Rédaction Blog, Author at Coorpacademy

What if we were all SMEs? Training on a small scale

The majority (56%) of the employees who trained during the Covid are in large companies (2,000 or more), compared to about a quarter in companies with 10 to 49 employees, according to the study “Impact de la crise sanitaire sur les mobilités, les projets, les aspirations professionnelles, les compétences et le travail” (Impact of the health crisis on mobility, projects, professional aspirations, skills and work) conducted from March 2020 to May 2021 by the Céreq and coordinated by Ekaterina Melnik-Olive. Yet their needs in terms of tools and training are just as important as those of large companies, and sometimes even more impactful. So what if we were all SMEs?

The Swiss Federation for Continuing Education FSEA examined the influence of the coronavirus crisis on continuing education in SMEs earlier this year. According to the study, which was published on 10 May 2021, “a majority of companies attribute a high degree of importance to continuing education in coping with the effects of the pandemic.” As with large companies, “one third of SMEs surveyed indicate that employees need new or different skills”. Thus, training is an issue for all. However, SMEs are often obliged to make a quick return on the costs of training their employees, their expectations are immediate. Their employees therefore need concrete training that can be activated quickly. Increasing the skills of their teams is a race against the clock and against the constantly accelerating evolution of the markets. They are therefore looking for agile, digital solutions covering a variety of subjects, to meet the needs of their teams and their constraints.

Finally, what SMEs are looking for is a need that can be found in all companies, and it is a common benefit to demand that training provides a concrete and immediate benefit. To meet this legitimate demand, digital learning is an ideal solution, because training then becomes massive and accessible quickly, from anywhere, and for everyone. In addition to this increased accessibility, providing employees with a solution that can be accessed at the click of a button also saves a considerable amount of time, compared to face-to-face training systems. Employees can learn about different subjects from their workplace in just a few minutes.

Thus, we would all benefit from demanding training as much as SMEs do in terms of cost effectiveness and usefulness. Training on a “small scale” is just as necessary and impactful for business transformation, especially in the long term. If SMEs need solutions that can be activated quickly to meet their immediate needs, then digital learning solutions will be able to make training an automatic and a tool to prepare SMEs to become… large companies.

5 essential courses to sustainably transform the company through training

The ecological transition is an important axis of transformation for us, but also for the rest of the world. On the occasion of the Sustainability Week, which took place from 20 to 24 September 2021, discover the 5 essential courses to initiate the ecological transition of your company.

To learn is to understand

The causes of the ecological crisis are the first basics to acquire in order to understand the extent of the problem. Climate, pollution, biodiversity: the world’s ecosystems are in danger, and this is largely due to our social and economic system. The sustainable transformation of a company can only be effective if we also transform our personal and professional habits. The course “Understanding the ecological crisis“, co-edited with the College of Sustainable Development Directors (C3D), aims to provide the keys to understanding the ecological crisis, to enable professionals to understand the mechanisms at the origin of the ecological crisis, their interactions and their consequences.

Understanding the environmental crisis

Biodiversity, an often neglected natural capital

After understanding the extent of the ecological crisis, it is important to identify what the ecological crisis is jeopardising. Businesses need biodiversity to operate smoothly and sustainably. Yet businesses affect it as much as they depend on it. Biodiversity is essential to the proper functioning of all ecosystems, yet it is threatened by the ecological crisis. It is therefore time to act to protect it. Thus, the Coorpacademy course “Protection of biodiversity: an asset for companies“ transmits the best practices to preserve and enhance this natural capital, and allows all employees to be initiated into the challenges of the ecological transition.

Protecting biodiversity: an asset for companies

Transform in order to last

Are you up to date on the origins of the ecological crisis and its impact on biodiversity? It is time to learn how to transform the company. Our contemporary economic system, which is based on a model of infinite growth, is no longer viable. It is therefore crucial to understand how the company can reinvent itself to become sustainable? Thanks to the course “Preparing the company for the environmental transition“ co-edited with the College of Sustainable Development Directors (C3D), you will be able to guide the transformation through essential tools for the transition and by adopting the right reflexes in the face of change.

Preparing the company for the environmental transition

From a straight line to a virtuous circle

To go further and really revolutionise the current economic model, we recommend the course “The circular economy: from a straight line to a virtuous circle” co-edited with MySezame. Indeed, if we evolve in a world of finite resources, it has its limits and we are beginning to see these limits. It is therefore time to rethink our linear economy in order to transform it into a virtuous and above all, sustainable circle.

The Circular Economy: From a Straight Line to a Virtuous Circle

What does this mean in practice?

Once you have developed and tested your theoretical knowledge of sustainable transformation, it is time to look at CSR approaches. Starting a CSR approach depends on each company. Each company can act on its own scale and have a greater or lesser impact on its sector, but how do you start or transform your own CSR approach? To guide you, discover through the Coorpacademy course “Sustainable transformation: success stories and business cases“ 3 very different companies that have integrated CSR into their strategy based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. A course to give you the keys to action to positively impact society.

Sustainable Change: Success Stories and Business Cases

Large-scale training is essential to transform the company. By massively training employees on crucial sustainable development issues, and by raising awareness of the consequences that our human activities can have on ecosystems, we are gradually changing the rules of the game; and it is by sustainably transforming the company that we will be able to play longer. To go further, discover Coorpecology, the online training platform dedicated to sustainable transformation!

The HR themes of the recovery: what are the skills to develop to go back to work serenely?

September is the end of the vacations and the return to the office, but it is also the time to start all over again, the beginning of a new chapter. This new school year is particular, it follows a long period where individuals and companies had to adapt in record time. In a world in upheaval, what are the key HR issues of 2021? What skills are already essential to meet the challenges of the new year? Let’s discover the chapter that is being written.

Transforming to last

The list of skills you can develop by accessing the more than 1,800 courses available in our premium content catalog covers all those deemed indispensable by the World Economic Forum for 2025.

This year, the most sought-after topics on our platforms reflect the upheavals that companies and their organizations are facing. The key competencies to support managerial, digital, cultural and organizational transformations are widely represented in the catalog, as shown by the top 5 competencies covered in terms of number of courses offered.

Continuous learning to evolve in a changing world

Learning allows you to progress and evolve, and in a context as changing as the one we know today, it is a key to ensuring the relevance of the skills you will develop to face the challenges that the future holds.

So which courses make you want to learn the most? Let’s find out in the top 5 most played courses of 2021:

The course “Communicate effectively to collaborate better” co-edited with Dunod Formation, which gains 2 places compared to the 2020 ranking.
The Coorpacademy course “Big Data”, which loses 1 place compared to the 2020 ranking, but which remains a must!
The course “Adopt an agile culture” published by Coorpacademy, which enters the Top 5 by gaining 4 places compared to the 2020 ranking.
The course “Solving complex problems with the 4S method” co-edited with Bernard Garrette and Olivier Sibony, which also makes a triumphant entry in this Top 5 2021, gaining 10 places compared to the 2020 ranking.
The course “1 hour to stop stressing and stay zen” co-edited by Dunod Formation, which remains in the Top 5 despite losing one place compared to the 2020 ranking

Key skills for the future

Training plays a crucial role in ensuring that your employees develop their skills and adapt to the new expectations of the job market.

In view of the top 5 skills consumed in the 2nd quarter of 2021, our learners are already ready to serenely apprehend the uncertainties of tomorrow’s world:

Topics that are on the rise

The skills found in the top 5 skills consumed in 2021 do not vary so much from those whose consumption is growing fastest in Q2 2021. The need to meet new employee expectations and adapt to new ways of working is only intensifying. Not surprisingly, digital literacy skills are on the rise, as the digital transformation of companies is never done.

The start of the HR season will not take place without the transformation of companies, and consequently, not without an increase in the skills of all employees. To accompany them in the changes that are already concrete, soft skills will be essential.

Thus, to apprehend the start of the 2021 school year, we recommend:

To know and understand the technological evolutions that are taking place more and more rapidly;
Develop your ability to identify, understand and react appropriately to the emotions of others in order to promote team cohesion;
Demonstrate flexibility and agility to respond effectively to current and future developments
Successfully leverage relevant company data to create value
Manage your teams in the best conditions, including remotely, while making good use of diversity
To learn continuously on Coorpacademy, to increase your skills while having fun!

It is better to have 1 engaging course than 1000 boring courses

Most Digital Learning providers rely on a platform that provides a large library of content from various experts to cover as many topics as possible. While this may be a useful argument for HR decision-makers looking to provide employees with as much training content as possible, is it really the best approach to effective learning?

Wanting to learn

Do you remember, in high school, when looking at the clock slowed down time? Strangely enough, as soon as you participated, time returned to its normal course… Today, thanks to cognitive science, we can explain this phenomenon in a rational way. During our schooling, we get used to learning in a passive way, sitting on our chair, raising our hand and waiting for someone to give us the right – or wrong – answer. This pedagogical approach is based on the transmission of knowledge, and is centered on the teacher, who comes to deliver his knowledge in a unilateral way. The exchange is restricted, participation is a privilege. Beyond the inequalities that passive learning creates – and reinforces – within a class, we want to address the reasons why this method of learning is ineffective in terms of deep learning and retention of information.

At Coorpacademy, our pedagogical team, at the origin of the creation and co-edition of all the courses of our premium content catalog, relies on active learning. As you will have understood, this pedagogical approach is centered on the learner, and not on the teacher. Our quiz-based courses are based on the flipped learning method: we ask the questions, and it’s up to the learner to draw on their knowledge to test their skills! Because the learner is also involved in the learning process, his or her cognitive biases are more stimulated, which will encourage attention and retention of information. From then on, the learner is committed to his training, which he sees as a real opportunity to progress, for his own benefit.

Engaging and quality content

What differentiates Coorpacademy courses from all the other courses that you may play in your life, is the quality and relevance of the content to your training needs. Indeed, if our unique pedagogy and our functionalities borrowed from gaming are key assets to engage learners, the quality and the relevance of the content of our courses are essential for a real rise in competence.

To ensure that our courses deliver truly effective content, our educational team is still on the job. Thus, all the courses in our catalog are created by our pedagogical team or co-created with partner publishers, experts on certain subjects. Moreover, if you wish to know more about the recipe of Coorpacademy courses, we advise you to read the interview of Solène Rascle, educational engineer. Everything that is given to learn: the reading of documents, the viewing of our short course videos, and the course questions are read and reread by our pedagogical engineers, who carry out an important work of verification of sources, to ensure the relevance of the information contained in the course.

Stimulate curiosity

Continuous learning is about being curious throughout your life. Curiosity is an essential quality to progress, because if we focus on what we already know, we don’t have the opportunity to evolve. So our courses are also designed to stimulate the learners’ curiosity. As soon as they answer a question, a screen to explain the answer appears. Whether the answer is right or wrong, one element always appears: a “Did you know? This insert is an opportunity to complete the answer while amusing the learner with general or unusual information.

This little insert is also a way of saying to our learners: keep learning! Sure, you got the right answer, but learning never stops, there is always information that can add to your knowledge, and that’s why continuous learning is essential to progress.

In conclusion, for effective learning, interaction with course content is far more impactful than interaction with a large number of courses. The more learners are stimulated in their learning, the more effective the courses will be. With the active learning mode, the cognitive engagement of learners is reinforced by the manipulation of information, or by an action on their part. Thus, their attention is required, not to say solicited. In short, it is better to have 1 very engaging course, which makes the learner interact with the learning material, than to follow 1000 courses where the only interaction is that of your mouse clicking on pause, because you stopped following what was said 10 minutes ago.

10 questions to ask yourself to build a digital learning request for proposal

Writing a request for proposal (RFP) is not an exercise that can be improvised! If you are currently reading this introduction, it is because you are looking for a digital learning solution to meet specific needs. The more concise and clear your request is, the better the proposals will be adapted to your needs. However, be careful not to be too specific to leave room for creativity!

So at Coorpacademy, we have worked together with our sales team to provide you with the best advice to build your digital learning RFP! Ready to take notes?

Who am I?

To start writing your RFP, don’t hesitate to provide some context! Describing your company and the environment in which you operate is a good introduction to better understand your challenges. This first part allows you to get to the heart of the matter: the key objectives of the project you wish to implement.
Why do I need a digital learning solution?

If you are writing an RFP, it is because you have key objectives concerning the training of your employees, and more broadly, objectives for the transformation of your company. Define them clearly, so that the proposals you receive will meet your objectives precisely. Do not hesitate to define a priority objective, if this is the case, and to detail the different key points.
Who is this solution for?

Training your employees is essential. But not all employees learn in the same way, do not have the same training time or are simply not concerned by the same learning themes. Therefore, do not hesitate to detail the profile of your target population: what functions are they composed of? What are the different levels of seniority? And so on. Once you have defined the target population, don’t forget to specify the number. This is crucial to ensure that the solutions proposed to you are adapted to your expectations in terms of content but also in terms of price!
What are the key issues I want to address in my training program?

In order to meet your strategic objectives, you need to identify the key themes that you want to make available to your employees. If your population is divided into several job types and the skills and themes are varied, it is useful to specify the themes by target population! Are you looking to develop the soft skills of your employees and make them more agile, creative or adaptable? Or are your needs more focused on developing hardskills, such as mastering a new computer language or learning a new foreign language? By specifying your needs, the proposals that will be made to you will be able to concretely offer you impactful and individualized content. Ideal for engaging your learners in your (next) e-learning solution!
How quickly do I want to make the solution available to my employees?

From the moment you issue your call for tenders, you issue a need. In order to specify your request, it is essential to define a deployment schedule, as well as its modalities. When do you want to make your digital learning solution available to your entire target population? This information allows service providers to propose a deployment schedule that is adapted to your expectations, based on available resources.
How is my training ecosystem currently constituted?

To maximize the usefulness of your next digital learning solution, it is important to choose the way you want to deploy it. Do not hesitate to specify in your request for proposal how your training ecosystem is organized and how this new solution will be integrated into this ecosystem in order to facilitate the implementation of the chosen solution. Do you want to create a new platform that is accessible on all media or do you want to integrate this solution with your learning management system? These elements will allow providers to give you a complete and precise answer on the possibilities of deployment and on the time needed to make the solution accessible to the greatest number of people.
What are the key features I want in my digital learning solution?

Finding the right e-learning solution for you is a first step, but it must also meet the needs of your employees! Engaging learners in training is crucial for effective and sustainable skills development. To ensure that the solution you implement is the most suitable, it is useful to specify your expectations in terms of functionality. What are the expected differentiating elements? Among the multitude of choices you have on the digital learning market, are you looking for a gamified platform, which uses the codes of video games to engage learners, or do you prefer to choose a platform that relies on a catalog of content designed through a specific pedagogy and focused on the learner? These questions are essential to choosing the right platform for you!
In what format do I want to receive the responses to my RFP?

Once you have clearly defined your expectations for the proposed solution, define the expected response methods for your call for tenders. To ensure compliance and to save time when evaluating the various proposals, you can specify the format in which you would like to receive the responses from the service providers and in what structure.
How does my decision process work?

Finally, do not hesitate to detail your decision process, i.e. to communicate to the providers the desired response date as well as the next steps in the process, so that the project proceeds in the best possible conditions.
How can potential providers reach me?

You can close your call for tenders by giving service providers the opportunity to contact you via a contact section, so that they can ask you questions if necessary or send you any information that may be useful in your decision-making process.

We are pleased to announce that Coorpacademy is officially certified Qualiopi.

We are pleased to announce that Coorpacademy is officially certified Qualiopi.

Made compulsory in France on January 1, 2022 for all providers of actions contributing to the development of skills, this certification attests to the qualitý of the process and services offered by training providers and also allows access to public or mutualized funding.

This certification is an additional guarantee of the seriousness and quality of Coorpacademy’s services, which therefore already meets the requirements of the National Quality Reference published by the Ministry of Labor.

Thank you to our teams for the quality of the work accomplished and to our customers for the trust they place in us!

Qualiopi  is the name of the quality certification mark for training providers. Its objective is to attest the quality of the process implemented by the providers of actions contributing to the development of skills. This certification is a legal obligation to benefit from public or mutualized funds. Law no. 2018-771 of September 5, 2018 for the freedom to choose one's professional future provides in its Article 6 for an obligation of certification, by a third-party organization (CERTIFOPAC), of organizations carrying out actions contributing to the development of skills on the basis of a single national reference system, if they want to benefit from public or mutualized funds (financing by a skills operator, by the commission mentioned in Article L. 6323-17-6, by the State, by the regions, by the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, by Pôle emploi or by Agefiph). 
Please note: the national quality reference framework is organized around 7 criteria linked to 22 indicators that apply to all providers (common core), plus 10 indicators specific to apprenticeship or certification training. 


The "Qualiopi" mark aims to  
- attest to the quality of the process implemented by the providers of actions contributing to the development of skills; 
- make the training offer more readable for companies and users.

https://travail-emploi.gouv.fr/formation-professionnelle/acteurs-cadre-et-qualite-de-la-formation-professionnelle/article/qualiopi-marque-de-certification-qualite-des-prestataires-de-formation

Traveling abroad builds soft skills

August is coming to an end and with it, the taste of vacation. This month, we’ve told you about the formative virtues of travel. In this article, we would like to refer to another type of travel – perhaps one of the most formative – to which we want to refer. Whether you are a student or an employee, it is often advisable to gain international experience. In fact, you may know someone who is preparing for an Erasmus exchange year for one of their children or someone who is moving to a country with a different time zone. But even if it is only for a short period of time, travelling abroad is extremely useful to develop your soft skills!

Interacting better with colleagues

Communicating with people from different cultures can be difficult. In the world of work, corporate culture differs greatly from country to country, and if you want to successfully build relationships, work in different regions, or simply visit a subsidiary or colleague abroad, it is essential to be comfortable with cultural differences!

When you travel abroad, you are confronted with the unknown, both literally and figuratively. You discover the behaviors of a society that is different from the one you know, and you witness the customs that govern it. To interact smoothly with the inhabitants of this country, avoiding misunderstandings, you will identify the attitude, vocabulary and communication approach best suited to your interlocutor. This way, as soon as you return from your trip, you will be ready to interact with people from different cultural backgrounds.

To go further: Cross cultural communication

Training your memory

Going on a trip requires a lot of organization, and we often leave with several things in mind. Train tickets, check; hotel reservations, check; knowing how to say thank you in Italian, check; so much information that puts our memory to work, especially when we find ourselves in front of the waiter and end up stammering a timid “grazie”.

Thus, when we travel, we stimulate a specific part of our brain: the prefrontal lobe and more particularly the hippocampus, this part of the cortex which allows us to pass from a short-term memory to the long-term memory. The hippocampus receives all the information decoded in the different sensory areas of the cortex, and sends it back to where it came from. A sort of sorting center that compares new sensations with those already recorded. The hippocampus reinforces the links between the different characteristics of a thing, and by dint of repeating the links between these new elements, the cortex will have learned to link the different characteristics itself to make what we call a memory.

Thus, when you are traveling abroad, your hippocampus is strongly stimulated, which improves your ability to memorize information in the long term!

To go further: Boost your memory

Improve your English – if you’re not an native English speaker

Well, English is still the most widely spoken international language in the world, with 1.348 billion native and second language speakers. Mastering English is essential for professional success and for interacting in multicultural environments.

Going abroad means practicing your English – unless you are a language whiz and have mastered the national language of the country you are going to – and improving your speaking skills. Speaking in a foreign language is not always easy. It can be stressful and impact the way you deliver information, describe a situation or express a feeling. In fact, travel allows you to confront this challenge and get used to speaking a language that you don’t practice often enough.

To go further: Holding a meeting in English

Are companies prepared to deal with short-term environmental disasters?

On Monday, August 9, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presented the first of three reports expected by 2022 as part of its sixth climate assessment cycle. This new report presents the current state of knowledge on the climate crisis, its origins, causes and impacts, and on possible actions to respond to the environmental emergency. The findings of this report represent a final warning to individuals, but especially to governments and businesses around the world.

“Life on earth can recover from major climate change by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems. Humanity cannot.” – IPCC report

The urgency is not new, but it has never been so current.

Established in 1988 at the request of the G7, the 7 richest countries, by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program, the IPCC synthesizes and assesses research conducted in laboratories around the world. Its fifth report, released in 2014, had already concluded that the human influence on climate systems was clear. But the new report, the sixth since 1990, allows the organization to be even more incisive about the direct link between human activity and current global warming.

If these reports provide essential elements to limit the extent of global warming and the severity of its impacts, it is up to governments, businesses and individuals to collectively organize and take concrete action in the face of the facts highlighted.

What is currently happening in the world, such as the megafires all over the planet from California to the Mediterranean basin or Australia, are the direct consequences of climate change. And as the IPCC report concludes, directly linked to human activity. The consequences exposed by scientists for several years are a strong argument for action, yet this sixth report still has the effect of a bomb. Today, humanity does not have time for a seventh report, we already know the conclusions, but we can contribute to write a few lines, if we act now.

The ecological crisis: a risk for companies

In our model of infinite growth and exploitation of (limited) natural resources, only a radical transformation of our modes of production, consumption and lifestyle can limit the catastrophic consequences for which we are responsible.

“Our current mode of development, based on a linear economy, is not sustainable.” – Célestine Julien, Inter-Company Pathway Manager (GR20²°) at MySezame – In what world do we want to live in 30 years?

In business, environmental risk refers to the possibility of an accident occurring in a company, which would have harmful repercussions – direct or indirect – on the environment, people, company employees and the company’s objectives and reputation. Today, not only is this environmental risk unavoidable, but it also impacts the environment in which the company operates, i.e. the external factors that influence the proper functioning of a company, such as political, environmental, societal and economic aspects. The company’s strategy must then identify the climate emergency and evaluate how it impacts and threatens its activity. If the ecological transition is so necessary, it is because companies will not be able to exist in a world that is disappearing, or at least will not be able to survive if they do not accelerate their adaptation to climate change, the consequences of which we are already seeing.

The IPCC report is clear. If global warming is limited to +2.0°C instead of +1.5°C, sea levels will rise by +30cm to +93cm, impacting more than 10 million people and the number of people affected by drought will increase by +410 million. Through these impacts, climate change is already influencing migration worldwide, and the United Nations predicts 200 million climate refugees by 2050. The impact of the migration crisis on the political and economic environment is obvious.

And internal consequences

Our modes of production are not sustainable. If the resources on which we depend are finite, it is not a shortage that we will face, but an impossibility to produce at all. Already following the pandemic, traders and businesses have faced a major shortage of raw materials, as in Canada where accumulated droughts and heavy rains have caused a drop in production and a rise in wheat prices. But in a few years, shortages may prove much more difficult to overcome. Reduced production, higher raw material prices, loss of personnel, the consequences of the ecological crisis on the production cycle is a risk that companies cannot ignore.

Beyond the political, economic and logistical aspects, the ecological crisis also impacts a resource that is essential to business: people. On a personal level, we are all witnesses to this catastrophe, and we can sometimes feel even more helpless in the face of the emergency. Of course, we can each participate in the collective effort, but we are also aware that the emergency requires a radical and global change in our society. Thus, the anxious and cataclysmic environment in which we evolve every day with a feeling of powerlessness, has an impact on our personal well-being – not to say our mental health. In addition, the expectations of employees – and particularly of the new generations – have changed. To flourish, their work must have meaning and their values must be in line with those of the company.

The world as we know it today will no longer exist in a few years. To keep existing, companies will have to reinvent themselves, adapt and train in order to avoid the risks they face. If the ecological crisis has direct impacts on the company’s environment, it also has indirect consequences on its internal functioning. The strategy must therefore be aligned with this new reality, and the entire organization must adapt in order to anticipate certain now inevitable repercussions on their activities and businesses.

Because the problem is complex, the solutions will be in essence innovative. To act now, discover Coorpecology, the first training platform dedicated to the ecological transition. To quickly train all employees and give them the keys to build a viable future. Sustainable transformation can’t wait any longer, click here to learn more.

Organizational change: a collaborative approach

As we witnessed during the pandemic, developing the adaptive capacity of individuals and organizations is crucial to ensure their proper functioning. Because the future is unpredictable and the world is changing as quickly as customer expectations are rising, adaptation is a necessary disposition to meet current and future challenges. Nevertheless, when a company has to adapt, its entire organizational structure has to be rethought and transformed. Therefore, what skills are essential to initiate and sustain this change?

The pillars of change

An organization is first and foremost a human adventure, and to progress, people have to introspect. To remain competitive, improve their productivity or attract new customers, companies must also question themselves, evolve and adapt. The major transformation processes allow for the emergence of more responsible, digital and agile corporate cultures, to adapt to the objectives and constraints that a company encounters within its own ecosystem.

A company is also strongly influenced by its culture, and culture is only the result of who we are. As the heart of the company, employee involvement is key to organizational transformation. It is around the employees that the company’s structure and operating methods are organized. The human factor is essential to initiate organizational changes and the revision of the company’s structure, because it is at the center of the organization.

To engage employees in the transformation, everything possible must be done to support them through the stages of change. It is at this point that the role of the manager is as important as that of the HR function, as both are responsible for implementing the necessary actions to ensure a smooth transition.

The HR function at the heart of the transformation

If employees are the pillars of transformation, the HR function is the foundation. First of all, the HR function, as its name suggests, provides the company with the organizational and human capacities necessary to achieve its strategic objectives. It has a global view, enabling it to understand all the organizational issues and changes required to achieve the objectives. The HR function is responsible for creating the conditions for the company’s strategy to be realized, and this of course includes the field of corporate culture.

Not only because it contributes to the definition of strategy and drives change, but also because it identifies the key skills to be developed to transform the organization, through its training and recruitment strategy. By organizing the expertise of each person, but also by attracting new talent, the HR function is essential for successful organizational transformation.

Management that guides the transition

Evolving in an uncertain context, companies must adapt more and more rapidly. Business strategy must change in response to the changing environment, and with it, organizational and human capabilities. The most agile companies – those that identify strategies quickly and adapt – have a major competitive differentiation asset to ensure their sustainability. When it comes to aligning with the company’s new strategy, organizational and human capabilities must evolve, transform. And it is largely the responsibility of management to involve and engage employees in the transformation. To better help employees overcome the challenges and changes they face, managers must be leaders who inspire and guide their teams. However, any major transformation cannot be achieved without identifying the essential skills that will enable the change to take place.

3 essential skills to transform your organization

Manage your team and encourage collaboration

As the human factor is the driving force of transformation, it is essential to encourage the development of its teams. New technologies, digital giants and start-ups are revolutionizing managerial practices to adapt to the new expectations of employees. To initiate change and foster organizational transformation, adopting a reinvented, collaborative and innovative managerial model is one of the keys to success.

The keys to emancipatory management

The ability to adapt

Strategies evolve, and the organization must adapt to the type of strategy chosen. As the organizational structure depends on the company’s strategy, it is also important for employees to develop their ability to adapt, to evolve with the strategy. Today, the environments in which companies evolve are so changeable and unpredictable that they are referred to as “VUCA” environments: Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus). These contexts require organizations to rely on the agility of their organizational capabilities and to develop their capacity to adopt change.

Operating in a VUCA environment

Shift into leadership mode to engage teams

For a successful transformation, cohesive leadership is essential. Being a leader means being able to embody the change with employees and engage them in turn. Leaders are the masters of organizational transformation, as they influence their teams to engage them in the change.

The Fundamentals of Leadership

In conclusion, organizational transformation is intrinsically linked to the company’s strategy. When the company’s strategy evolves, the other strategy follows and the entire organization must adapt in order to provide itself with the means to succeed.

Future of training: a review of the round table between Coorpacademy, OpenClassrooms, Simbel and Brighteye Ventures

The training sector has learned some important lessons from the pandemic. Closed training rooms, bans on meetings, lockdowns, remote working that breaks the link between employees and employee motivation, the challenges created by this crisis were numerous for HR functions. How have they met the challenge? What future for the training sector? A look back at the round table discussion between the co-founders and investors of the leading EdTech companies in France: Coorpacademy, OpenClassrooms, Simbel and Brighteye Ventures.

Training to meet the challenges of COVID19

The LearnEverywhere webinar “The Need for Training in Times of Crisis” sheds light on how some organizations have had to adapt in a very short time. At the beginning of 2020, face-to-face training experienced a real upheaval. The sudden crisis forced companies to react very quickly to manage the cancellation of planned classroom sessions. One of the first challenges was to manage the immediate emergency by cancelling and communicating about these unprecedented changes. As a result, 97% of public sector training was affected by the crisis, as well as 80% of French presential training. (1)

The second phase of crisis response is adaptation. Once the emergency has been managed in the short term, and the future of the crisis is a little better defined, organizations revisit the training plan and make choices between what to cancel for good, what to postpone and what to convert to distance learning, through digital learning. This stage requires a lot of work to redesign course materials and to support trainers in mastering the technological tools. Thus, the crisis marks a real revolution in training, which is becoming digitalized at an exponential rate. In fact, 85.2% of European training managers believe that the crisis has accelerated the digitalization of training. (1)

Paradoxically, in times of crisis, training becomes even more essential. Especially when the crisis forces us to organize ourselves differently, to use new tools and when it disrupts our lifestyles. It is then necessary to accompany the employees so that they appropriate the new tools and understand their functioning, their usefulness, and what is at stake. Thus, to ensure team training, some companies have opted for virtual classrooms (73%), for the company’s LMS platforms (54%) and for third-party digital platforms for off-the-shelf content (28%). Among the topics to be covered are: getting to grips with the tools thanks to digital acculturation, training on how to work remotely, but also how to manage remotely, and finally, training more focused on the well-being of employees, which is essential in these difficult times.

Unsurprisingly, the pandemic has caused an unprecedented disruption in the entire professional training sector, shaking up our habits and giving us the opportunity to rebuild everything.

The future of learning

But while the word recovery is talked about everywhere, what future do we want to shape for training, which is crucial to the smooth running of businesses?

The crisis has had several positive impacts on the EdTech sector. By forcing companies to operate remotely, they were forced to invest in digital learning and finally adopt it. As a result of the crisis, online training was able to prove itself, and training managers were able to test and discover the tool, which they might not have done before. Due to the cancellation of face-to-face sessions, the budget that was previously earmarked for this purpose was redistributed to finance the digital transformation. So the future of training is indeed digital, or at least hybrid, to keep face-to-face sessions when the subject matter lends itself to it, or to diversify the formats. Thus, after the crisis, 73.8% of companies will increase the share of online training in their training offerings. (1)

Another conclusion from this crisis is the need to diversify formats. To engage learners in their learning, it is crucial to innovate and develop different ways of learning, through various media. For example, at Coorpacademy, we attach great importance to pedagogical innovation. Therefore, we have developed many formats such as Escape Game, audiolearning or other formats inspired by games like Trivial Pursuit. Diversifying formats is a key to making training a pillar of your company, because it allows you to engage but above all, to encourage information retention. That’s why, after the crisis, 58.5% of companies are willing to innovate in training formats. (1)

Finally, what will define the future of the training sector is also the evolution of the job market, which will require an evolution in skills. The World Economic Forum has already stated that by 2025, the job market will have undergone two major upheavals: job losses related to increased automation and the economic repercussions of the COVID19 pandemic.

These two disruptions combined could displace an estimated 85 million jobs. Thus, the World Economic Forum lists the 10 key skills to be acquired to face this profound disruption. These skills, mostly soft skills, are the future of employment, but also the future of training. Among these skills, we find resilience, agility, leadership, creativity, etc. It is therefore crucial for digital learning players, but also for HR functions in charge of training, to do everything possible to help employees develop the skills of tomorrow’s world.

In conclusion, the future of training will be digital and varied. Between the hybridization of training, offering face-to-face sessions combined with a digital training platform, and the need to diversify formats, training is at the dawn of its metamorphosis. It is up to us, EdTech players, training managers and employees, to accompany these changes, to integrate them and to define the best possible strategy to move forward serenely together, learning continuously to guarantee the employability of all!

Sources

(1) Talentsoft Study – The impact of COVID-19 on the Training Departments

Learn Everywhere #6 : The need for training in times of crisis
SNCF x Coorpacademy: The rise of digital learning

Coorpacademy’s blog – The 10 key skills to be developed by 2025

Author: Rédaction Blog