Auditors in the Public Sector and Tools for Evaluating Competencies, we asked them a few questions with Metrimeter, and we had an excellent response from them. In the picture, you can see one of the questions (“Write one word that best describes an internal auditor who does their job well”) and the answers that we got.
Using this tool during training helped us raise the energy of the participants and make them more active and focused on the topic. So, in the next online trainings, we will use several more tools that I got to know at the CEF training.
I will definitely continue to use all of them. And I also hope that the CEF will organize another training, where we will be able to learn more about various online tools that we can apply in our work.
I am grateful to the CEF team, who was very supportive, and I am looking forward to new trainings.”