Client case: From Fragmented Learning to the Tallinn e-Academy

How the City of Tallinn created a shared learning environment that supports continuous learning, knowledge sharing, and employee development across the entire organization.

The City of Tallinn is Estonia's capital city government, employing staff across a wide range of municipal authorities — from district administrations to specialist departments — all working to serve the city's residents. Supporting employee development has long been a strategic priority for the City of Tallinn. As the organization has grown, so has the need to ensure that every employee has equal access to learning opportunities, regardless of where they work. This vision led to the creation of the Tallinn e-Academy (TEA) — the City's shared digital learning environment, bringing together learning resources, knowledge, and development opportunities under one roof.

The challenge

Before 2020, learning across the City of Tallinn was not organized around a single environment. E-courses, training materials, recordings, and other learning resources were spread across different systems, making it difficult to provide employees with a consistent learning experience. The City wanted to move beyond simply offering training. The goal was to create a learning environment that supports continuous development, makes learning available regardless of time or location, and encourages employees to take ownership of their professional growth.

"We wanted to create a more systematic approach to learning across the organization and foster a culture where employees take ownership of their professional development."

Annika Tammik Training Specialist, Personnel Development Department City of Tallinn Personnel Service

What was getting in the way

One of the biggest challenges was ensuring a consistent onboarding experience. New employees joining different municipal authorities did not always receive the same essential knowledge, while learning resources were distributed across several platforms and communication channels. The City also wanted to make better use of internal expertise by creating learning resources that could be shared and reused across the organization instead of repeatedly delivering the same information through traditional training sessions.

"Another important driver was the need to support the onboarding of new employees in a more consistent way and to ensure that knowledge and learning opportunities were equally accessible across different municipal authorities."

Annika Tammik

Why Coursy

As a large public sector organization, the City of Tallinn was looking for a platform that was easy to use, scalable, and flexible enough to support learning across many different departments and professional groups. Beyond functionality, it was important that the platform could become part of the City's own learning identity, integrate with existing HR systems, support decentralized administration, provide reliable reporting, and offer good value for money.

Specifically, the City was looking for:

• support for structured onboarding through automatically assigned learning content;

• the ability to create interactive e-courses directly within the platform;

• integration with HR management systems;

• comprehensive reporting capabilities;

• automated learning assignments based on employee groups and roles;

• an e-library supporting self-directed learning;

• both mandatory and optional learning opportunities;

• a platform that could be visually customized to reflect the City of Tallinn's identity.

"Our decision to choose Coursy was primarily influenced by the fact that the platform met our key requirements while remaining intuitive and flexible to use. It enabled us to automate learning assignments, manage and share different types of learning content, and provided the reporting capabilities we needed."

Annika Tammik

What changed

Today, this learning environment is known internally as the Tallinn e-Academy (TEA). While powered by Coursy, TEA has become much more than a learning management system. It serves as the City's central environment for onboarding, mandatory learning, self-directed development, knowledge sharing, and professional growth. Perhaps the biggest change has been cultural. Learning is increasingly seen as a natural part of everyday work rather than a separate activity. When planning new development initiatives, learning professionals now consider which learning approach best supports the objective — whether e-learning, classroom training, blended learning, or existing digital resources. TEA has also strengthened knowledge sharing across the organization. Internal subject matter experts increasingly transform their expertise into reusable digital learning resources, making valuable knowledge accessible across municipal authorities and helping preserve organizational knowledge for the future.

"Since launching the Tallinn e-Academy, learning has become more systematic, accessible, and integrated into everyday work. Employees are more aware of their responsibility for their own professional development, and learning resources are available whenever they need them."

Annika Tammik

Benefits

The biggest benefits have been time savings, easier administration, and significantly better access to learning opportunities. Employees now know exactly where to find learning resources, while the organization benefits from consistent learning content that can be reused across departments instead of recreated repeatedly.

TEA has also made it easier to offer organization-wide learning initiatives — such as the City's anti-corruption e-course — ensuring that employees across different municipal authorities receive the same high-quality learning experience. At the same time, learning resources remain available long after formal training has ended, supporting continuous learning whenever employees need it.

"The platform also allows us to offer standardized learning content to all City of Tallinn employees — for example, our anti-corruption e-course — helping ensure a consistent level of knowledge across the organization. Learning resources also remain available after training, allowing employees to revisit materials whenever needed instead of relying solely on one-time training events."

Annika Tammik

Learner experience

Employees appreciate having all learning opportunities available in one place and being able to learn whenever it best fits their work. One of the greatest successes has been creating a consistent onboarding experience for every new employee across the City of Tallinn.

TEA has also become a platform for continuous learning, supporting self-directed development through its e-library and encouraging employees to share knowledge with colleagues. The growing number of internally created learning resources demonstrates another important shift: learning is no longer only something employees receive—it is increasingly something they actively contribute to.

"One successful example is our onboarding programme. Every new employee follows a consistent learning path, ensuring that everyone receives the same essential information regardless of which municipal authority they join."

Annika Tammik

In one sentence

"The greatest value Coursy has brought us is that it enabled us to build the Tallinn e-Academy — our organization-wide learning environment that supports continuous learning, knowledge sharing, and employee development across the City of Tallinn."

Annika Tammik

Would they recommend Coursy?

"Yes — to organizations looking to organize learning in a more systematic and sustainable way. The platform provides the flexibility to design learning journeys that fit an organization's needs, consolidate learning content into one place, and support both mandatory and self-directed learning. Based on our experience, the Coursy team has also been a valuable partner, willing to develop solutions together with us and support our evolving needs. For us, Coursy provided the foundation for building the Tallinn e-Academy — a shared learning environment that reflects how we see learning: as a continuous process, built on collaboration, knowledge sharing, and equal opportunities for every employee."

Annika Tammik