digital learning Archives - Page 3 of 9

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

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 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.

The Coorpacademy platform as a progression tool for employees: a Square Management success

Since 2019, we have been supporting Square Management‘s employees in training, in order to promote their upskilling on various subjects and their progression within the group.

Square Management met with one of the 3 co-founders of Coorpacademy, Arnauld Mitre, to discuss the benefits of this partnership. Back to this interview which describes the projects and successes of this partnership!

A continuously evolving collaboration

This partnership with Square Management began in early 2019. The platform was first made available within two of the group’s practices and then, as more and more employees showed their commitment to training on Coorpacademy, we expanded the partnership to the entire group practice in early 2020. To date, we have trained around 700 Square Management employees thanks to the Coorpacademy platform.

Why choose Coorpacademy as your online training solution?

The need expressed by Square Management was clear. Training was a pillar to accompany the progression of the employees within the group and to enable them to increase their skills, improve their performance and guarantee their employability. Thus, several elements guided the choice of the consulting firm:

A catalog of premium content

The off-the-shelf catalog that we offer contains premium contents, with courses created in collaboration with publishing partners and our team of educational engineers, and also the possibility of using an authoring tool in order to add their own content to the training catalog. Square Management also chose Coorpacademy to accompany the training of their employees because the consulting firm had a real need to train on specific subjects, such as management, leadership and other soft skills, which our catalog covers in depth.

Certifying courses, to validate the expertise of the consultants

Another success factor of the Coorpacademy platform within Square Management is the possibility to validate a range of courses corresponding to a field of excellence of the consulting firm. With this functionality, the consultants could concretely validate their acquired knowledge but also motivate themselves to complete the set of courses thanks to the delivery of a certificate once the set is completed. One of the success factors of the platform today is therefore the strong match between Coorpacademy and Square’s training teams, which gives employees the possibility to use the platform as a tool for their career progression.

Employees seduced by the platform gaming universe

Another aspects that has generated so much enthusiasm for Coorpacademy is the significant attraction for the gaming universe that the platform offers and which is also possible thanks to our pedagogy. Indeed, the Square consultants particularly appreciate the video game inspired functionalities: the quiz format, the player’s life which designates the chance given to them to progress in the course, the battles between learners, etc. The consultants really played the game. This motivation is also rewarded, because we also have a feature that is obviously rather positive, where we present the 20 best participants on the platform. This motivates learners to go to the platform and challenge each other to commit to training.

Pedagogical innovations to encourage collaboration

At Coorpacademy, our objective is to release one pedagogical innovation per quarter. The latest one: the Escape Game “The Forum of Babel“. In this innovative format, learners will join forces to climb the four floors of the digital Tower of Babel. Each week, they are provided with documents and clues to solve a riddle. A Babel Forum is also available for peer-to-peer exchange. In this Escape Game, collaboration is key to finding the answers to the riddles. Employees had only one week to decipher each puzzle and reach the top of the tower! This format generated a lot of engagement among Square Management’s consultants, who won the collaboration award with the highest number of exchanges on the forums.

Previously, we also launched an interactive series, “Suspects“, where the goal was to help conduct three interrogations – one per episode – by applying behavioral skills, the famous soft skills. And most recently, we launched a podcast series called “Cybercafé“, to learn about the great history of the Web!

A final word

The success of this collaboration would not have been as great without the involvement of Square Management’s training teams, with whom we are thrilled to keep this partnership going. We look forward to seeing the learners engage in their training and learn things! As Arnauld Mitre reminds us, at Coorpacademy, we believe that all means are good to learn something, even the most unusual ones, such as gaming.

In what world do we want to live in 30 years?

For the past sixty years, the world economy has been structured around an ideal of mass consumption and infinite growth. But in a world of finite resources, this model is beginning to show its limits. So how can we transform this line from extraction to the end of the product’s life into a virtuous circle? This is the objective of the new course “The circular economy: from the straight line to the virtuous circle” co-published with MySezame, a training organization specialized in sustainable transformation and one of the 135 French companies to be certified B Corp, the label of impact companies of the 21st century!

We interviewed Célestine Julien at MySezame, Head of the Inter-Company Course (GR20²°), who collaborated in the creation of the course on the Coorpacademy platforms.

1- In a few sentences, who is MySezame and what do you do?

MySezame is a training organization specialized in impact business.
We engage and train leaders and their teams in business transformations and innovations related to societal issues through inspiring meetings and action workshops. Our ambition is to create a shift from individuals to companies to engage them in a collective rethinking of business models and success, in order to make the economy sustainable, durable and inclusive.

2- Why did you choose to publish a training on the circular economy? What issues does it address?

The circular economy allows a new way of thinking the economy where collaboration is the cornerstone of the system. Indeed, the waste of some becomes the resources of others allowing, in fine, a reduction of the pressure of human activity exerted on the planet. Collaboration, by its definition, underlines the importance of working together to achieve a common goal. The notion of results and co-responsibility is therefore important. If we want to respond to the social and environmental challenges of our century, it is time to create a system with nature and all economic agents: citizens, consumers, employees, companies, industries, public authorities… to create a virtuous system.

We have a common responsibility where each and every one of us can act at their level and do their part.

3- Is the circular economy the breeding ground for the 4th Industrial Revolution? Is it the new economic paradigm towards which we should absolutely move?

If I tell you that in 30 years (I let you see how old you will be) the UN foresees +2 billion inhabitants on Earth, that the World Bank foresees an increase of 70% of our waste (where today there is already a 7th continent of plastic in the Ocean) and that currently, every year, we already consume in 6 months, on a global scale, all the resources that the Earth is capable of generating in one year. These few figures and the perspective they outline are quite catastrophic. However, they have the merit of making us aware of one essential thing: our current development’ mode, based on a linear economy, is not sustainable.

So let’s ask ourselves the question, in which world do we want to live in 30 years?

A world where, when we go diving in the sea, we will see more plastic than fish, where we will be forced to eat pills with a sour taste because we will have exhausted our resources, where machines will have replaced many uninteresting things we used to do but also things we liked to do, where we will be so connected that we will be chatting with a stranger at the end of the world but we won’t know our neighbor, where science will allow us to have 3 children, all of them born male because it would be more convenient for some obscure reasons, where we will hear every week that a country disappears from the map because of a lack of water, not to mention conflicts, natural disasters and other humanitarian disasters…

Or else, in 30 years, our waste will have become resources thanks to the collaboration of all the economic actors, we will know our neighbor, and with them, we will barter, we will share, we will exchange in all conviviality. We will eat organic vegetables produced in permaculture less than 150kms away and on the terrace farm of our building. We will have 3 children who will all be different, very creative and empathetic, because the school will also have changed. It will have taught them to read, write and count, but not only. It will also have taught them to manage their emotions. To make plans. To succeed with rather than against others. To ask questions rather than recite answers. To take care of themselves, of others, of their environment.

We will preserve our resources, we will share them, we will live together on the same planet.

4- The first perspective you mention is scary, and… the second seems far from our current world. How would the circular economy make us avoid the worst?

Let’s say the wave is there. The question is whether we ride it or let it drown.

We won’t lie to ourselves, the task is big. But if we choose the glass half-full option, the fear dissipates and makes way for an incredible field of possibilities!

The circular economy is a first step to act and collectively redesign our development model to make it more sustainable and desirable.

It implies taking a step aside and looking at the whole functioning of our economy in a different way. It opens up numerous opportunities for all economic agents by rethinking their relationship with the territory, their activities, but also the societal contribution they wish to make. It can therefore be a formidable lever for commitment, at all levels, around a common and revolutionary societal project!

5- Which companies (whether or not MySezame is working with them) do you think have made a particularly significant and successful sustainable transformation? Do they have a secret?

30 years ago, Ray Anderson launched a total transformation of his company, a world leader in the production of highly polluting carpets, to make it a “zero impact” company. The result? Unflinching growth in the bottom line. A better planet. Convinced consumers. Employees who are committed. (I invite you to learn more about this leading example in the course 😉 )

And on this side of the Atlantic, in France, Camif, a historic company created in 1947 to equip teachers with furniture through mail order, is reinventing itself. In 2008, the company went bankrupt and was taken over by Emery Jacquillat, who was able to engage all of his stakeholders and actors in the region around a mission: “To offer products and services for the home, designed to benefit people and the planet. To mobilize our ecosystem (consumers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, local players), to collaborate and act to invent new models of consumption, production and organization.” A true laboratory for experimentation, Camif places CSR and the circular economy at the heart of its operations. Now profitable, it proves that growth and social, societal and environmental responsibility can go hand in hand.

The secret of these successes? A sincere desire to make the company contributive and committed to the common good. Economic profitability is no longer the only objective to be achieved, but rather the contribution to the resolution of social and environmental issues.

6- Who is the course you have co-edited with Coorpacademy aimed at? What is the main objective?

This course is aimed at all employees, from all sectors and professions and can also touch the consumer and citizen in each of us. Through concrete and varied examples which illustrate this paradigm shift, the course allows to understand the main principles of the circular economy and to identify the “key success factors” which allow the economic agents to be part of this virtuous approach!

Coorpacademy is integrated in Teams: when working, collaborating and training are done in the same place

We are witnessing the emergence of new, more ergonomic collaborative tools, designed to communicate in a faster and more organized way. Emails are less and less common and the expression “Slack me“, referring to the collaborative communication platform Slack, is starting to democratize, while in September 2019, the platform exceeded 12 million daily active users. These tools that streamline communication between teams and improve overall productivity are slowly replacing older, more segmented work tools. This is both a digital transformation, which favors the adoption of these digital tools, but it is also a generational transformation of collaboration methods at work. Employees will favor comprehensive, interconnected communication channels, or ecosystems such as Microsoft Teams, which facilitates teamwork and telecommuting by combining instant messaging, video conferencing, and file sharing on its eponymous collaborative platform. By 2020, the Teams platform exceeded 115 million daily active users.

Under pressure from the lockdown and generalization of remote working, companies are adapting and adopting these new tools that allow them to work together on files simultaneously, to organize meetings, conversations, and calls, in short, to collaborate – even remotely – from a single location, common to everyone. You might as well say that next to what these new tools allow, messaging services such as Outlook, almost look like fossils of professional communication. Today, we can have everything at hand on the same interface, designed to facilitate and streamline communication. It’s a natural progression, as the user experience on the platforms improves, the work tools also become easier to handle, and respond even more to the needs of a company.

But then, to truly meet all the needs of your employees and provide them with all the tools to improve their productivity, training must also be part of this ecosystem to naturally integrate into the employees’ workflow. Because a tool is useless if no one uses it, digital training solutions must be accessible directly on these new collaborative tools, because this is where employees are active, but it is also where they encounter the need for training. There is even a parallel between the evolution we are witnessing concerning our working methods, which are becoming more ergonomic, digital, and which respond to a set of needs thanks to the same global solution; and training, which is becoming digitalized, innovating to create formats adapted to the needs of the learners and offering contents with high added value in a single place. Our ambition at Coorpacademy is to make training accessible to all your collaborators and to meet them where they work. Thus, to make training accessible to all, the Coorpacademy platform is integrated into Teams! Indeed, on the Microsoft Teams platform, you can train in 1 click by integrating the Coorpacademy application, which will be accessible directly on your working environment once downloaded.

Work tools are becoming ecosystems and are more and more integrated, to guarantee a secure sharing of information within the whole organization and to promote collaboration. As we mentioned in our article “Learn and work at the same time or when training is just a click away“, training must be integrated into your organization’s productivity spaces, to allow your employees to have access in record time to a catalog of premium course content and thus immediately put into practice the knowledge acquired and optimize the retention of information.