Rédaction Blog, Author at Coorpacademy

The Coorpacademy course recipe: interview with Solène Rascle, educational engineer at Coorpacademy

Engaging learners in their learning is one of the main missions of Coorpacademy. The objective is to enable employees to continuously learn, in order to guarantee their employability in an uncertain world and a changing job market. But how to create innovative, qualitative and engaging content? What methodology should be applied? These are some of the questions we wanted to ask Solène Rascle, educational engineer in our content team and who co-constructs the courses in the premium content catalog with partner publishers.

Not everyone is familiar with the job of educational engineer. Straddling the line between engineering and teaching, the job title can sometimes lead to confusion. Nevertheless, training engineering is evolving rapidly as it becomes more digital and as learners show an interest in diverse and innovative formats.

In this interview, discover the job of educational engineer and go behind the scenes of Coorpacademy!

To begin this interview, introduce yourself in a few sentences…

I am Solène, educational engineer at Coorpacademy! To give you an idea of my background, I have always been quite knowledgeable about education and training. I started in teaching, I have notably taught French in London or organized cultural and academic programs for international and American students in France / Paris. I have always loved learning, discovering, sharing, and as I like to invest myself in various activities, I thought I could blossom in the field of e-learning.

The job of educational engineer is not yet very well known, it is a term that I discovered myself with Coorpacademy. Could you describe the main missions of this position?

So to begin with, you can imagine that I also discovered this job by applying to Coorpacademy! In fact, an educational engineer is in charge of designing a learning path, designing courses, learning experiences, all of this to train a given public on various subjects. Hence the name of engineer, which concerns the design, creation and implementation of training devices adapted to a public of learners, and to which is added the whole pedagogical part, so that the training devices meet the fixed pedagogical objectives.

How does the educational engineer create a course? Is there a methodology specific to Coorpacademy?

First of all, several factors can influence the way a course is created. First, it depends on the educational engineer in question, but also and above all on the target audience, the subject of the course, the objectives and the company or the partner publisher! At Coorpacademy, we have our own method for building courses. Our unique pedagogy is based on several pillars. We start by asking questions to the learner, who can then play the short course video whenever they wants. This is the principle of inverted pedagogy: the learner is involved from the beginning of the course and everyone can progress at their own pace! So at Coorpacademy, when we work on a course, we must first keep this format in mind. Then, we must also think about the fun aspect of our courses, with quizzes, battles between learners, and stars and lives to accumulate. The gamification of training invites the instructional engineer to think of these courses in an entertaining format, which makes the course and the learning experience more fun and engaging, as opposed to the classic course format, which we already know by heart.

To build a course, you must first master the subject matter, and for that, we work with partner course publishers, or experts. We have the pedagogical expertise, but not the expertise on all the subjects we will cover in the premium content catalog, which already includes more than 1,700 courses! So, when we have to think about creating a course, we talk to those who have the expertise on the subject, our role being to take ownership of it, to understand what is at stake, to define the pedagogical objectives and the skills that the learners will have developed as a result of the course.

Could you give us a recipe for creating a course at Coorpacademy?

Of course! First of all, you will need essential ingredients: curiosity, desire to learn, a zest of humour and a good dose of rigour. As far as the recipe is concerned, I invite you to follow the following steps:

Step 1

For a successful Coorpacademy course, start by getting to grips with the subject. Once you have a good grasp of the subject on which the course will be focused, you can define the pedagogical objectives with the client or partner. These elements are crucial to building a course architecture. With this detailed plan, we will be able to think about and define which essential ideas we want to convey, in which order we want to organize the ideas, in how many chapters and, above all, in how many levels.

Step 2

Once the course architecture is ready, let it rest, the better to make the dough rise! In non-cooking terms, this means leave yourself some time to analyze the course progression: is it coherent? Is there a gradation in terms of difficulty of the questions? What format would be most appropriate to best address the topic? All these questions are essential to ensure that the pedagogical objectives are achieved.

At Coorpacademy, it is on this basis that we will then produce all the course content, making it engaging with short and entertaining videos! To remain in the analogy of the recipe, it is a bit like the cherry on the cake.

Step 3

You’re almost there, but there’s still a lot of preparation to do: this is the production of the videos, which are our main course materials. To begin, write a script. This writing step may require working with an editor (external or partner). Once the script is finalized in your hands, it’s time to taste the dish: proofreading! And if it’s not to your liking, the ideas are not clearly stated or the tone is not appropriate, make the necessary changes. Finally, it’s time to cook! The videos are produced, and naturally, this step will also require you to pay attention to the final production, even if it means cooking a little longer.

Step 4

The oven is ringing! The course materials are ready and it is time to assemble them. On the basis of the courses, therefore the scripts, you will be able to write the inevitable quizzes, the Coorpacademy trademark. To make sure that the dish will be delicious, you have to put yourself in the shoes of those who will taste it! So, we put ourselves in the place of the learner, we try to vary the question formats (True or false, multiple choice, situation, illustrated questions, etc.) and to vary the situations. In fact, the hardest part is often finding the wrong answers! They should not be too obvious, nor too complicated.

Step 5

It’s time for service and tasting. Everything is ready. Put it on the plates, or rather, on the Coorpacademy client platforms! Then, after the final proofreading and uploading, it’s time to play the course of our colleagues, and to get some good practices and feedback from them.

What about custom courses, i.e. courses tailored to our clients’ topics?

For custom courses, the same production process and methodology is used. The steps of the recipe remain the same. The only difference will be in the subjects. Often, with custom courses, we will deal with subjects that are more specific to a sector, an industry, a customer need – and for a more precise target: learners from the same team, from a specific profession, or who already have a certain level of knowledge on the subject. The first step, which consists of taking ownership of the subject and defining the client’s training objectives, will also be defined by the theme that the client wishes to address. Then, it is the CSM team that takes over the cooking, by the way, discover the CSM job in this article!

What do you like most about your job today?

Beyond the fact that I really like Coorpacademy and my colleagues with whom I get along very well, what I like most in the work of an educational engineer is the multitude of subjects that I have to deal with. I learn every day and interact with a variety of people, so I never get bored! I also like the challenges that it can sometimes represent and the intellectual stimulation that it provides to think together about well thought-out course paths for learners.

Do you have any courses that you prefer to work on?

Overall, all subjects are interesting to work on, but if I have to name one, I would choose sustainable transformation because it is a current topic and because it is urgent to act! But in itself, all topics interest me. What will matter most to me are the courses that require different formats. It’s kind of fun to work on innovative formats, and then I like the reflection that it requires to build the course. Innovating, thinking, putting yourself in the shoes of the end user/learner to make the learning experience as pleasant as possible, always with the pedagogical objective in mind. Finally, I think that what stimulates me is to create, to do new things and especially when we invest in subjects that seem classic but are nevertheless unavoidable.

Could you describe a typical day for you?

I don’t have a typical day in the sense that, as we manage several projects or several partners at the same time, I am constantly developing my agility! Switching from one subject to another, from partner X to partner B, managing emergencies: my typical day is ultimately a mosaic. On the other hand, there are tasks that are constant and cannot be ignored: reading sources, books, proofreading and writing scripts and quizzes, and finally, a lot of spelling and typography work. It’s a job that requires both work and dedication upstream of the publication of the course, but also downstream because it also means following the feedback (from learners, customers, partners) to improve ourselves, perfecting our content so that it is as qualitative in content as in form!

Do you have any advice for those who are interested in becoming an educational engineer?

Among the ingredients of the recipe, you can’t do without the two main ones: stay curious and keep learning! Curiosity is one of the primary qualities of an educational engineer. You have to be willing to learn about all subjects, even those that don’t necessarily speak to you at first. From a more pragmatic point of view, there are more and more training courses for educational engineers, and I think that this can be a good way to discover this profession! But any experience in education, training, writing, or publishing are interesting experiences to have in this position. Finally, and not surprisingly, I would advise sleeping with a Bescherelle on your bedside table, because you need to have impeccable grammar.

And finally, a little quiz: If you had to choose between these 3 new courses in the catalog, which one would you choose and why?

The new Trivial Pursuit courses
The “Making Better Decisions with Game Theory” course
The “Preventing Discrimination and Encouraging Diversity” course co-published with Wolters Kluwer

I would say Trivial Pursuit because it is a perfect course for summer and vacations! Trivial Pursuit is 30 questions to learn while having fun, while developing one’s general culture and knowledge of certain subjects. Moreover, at Coorpacademy, we provide you with an explanation of the right answer and a “Did you know?” as a bonus, unlike the classic general knowledge game. Frankly, a course played on the phone at the beach with your friends or your family, it is still the best way to learn in a fun way and with others!

Trivial Pursuit – Planet and Environment

Are we tired of resilience?

It’s perfect timing. In the wake of the crisis, the concept of resilience is talked about everywhere, especially in corporate culture. Introduced by Boris Cyrulnik, the concept of resilience states that it is possible to overcome a traumatic event, to draw strength from one’s misfortunes, and to “navigate through the torrents” (Boris C). To suffer and to heal one’s wounds, in order to heal more quickly. This could be an appropriate analogy for resilience, which also reminds us of the current recovery context, compromised by a labour shortage.

In a previous article, we described the labor shortage as an opportunity. An opportunity to focus on training, to overcome this issue that companies are facing. To draw strength from one’s misfortunes, to see the glass half full, there are a thousand and one ways to describe resilience. This term, which is basically about personal growth, is sometimes debated. Isn’t it too good to be true? Can we really ignore the difficulties, the trauma, to move forward? Is it an innate disposition or can resilience be initiated within a group? In this article, we decipher this phenomenon to finally answer the question: Are we tired of resilience?

A debatable term

Turning hardship into strength sounds like an admirable notion. It is true that, on paper, we would all like to be capable of resilience, both in our personal and professional lives. Realistic, yet optimistic, resilience is the prospect of a better future, without denying the reality and harshness of life’s hazards. However, some criticize this notion, which they consider unfounded, even futile. In “Carnet de Philo“, Géraldine Mosna-Savoye, producer of the French philosophical show and lecturer, deciphers the phenomenon and states “Everybody hates resilience” (i.e. Title of the episode of 25/02/2021). According to Mosna-Savoye, the critics are formed on the following: resilience is a poisoned but well-wrapped gift that tells us “get by, show resilience, rely on your ability to bounce back on your own and you’ll see, everything will be fine, you’ll manage to overcome all the trials of the world”. Said like that, it can seem too easy. Resilience is a fashionable notion, which “is enough to give oneself a moral, empathetic and supportive content, and so much the worse if the facts, the political or ethical acts, do not follow” according to Mosna-Savoye. So, the speaker opts for hope, which would be “joy, even inconsistent”, as opposed to “the naïve and bland certainty of always getting through”, which would be resilience. But is the dilemma between these two notions so simplistic?

The joy of knowing you will always get through

If hope and resilience do not go hand in hand, then obviously the notion of resilience cannot be applied in practice. To oppose these two notions is to deny the purpose of the resilience phenomenon: to strive for a better situation. Of course, when we talk about resilience, we tend to focus on the reaction to the crisis, because this is where everything is at stake. But over time, resilience allows us to work towards a better future, a goal towards which we can move, and to grow. Hope, on the other hand, is based on the expectation of a better situation than the existing one. Waiting is not acting. And this is where hope and resilience are ultimately inseparable. Resilience, which encourages action, can only be effective if we cultivate hope, which gives individuals the necessary passion to believe in a better future, and to do everything to achieve it.

Learn to live with uncertainty, or simply to anticipate

Being resilient, showing resistance, tenacity, being able to absorb shocks, bounce back, etc. The lexical field of resilience focuses mainly on the acceptance of trauma and endurance, rather than on the fulfillment that is supposed to come from it. What resilience tells us is that in order to deal with adversity and overcome crises, accepting the situation is the first step towards action. It means “rolling up your sleeves”; “never giving up”; “pushing yourself”. From then on, accepting uncertainty, living with the unexpected, allows one to minimize the consequences, so as not to end up paralyzed, unable to make a decision.

For resilience to be constant and not just a response to each trauma encountered, anticipation is key. Some cities, such as London, have initiated preventive resilience programs. With its London Resilience Partnership website, the Anglo-Saxon capital is disseminating advice on how to visit the city in complete safety. For example, it offers a section that “identifies potential risks to the capital and the impact that these emergencies may have on Londoners”.

Positive attitude

Developing resilience may simply mean changing our perspective, opening up our interpretations, and changing our outlook on a situation. As an individual, or as an organization, we can choose to be more or less positive about a given situation. We have the choice, when faced with a traumatic event, a crisis, to interpret it as an insurmountable disaster or as an opportunity for improvement, like a difficult level that we will repeat over and over again in a video game, until we reach the next level. Positive thinking is a pillar of resilience, being able to think positively about a past crisis helps us to face a current crisis, while putting its catastrophic nature into perspective. Being resilient means seizing the opportunity to learn from every situation, the good ones, but especially the bad ones. This notion is ultimately a state of mind that can be cultivated, learned and passed on.

The pitfalls of resilience

The risk of resilience would be to think that any failure is synonymous with trauma. In France, we often tend to fear failure, equating it with the person who fails. Our perception of this notion is particularly negative, and we wrongly consider that failure is synonymous with incapacity. In her LinkedIn article “The Culture of Failure is Just a Matter of Perception” Clara Kindt describes failure as “a deep disappointment in the face of unmet expectations” and suggests changing our perception of this phenomenon. “When we don’t know, we learn and only then we know. In the end, only people who don’t try don’t fail.” she summarizes. By developing resilience, one also learns to fail and to develop a “culture of failure”, inspired by the Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian or Latin American mentalities, for example, which advocate assuming mistakes and imperfections. The challenge is not to value failure, but to put it into perspective, in order to draw the right conclusions that will guide our future actions.

Another criticism often made to resilience is that it values the suffering of others, as a kind of competition to see who can bounce back the highest, the fastest or the most skillfully. Yet we all face obstacles and difficulties, both personally and professionally. The goal of resilience is not to determine who suffers the most, nor who will be the most resistant. It is first and foremost a philosophy that translates into a corporate culture that promotes the right to make mistakes, the ability to deal with adversity and that stimulates employees’ hope.

But are we all capable of bouncing?

Let’s take the example of two balls: one bounces, the other does not. One is bouncy, the other is made of a material that does not allow it to bounce. Finally, it is a bit the same for individuals. Some people are born with it, others have a harder time absorbing shocks. Nevertheless, and this is what differentiates us from the two balls mentioned above, it is possible to work on one’s ability to bounce back, because resilience can be learned and maintained. Many factors can help or hinder the development of this notion. For example, the environment that surrounds us can strengthen or diminish our resilience. The people around us play a crucial role in the way we perceive a given situation. In business, the same is true. The environment in which the teams evolve as well as the interactions between collaborators are determining factors in developing the collective resilience of the teams, which will allow the company to move forward through the difficulties. The recipe for corporate resilience is therefore composed of one main ingredient: soft skills. Listening, leaving room for emotions, putting oneself in the place of others, working autonomously, etc. The manager plays a central role in fostering the resilience of his teams.

In conclusion, individual resilience is an incredible strength. Without being a miracle skill, being resilient allows you to move towards a better situation, or at least, it allows you to improve enough to move forward serenely, and to find pleasure in your work. However, this soft skill is above all a state of mind, unlike a tool that can be used on an ad hoc basis, resilience is nourished by our experiences and by the way we interpret the situations we face. In “Autobiography of a Scarecrow“, Boris Cyrulnik writes: “those who take a long time to recover from trauma or never recover from it are those who have been abandoned by the group”. Resilience is also contagious. A resilient group is not just made up of individuals who are prepared for anything and are ultra-resistant. On the other hand, following a crisis, group cohesion reinforces resilience, because as trite as it may sound, there is strength in numbers.

Individual resilience is a tool for employee development, but organizational resilience is one of the essential conditions for moving forward collectively in an uncertain world.

To move from individual resilience to organizational resilience, discover the eponymous course co-published with Management Magazine.

Contest “Show us where you learn” – To learn continuously during the summer, with Coorpacademy!

What if summer was the best time to learn and train? With a slowdown in activity, vacation and a more relaxed atmosphere, the month of August is an opportunity to enrich one’s skills, in total mobility.

Distance learning has always taken advantage of technology to develop. Educational practices have evolved in record time, adapting to learners’ uses. At Coorpacademy, our mission is to accompany employees in their continuous learning, with the aim of promoting their employability. Thus, our catalog of premium contents is available everywhere, all the time, in particular thanks to the Coorpacademy mobile application!

This summer, Coorpacademy is organizing an Instagram competition to help you discover the pleasure and freedom of learning from anywhere in the world!

Show us where you learn

Engaging learners in training means first and foremost making them active in their learning. This philosophy is the foundation of our pedagogy. Make a catalog of premium content available anywhere, anytime, on any device, so that learning becomes a daily reflex.

This summer, try to win a weekend for two people worth 230€, as well as other prizes, by taking 5 minutes to train on your Coorpacademy platform!

But then, what is this Instagram giveaway and how to participate?

The “Show us where you learn!” contest will be held on the Coorpacademy Instagram account. In order to democratize the use of the mobile application and to encourage the continuity of your learning, we invite you to share a photo of the place where you are learning this summer!

To participate and try to win a weekend for two, follow these steps:

1 – Follow @coorpacademy on Instagram.

2 – Send us by direct message on Instagram, a photo of the Coorpacademy platform, used on mobile or any other media, of where you use it (the platform is accessible on coorpacademy.com – the link is in the bio). We will relay it on the official Coorpacademy account if it respects these two criteria (platform and location); aesthetics and originality will also be taken into account!

3 – Comment on the post of the competition announcement, using the mention #mylearningspot and tagging the person you would like to go away with for a great weekend together!

At the end of the contest, on September 15th, the winning photos will be chosen by a jury and the winners will be notified by private messages.

Find the rules of the contest by clicking here.

And what can I win by participating?

At Coorpacademy, we like competition and rewards! With the battles between learners and the stars to accumulate, which increase your ranking on the platform, we make the learner active and an integral part of the training. They can set their own personal objectives, over and above the pedagogical objectives communicated by the HR functions.

At the end of the “Show us where you learn!” contest, there are 3 prizes to be won:

🥇 The first prize is a surprise weekend for two worth 230€, to keep learning from everywhere!

🥈 The second prize is an Escape Game for two, to diversify the ways to learn and have fun!

🥉 Finally, the third winner will be able to do like Yann and Lya from the Cybercafé podcast series and learn about the history of the web with a Google Home mini!

The final date of the contest: September 15, 2021. This contest is in no way sponsored by Instagram or Google. By participating, you confirm that you are over 18 years old.

Need some inspiration?

To get your creative juices flowing, be sure to check out the 2018 “Show us where you learn!” contest entries!

Why does your e-learning solution need to be integrated with your LMS?

In information and communication technologies, a learning management system (LMS) or learning support system (LSS) is a software that allows the management and centralisation of training courses for all employees.

These learning management systems allow companies to manage, deliver and evaluate their online training programme. Thus, with an LMS, it is possible to design, develop and make available to employees, courses directly accessible on the software. The courses can be remote, i.e. they are not necessarily online but can be accessed desynchronously, and learners can obtain the courses at any time they wish, by e-mail, post or other medium. Training can also take the form of e-learning, which means carrying out training, a course or learning through a digital platform, via a computer connected to the Internet.

LMSs have the advantage of being central tools in the company and are therefore often used by the whole group. They are complete, but not specialised in digital learning… unlike us.

Once an organisation invests in training and provides its employees with independent training systems around an LMS, learners have access to a variety of content, through different media. However, integrating this course content into a single platform would improve the learning experience for employees and facilitate access to training.

So what is integration with an LMS and why is it useful for engaging learners in training?

To make learning ever more fluid, accessible and continuous, it is possible to integrate e-learning platforms – also known as LXP (Learning Experience Platforms) – with a learning management system, such as LMSs. Thus, integration with an LMS consists of merging the learning management system with the e-learning applications already used in the company.

Today, the training sector is faced with new needs. Digitalization and new work organizations are shaping new uses. In order to respond to this, training must be integrated into the organisation’s existing systems.

Learning at the click of a button

In our connected environments, we have become accustomed to having our uses made easier, and user experiences increasingly tailored to user behaviour. The primary benefit of integrating a learning solution into your learning management system is ease of access. With single sign on (SSO), learners can log in and access their training programme without having to use separate credentials (usernames and passwords). Similar to using your Facebook or Google account to log into a site, single sign-on allows users to access the content of the platform or site in question with one click. For training, enabling learners to access training content more easily and quickly is a crucial issue for engaging them in their learning. Integrating your digital learning applications with an LMS allows you to have a single entry point, which is easier to understand for everyone.

An improved experience for all users!

Integration with LMSs is not only beneficial for the user experience of learners. It also greatly improves the use and follow-up of training solutions for learning managers in HR and Learning & Development (L&D) departments. By integrating an e-learning platform directly into your organisation’s LMS, learner profiles are created automatically, simplifying deployment across multiple subsidiaries or BUs. Learner activity data, such as course completions, is also automatically fed back into the LMS, which facilitates reporting (see Better performance and monitoring indicators). Integration with an LMS promises considerable time savings for training teams.

Integrate to engage

By making it easier to access your e-learning solution through its integration into your learning management system, you can increase traffic and the number of connections. In addition to improving your key performance indicators, these increases indicate that the training is being followed and appreciated by your teams! Continuous learning means learning on a daily basis and therefore learning in the flow of work. The increase in skills can only be effective if training is accessible everywhere, all the time, through integration.

Better performance and monitoring indicators

With the integration, the monitoring of the platform’s performance is greatly improved. Reports and evaluations are automatically generated and accessible directly on your LMS. This means you can quickly and easily find all the metrics you need to track the progress and engagement of your learners in their learning. This data is essential to improve your training solution and better meet your needs. The integration allows you to find all the training data you need in one click, all on the same platform.

An interface and pedagogy designed to make people want to learn

Improving the user experience is not only a question of accessibility. It is also a question of interface and therefore of design. In order to invest learners in their training, it is necessary to integrate an e-learning platform that meets their needs and expectations. This applies both to the design of the platform and to the way in which the course is delivered. Integration with an LMS means above all being able to offer learners a web user experience worthy of the name, to make training more enjoyable and to reinforce the uses of e-learning platforms.

In terms of interface, our Coorpacademy training platform is inspired by the codes of video games: quizzes, battles between learners, life quotas to validate – or not – a course module, etc. Learners benefit from a real learning experience that is fun, digital and that makes them active in their training. Because we are convinced that training must adapt to new uses, we also offer premium content, developed through a reversed pedagogy: we ask the learner questions before presenting the lesson. And the lesson – in the form of a video for the most part – does not exceed 5 minutes, so that learners remain active during the course. We also invent innovative formats such as the digital Escape Game or more recently, the Cybercafé podcast, which once again respond to the uses of the modern world.

What are you waiting for to integrate Coorpacademy into your LMS?

Training is becoming digital, not only because of previous confinements, but also because the digital transformation of companies implies maximising the use of digital tools. Today, the challenge is to make the processes around training even easier. Accessibility, user experience, performance monitoring, e-learning platforms are a formidable lever for optimising your LMS and your global training offer. By integrating Coorpacademy into your LMS, give your learners access to courses co-published with renowned publishers, and make training an entertaining, instructive and collaborative moment!

Labour shortage: training as a crucial tool for recovery

As the economic recovery is confirmed, we are already witnessing the consequences of the pandemic on the labour market. Faced with the reopening, many companies are facing a shortage of skilled labour. According to the Dares, The French Directorate for Research, Studies and Statistics, although the job market has picked up again since the end of the health crisis, many positions remain vacant due to a lack of candidates. This problem therefore raises a training issue for organisations if they wish to participate in this revival of activity.

“Last year we provided 35,000 training courses. We would like to increase this year to 45,000 to help the working population find the right job.”

In response to the difficulties in finding workers, Frank Ribuot, President of Randstad France, explained in a BFM Business interview on 25 June 2021 that employers are forced to “recruit less experienced staff or staff from another sector“. Training is an essential pillar for overcoming this obstacle to recovery, as it will allow for the effective training of a workforce that may be less qualified, but which is ready to quickly upgrade its skills.

According to Alain Griset, Minister for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, “Labour shortages were the number one concern of entrepreneurs before the crisis – it is now the sustainability of their activity – and this issue is coming back strongly with the recovery of activity“. SMEs would therefore be even more affected by these difficulties. Nevertheless, all sectors are experiencing recruitment difficulties, particularly in the construction sector, in personal services such as cleaning or assistance to the elderly, in the digital sector and also in certain industrial sectors, according to François Asselin, President of the CPME, the Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. Thus, the construction trades (carpenters, roofers) and the health and social action trades (doctors, home helps, domestic helpers) are the trades most affected by the shortage, according to the Pôle Emploi “Labour Needs” Survey 2021.

Around the world, the phenomenon is becoming more pronounced. In early June in the United States, the US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) warned that companies were struggling to hire enough people to meet demand.

“It is difficult for many companies to hire new workers, especially low hourly wage workers, drivers (…) and skilled sales people. The lack of job applicants has prevented some companies from increasing their production, sometimes even forcing them to reduce their opening hours.

In Germany, same observation. In a KfW Research study analysing the current skills shortage and how it could develop up to 2040, Dr Fritzi Köhler-Geib, Chief Economist of KfW Bankengruppe – one of the country’s top 15 banks – explains:

“The German economy can respond to the skills shortage and low productivity mainly through more investment, innovation, training and qualification measures. Our economy also needs these ingredients to overcome the coronavirus crisis and its consequences as quickly as possible. We therefore need a long-term growth and investment initiative from the public and private sectors for the coming years – not only in Germany but also in Europe. The main areas of action are crisis resilience, climate action and productivity growth through innovation and digitalisation.”

And in Quebec, the labour shortage is reaching new heights. According to Statistics Canada, the number of vacant positions in Quebec has increased by 18,500 (+14.4%) compared to a year earlier. One of the most affected sectors is the construction industry. Just over one-third (33.8%) of construction companies reported difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified employees, according to the Canadian Business Situation Survey. As a result, Quebec businesses continue to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic and plan to invest in e-learning on an ongoing basis in the future, according to the Quebec Business Expectations Survey for the second quarter of 2021.

As we can see, the challenge of this recovery lies in increasing the skills and adaptability of companies and workers. It is clear that the available talent is scarce in most sectors. But this difficult period can also be an opportunity. The opportunity to invest in the development of skills, on an ongoing basis, to better deal with this problem in the future. Training is therefore a remedy for the shortage of skilled labour, and can also accompany the various transformations of companies at the same time. The challenge is to plan for the needs, to understand the issues and therefore to prepare for them. It is by identifying in advance the skills that will be crucial in the future that companies will be able to initiate change and face the next difficulties. It is therefore a real training strategy that organisations must put in place to promote the recovery of activity and overcome the current labour shortage. Human resources must initiate a real reflection on the talent available and the talent required, in order to put in place strategic training plans that meet the new needs: accessible at a distance, innovative and varied formats, features to engage learners and hold their attention, etc.

Labour shortages do not mean worker shortages. All employees are capable of upgrading their skills, learning, and evolving. What we are really witnessing is a shortage of qualified skills within the pool of potential workers. Of course, some will say that this is an optimistic way of looking at the problem. But we are convinced that it is by believing in the potential of workers and providing them with the tools for success that companies will be able to overcome all the current and future challenges.

Trivial Pursuit : 2 new courses to make people love to learn

December 15, 1979, two friends who love board games decide to play a game. Scott Abbott, a sports journalist, and Chris Haney, a photographer for the Montreal Gazette, ask themselves: who is the better player?

One argument leads to another, and an idea germinates in the minds of the two friends on this cold Canadian night. They don’t know it yet, but they have just invented a board game that will become mythical…

Trivial Pursuit !

Vendu à 20 millions d’unités en 1984, le jeu Trivial Pursuit est depuis plus de 40 ans, le jeu de culture générale pour animer soirées ou après-midis en famille, entre amis, et entre collègues.

Selling 20 million units in 1984, Trivial Pursuit has been the general knowledge game to liven up evenings and afternoons with family, friends and colleagues for over 40 years.

And it is also a partner publisher of Coorpacademy’s emblematic courses for 1 year now. The Trivial Pursuit courses offered on the Coorpacademy platform cover different themes, each time with 30 general knowledge questions on the chosen subject.

A partnership for a love of learning

If we are proud to collaborate with Hasbro to enrich our training offer, it is because this partnership is the symbol of our deepest conviction: learning can be fun and entertaining, while remaining effective and engaging. Indeed, with this partnership, we combine our desire to deal with all existing soft skills (and general knowledge is one of them!) with our constant search for innovative and entertaining formats, which make people want to learn and, above all, love learning.

To date, 7 Trivial Pursuit courses are available on the Coorpacademy platforms, and we have just added 2 new courses accessible from today, 23 July 2021:

Trivial Pursuit courses

Science & Nature

Trivial Pursuit – Science & Nature

Geography

Trivial Pursuit – Geography

Entertainment

Trivial Pursuit – Entertainment

History

Trivial Pursuit – History

Arts & Literature

Trivial Pursuit – Arts & Literature

Sports & Leisure

Trivial Pursuit – Sports & Leisure

(New) Planet and Environment: 30 questions to test your knowledge of the circular economy, to develop your sustainable thinking and initiate change.

Trivial Pursuit – Planet and Environment

(New) Web & Technology: 30 questions specially created for those who think they know everything about the Internet, GAFAM and the big names of Silicon Valley.

Trivial Pursuit – Web and Technology

At the end of the programme, you can win a special certificate with all the pie charts to illustrate your general knowledge!

But what does an online Trivial Pursuit course look like?

Of course, you can find your Trivial Pursuit courses in your course catalogue:

Let’s choose the Planet and Environment course, published this week, which will allow you to develop the new essential skill for tomorrow’s world: sustainable thinking. It looks like a classic course, like all the courses you can find in the Coorpacademy catalogue. The same interface, a Basic, Advanced, and Coach level.

As part of this pie chart, you will, on completion of the Basic level, be able to :

Know a simple technique for air conditioning homes
Understand the concept of the circular economy

At the end of the Advanced level, you will be able to :

Know which resource is the most exploited by humans after water
Master the concept of grey energy

Finally, at the end of the Coach level, you will be able to :

Understand the etymology of the word “climate”
Know the plant-based alternatives to leather

Three levels, increasing levels of difficulty. So far, nothing new.

The difference with another course lies in the structure of the questions, as well as in the way the course is “validated”. Each level will “ask” you 10 general knowledge questions. There is no lesson, no video. Each correct answer earns you 4 stars (as in any other course) and you need 6 correct answers out of 10 minimum to access the next level. Here is an example of a question:

In 2016, Bertrand Piccard made the first round-the-world trip in a…

solar-powered

nuclear-powered

hydrogen-powered

In a solar plane! By answering a question, whether you answer correctly or not, you will have access to these two irremovable elements of the Coorpacademy pedagogy. The Key Point, and Did You Know? As in the following screenshot:

Now you know everything! All you have to do is play the course. And it is perhaps in this context that the expression we regularly use (playing a course, rather than following it, for the entertainment dimension we try to add to all our training content) takes on its fullest meaning.

It’s your turn to play!

TRIVIAL PURSUIT, the associated logo, the distinctive design of the game board, trivia cards, game tokens, and scoring wedges are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. © 1981, 2020 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved. Licensed by Hasbro.

We truly engage learners in their training

Michelin, which employs 125,000 people worldwide, uses Coorpacademy as a platform for digital acculturation for all its employees. Catharina Bot, Group Competency Manager for the IT and Digital professions (3,000 people), spoke at one of the workshops of the We Love Our Clients by Coorpacademy programme about the advantages and positioning of the platform. According to Catharina Bot, one of the main challenges of online training is to succeed in “bringing learners in and constantly renewing their interest! She gives us concrete details of the actions deployed to successfully meet this challenge.

Q.1 : In order to acculturate employees in digital technology, what was important for you in choosing the training platform?

The first criterion was to have content that was completely adapted to our needs, i.e. dealing with “soft skills” associated with digital and accessible in several languages. This training content also had to be available in microlearning mode, so that learners could follow independent five-minute modules on the subjects of their choice.

Another much needed requirement on our side, and one that was much appreciated by the top learners, was to have a mobile application where all the courses on the platform and its progress can be found. This will also allow us to reach the on-site manufacturing agents, who represent about half of the Michelin population.

Finally, the last element that seemed essential to us was the possibility of structuring the online learning paths to avoid the learner feeling lost in the 1700 modules offered, and wondering what to do! Hence the creation and promotion of “digital passports” (3 certifications of increasing level on digital) grouping together the courses considered as fundamental.

In short, the Digital Culture platform is just what we need!

Q.2 : Tell us about the flagship event organised annually at Michelin around digital: the Digital Week!

Digital Week is an annual event that has already taken place twice in person, and which has been transformed into a 100% digital and remote event, due to the pandemic. The aim is to show everyone all the digital achievements made in the group, and to share with as many people as possible the vision of what the group wants to do in this area.

We had to deal with the transition of Digital Week to 100% remote, and to keep the interactive and fun side, we decided to use the platform as a tool for animation during this event.

In concrete terms, we deployed a program of challenges using the training platform. This enabled us to reach an even wider audience than the one usually involved in Digital Week. Digital should not remain the exclusive preserve of the IT and digital professions, but should permeate all levels of the organisation.

Q.3: How did you use the Digital Culture training platform at the Digital Week event?

The animations aimed to introduce the platform, engage learners, and of course, intelligently complement the other Digital Week workshops and remote presentations. Our aim during the week was to build a coherent and attractive experience to promote digital within the group.

To do this, we first selected the most relevant content and launched this challenge programme. I can think of three animations in particular. The first animation consisted in setting up and promoting a “Digital IQ test” allowing learners to assess their level of digital skills at the beginning of the week, and again at the end of the event. The second, called “Star Week”, allowed participants to obtain bonus stars to move up in the ranking. The third animation, called “Battle Week”, rewarded the participants who had launched and won the most duels (battles) on a series of questions!

As a result, we have seen a 3-4 fold increase in platform activity during the week of Digital Week and the following week.

One of the key success factors was the active collaboration with our Customer Success Manager at Coorpacademy, Catherine McKernan, who helped us to create and coordinate the animations and communication.

Q.4 : Do you have any tips and good practices to share on how to successfully engage learners?

Thanks to the modular courses and the certificates, we really engage the learners in the training. However, we do not impose anything, we rely on events, or on Coorpacademy’s communication, through personalised follow-up emails (Note: intelligent follow-up emails sent automatically by the platform according to the learner’s activity).

Also to boost employee motivation, we offer prizes to be won (purchase vouchers) during the events and games organised on the platform. The winners are also highlighted and promoted via a dedicated Sharepoint.

Soon, we will be running an internal promotion campaign based on learners’ testimonials, following an assiduous collection, so that everyone can see what the platform can do for them and thus increase the number of people and their attendance!

Finally, another avenue that we are exploring is to offer highly specialised, tailor-made content, in response to the natural demand from the professions to have their specific training courses on this platform.

We are constantly trying to reinvent ourselves in order to develop our employees’ commitment to training day after day.

A 360° communication plan to launch a new CSR training programme

As part of our We Love Our Clients workshops, Jérôme Pesenti, HR Project Manager for digital training at FDJ, shared the best practices used to launch their CSR acculturation programme. The objective is simple: train 80% of the FDJ group’s employees in CSR in 9 months.

Q.1: How will you manage to reach 80% of the Group’s 2,000 employees in a few months?

The essential condition was to have a common training platform that was accessible to all of our large subsidiaries. This is the case with the Coorpacademy platform.

On the Coorpacademy platform, we have created a course of 11 CSR acculturation modules at FDJ. We chose to include modules previously created with Coorpacademy and our in-house experts, as well as a mini-series filmed with actors. The advantage is that we managed to integrate this innovative format into Coorpacademy’s, to have the same functionalities and user experience we were looking for.

Q.2 : What communication actions have you put in place to bring 2000 employees of different profiles and subsidiaries to this training programme?

We designed a 360° communication plan: we did everything we could do!

On the intranet, we published an article presenting the programme and its challenges. Newsletters were sent to all employees.

To engage learners, we need to communicate: both internally, but also through Coorpacademy emails, which have a very good opening and click rate.

In order to reach more people, we have therefore established an emailing plan in several waves to reach as many people as possible.

We are also counting on the game and the gamified aspect of the platform. We are going to look for the gambling side of employees, because at FDJ, games are in our DNA! For a month and a half, we pushed a “CSR acculturation” challenge. To earn points, employees had to complete the entire CSR course and compete in battles. This game, where the winners are those who win the most battles, reached the most active learners (about 10%) and allowed them to anchor their knowledge by repeating the questions and answers.

Q.3 : This programme responds to the FDJ Group’s desire to accelerate its CSR shift and its sustainable transformation. How does the Group support the ambition to acculturate all employees?

It’s true that the entire Group is involved.

We have mobilised all our HR referents for the different populations and we are fortunate to have two official sponsors in the persons of Pierre-Marie Argouarc’h, Group Human Relations and Transformation Director, and Vincent Perrotin, Group CSR Manager.

Furthermore, the decision is official: the completion of this programme will be one of the criteria for the incentive scheme this year for all FDJ SA employees.

Q.4: What are the results to date?

At the end of June 2021, i.e. 3 months after the launch, 20% of the teams had already completed the 11 training modules. They have acquired the basic knowledge of CSR at FDJ, and we are confident that we will reach the objective of 80% of employees trained. All employees will thus have the same common base of knowledge on CSR issues within the Group.

A digital Escape Game to raise awareness of recruitment and integration of people with disabilities

SQLI, a European digital services group with 2200 employees, has been using Coorpacademy as a digital learning solution for 2 years. Within the framework of the workshops of our We Love Our Clients programme, Alexis Guillotin, Group Development and Training Manager, shared with us the backstage of the most original animation of 2020, aimed at learners and rewarded a few months ago by a Coorpacademy Award.

Q.1 : Where did the idea of offering a digital Escape Game on your online training platform come from?

We had the idea of taking advantage of the European Week for the Employment of People with Disabilities (EWPD) to raise awareness of the recruitment and integration of people with disabilities. This week took place last November and so our plans were disrupted because of the lockdown imposed at that time.

We had a double challenge. The first was to create an event for the whole group, simultaneously in several countries, several languages and which could be done at a distance!

There was also the question of the content, and how to disseminate it to raise awareness of disability. With this in mind, we chose our Coorpacademy digital learning platform Onegenius to reach all our employees. We worked on the content with the agency T by Talenteo, an agency that supports us on the subject of disability, and then, with the help of Coorpacademy, we decided to adapt it to integrate it into the Onegenius platform in order to benefit from its gamification aspect.

We had noticed the great success of a playful format among our teams: the digital Escape Game! It allows you to learn without realizing it, by solving puzzles to move to the next level! We therefore reused our existing initial content, but put it into this new format in order to raise awareness among our employees while keeping the gamification aspect.

Q.2: How did you go about setting up this Escape Game?

The Escape Game: Disability Awareness was created, translated and put online in a record time of one month. The idea was to make it clear how the five disabilities we had listed (essentially non-visible disabilities) impact the daily lives and therefore the work of the people concerned.

We decided to turn the tables: each level of the Escape Game takes the learner to a world where people with attention deficit disorder, autism or visual impairment are in the majority. It is up to the learner to adapt!

The pitch was as follows: “Travel aboard a ship in other dimensions where the disabilities you know are mostly shared. Practice with our simulation module to better understand the daily consequences of each of these disorders and diseases.”

Q.3: What communication actions did you carry out to promote this game event? Are you satisfied with the results?

We set up a very fast-paced communication campaign to ensure that as many employees as possible tried to solve the Escape Game and were effectively made aware of disability during this European week.

The first step was to send out a teaser by e-mail a week beforehand.

All the members of the CODIR participated in the promotion and were active relays.

Then, each day of the week, the learners were reminded by e-mail to invite them to travel to a new dimension, with five disabilities being covered. Finally, all the employees received a summary email containing all the stages and solutions to the riddles of this unique journey, so that everyone could finish or redo the game as they wished.

We are pleased with the results, as we observed a 280% increase in connections on the platform during the week of the animation.

And all the countries played the game! Beyond the figures, in this particular year, the Escape Game helped to unite the teams and encourage exchanges between them, as well as raising awareness about diversity and disabilities.

Management as a pillar of the cultural transformation of companies

Following a year of lockdown, organisations’ culture is undergoing a profound change. The pandemic has changed our habits and behaviours, beyond the personal sphere. To ensure recovery, companies are resilient and are preparing to face the transformations they are going through. The new management and working methods also imply a profound change in the corporate culture and this transformation is essential to support the other transformations to come.

Google searches around Employer Brand have doubled in three years, and 77% of adults in four countries (US, UK, France and Germany) say they first learn about a company’s culture before applying for a job, according to Glassdoor‘s Mission and Culture 2019 survey.

The culture of a company is now an inseparable factor in employee well-being. This trend is only becoming more pronounced as Millennials enter the workforce. The new generation is challenging organisations, demanding a corporate culture that shares their values and, above all, that these values are supported by management and embedded in the day-to-day running of the business. The Glassdoor study confirms this new paradigm as 73% said they would not apply to a company if they did not share its values.

But the arrival of millenials on the labour market is not the only issue of cultural transformation. Indeed, our contemporary economy is giving rise to new trends, new modes of organisation, which are giving rise to transformations. There are many issues at stake: the transition from a vertical organisational mode to a more horizontal and open organisation, the transition from a product-centred economy to a customer-centred strategy, new managerial functions and practices (start-up model, reinvented company, emergence of the manager-coach). Companies are also working more and more with a wide range of international players: suppliers, customers, employees, etc. Being able to work, exchange or negotiate with people of different nationalities and profiles is now a key skill. For all these reasons, companies must transform themselves to meet the new needs of the talents they recruit, to ensure the diversity and richness of their teams, to consolidate their operations on a global scale and, finally, to adapt to a changing world.

Transforming a company’s culture means questioning all the behaviours in the company, but also the policy, commitments and processes, so that all these elements that make up the organisation reflect the values and beliefs of the employees. It is not just a question of adopting behaviours and ready-made sentences, but of deconstructing the tacit “rules” that regulate the life of the company and the unconscious, informal and non-verbal behaviours of each person. Thus, a cultural transformation is also an individual transformation, which upsets the ways of thinking of the employees, which makes the values shared by the group evolve, and concretely change the way employees act.

Corporate culture is defined with words and implemented with actions. Behaviours are the concrete testimony of an organisation’s culture. To ensure that change is successful, that attitudes are aligned with the company’s values, collective and individual coaching is crucial. The manager is a pillar of all major transformations, as they guide change by involving each employee in the great adventure that is corporate life. So, what skills must the manager develop to ensure the cultural transformation of his organisation?

Diversity and Inclusion

Our organisations are made up of people from different backgrounds and interact with a multitude of stakeholders around the world. The term diversity, as Dr Derrick Gay – an international educator specialising in intercultural competence, diversity and inclusion – points out, is often used to refer to people who are identified as ‘different’. But different from whom, from what? The term implies that there is a normality, but there is only a plurality of personalities, cultures, religious practices; ways of perceiving and experiencing the world. While the company is a place where societal changes can be brought about and developed, knowing how to disseminate a culture of inclusion and truly understand diversity is crucial for today’s managers if they want to accompany the cultural transformation of their organisation and encourage employee fulfilment. Working in a company that encourages different points of view, that listens to a variety of experiences, and where everyone can express themselves freely, has a positive impact on the overall performance of the team and the company.

Preventing Discrimination and Encouraging Diversity

Adaptability and Resilience

In physics, resilience is the ability of a body to absorb shocks. In psychology, it is the ability of an individual to cope with a difficult or stressful situation. As the COVID19 crisis has surprised us all and forced us to change our processes, resilience has become an urgent skill to develop. Indeed, employees and organisations today evolve through disruptions, which we must learn to overcome without being destabilised! This is the whole point of developing resilience in business. A resilient individual will be able to better manage stress, adapt more easily to an unforeseen situation and remain optimistic when faced with adversity. Resilience and adaptability are two highly sought-after soft skills. According to an Ifop Lavazaa study, adaptability is even one of the most valued soft skills in companies. Adaptability means knowing how to evolve in an environment that is different from the one you know, without letting yourself be conditioned or influenced by this new context. As a manager, developing the resilience of teams is key to fostering group cohesion and supporting the cultural transformation of the organisation. Overcoming hardship, being resilient together reinforces the feeling of belonging to a group, a tight-knit group in which we can rely on each other. Knowing how to adapt also means knowing how to work surrounded by different ways of thinking, doing and conceiving projects, which is key for organisations that wish to succeed in their cultural transformation.

From Individual to Organizational Resilience

Creativity and Innovation

Working in teams, especially when they are composed of diverse profiles, is an excellent way to foster creativity and innovation. To support the cultural transformation of companies, managers must favour co-creation and facilitate the expression of each individual. Creativity is sometimes innate, but it can be cultivated and developed through training. To stimulate teams and create true multicultural collaboration, managers must also stimulate their own creativity and spread this climate of the right to make mistakes, imagination, etc. All employees must feel legitimate to express their ideas, to experiment, but above all, to build collectively. The challenge of creativity for cultural transformation lies in the group’s ability to work collaboratively, to expose itself to different ways of thinking and to hear the points of view of the other members of the team. In addition, our new ways of working have also led to the emergence of new methods such as Design Thinking or Mind Mapping. These new methods, which are familiar to the new generations, promote team cohesion, unleash creativity and bring out innovative solutions. Eventually, in an organisation where everyone looks the same, ideas are similar, and questioning is more complicated. Creativity is therefore an essential element for successful cultural transformation, because it initiates everyone to work together and to imagine diverse solutions, just like the company.

Unleash your inner creativity

In conclusion, organisations are facing new challenges regarding their employees. New quests for meaning, new managerial paradigms, new demands, the company must transform itself to meet the values and expectations of today’s and tomorrow’s workforce. To promote cohesion, creativity and innovation, the manager must instil this culture of diversity in everyone, so that everyone understands it and promotes its inclusion. We are all different, and everyone is “abnormal” according to an established norm. The company must be nourished by this plurality, and must also put in place the means to achieve it. This is the cultural transformation and the manager is a pillar for its success.