2050: The HR Odyssey – Episode 4

Somewhere in the world, on a date you really don’t need, we have located an advanced technology that allows us to get into the daily lives of employees. This fantastic journey through the experiences of different employees will take you to the edge of the Future of Work and allow you to see the challenges of business transformation. Today in our odyssey, discover the daily life of Aloïs…

 

“Stop! You just committed a cyber offense by trying to get into this building that is not accessible to you in Metaville. I’m going to have to issue you a ticket.”

 

In the middle of the Metaverse, Aloïs had just tried to enter the offices of a prestigious metacouture house, which only produces virtual clothes.

 

“I just wanted to drop off my resume… I didn’t think it was punishable by a fine… Is this new metaloi?”

 

“Indeed. Find out what the rules are in your country, but in France, the parliament has just voted to set up a metaverse police force. There are many offences that were not dealt with before. Assaults, thefts, and… intrusions! But listen… if you really want to drop off your resume, why don’t you send it by email?”

 

“Hahaha!” exclaimed Aloïs. “Okay Zoomer. How about a text while you’re at it!”

 

“You young people… I sometimes forget that you were born with the Metaverse! It’s been 25 years already… I didn’t understand much about it at the time, and here we are in the middle of a conversation with the only physical interaction being smileys above our avatars” replied the metasecurity officer. “Well, I’m not going to fine you, but I can’t give you access, so you’d better go to Cyber Job.”

 

Aloïs replied with a smiling smiley face, which was immediately displayed above his virtual avatar, and then set off.

While his parents, real Zoomers from generation Z, used to tell him about Pôle Emploi at the time, today one could access these organizations in the metaverse and find… meta work.

 

“Hello and welcome to Cyber Job. How can I help you?”

 

An artificial intelligence was facing Alois. A virtual menu appeared before his eyes, offering several options:

 

1 – Registration

2 – Make an appointment with your virtual consultant

3 – Other request

 

It wasn’t the first time for Aloïs, who already knew his Cyber Job advisor well. She was the one who had sent him to the doors of Virtual Clothing this morning and who had almost cost him a fine. Maybe the AI data should be updated following the new cyber law… With this thought, Aloïs chose option 2. His advisor was available and Alois would soon be back in the real world for lunch.

 

“Hello Aloïs! How’s that job search going?”

 

“Not very conclusive, I was stopped at the doors of the building by a virtual security guard. Results of the races, I return to the starting point. Don’t you have any new offers for me?”

 

“What a shame. I apologize for the inconvenience. I will update this new information in my system to improve my service. Let me look at the new open positions. I’ll ask you for a moment.”

 

A loading icon indicated that his advisor was looking for Aloïs’ new opportunity. A few minutes later, Aloïs saw a notification appear on the side of his virtual headset: *New document available in your Candidate Area*

 

“I have just sent you several job sheets adapted to your profile. All your information and documents are ready to be sent. If you wish to apply, simply press the button at the bottom of each job description. Don’t hesitate to come back to me if you need more information!”

 

Aloïs ended the meeting and opened the sent document.

 

NEW POSITIONS AVAILABLE!

 

Metaverse Team Manager

As a metaverse specialist, you are able to manage a team of avatars in complete autonomy. Your main role is to build and maintain a virtual link with a team of 15 people in the world, within the virtual space of a global organization, directly from the metaverse. For more information, click here.

 

Metaverse Tourist Guide

Museums, cinema, architecture, there are so many beautiful things to discover in your Metaville! If you have a meta-digital dexterity and you want to accompany the new avatars in their discovery of the virtual world, apply here.

 

Metaverse Event Manager

Concerts, weddings, exhibitions, galas, corporate events… Are you a virtual event specialist? We need your skills to organize large-scale meta-events that make the eyes of the participants shine in their virtual helmet! If you recognize yourself in this ad, we invite you to click here.

 

Virtual avatar stylist

Virtual fashion has no secrets for you. You are aware of the latest NFT releases and virtual collections, you have a sense of aesthetics and a good address book? Become a virtual avatar stylist and help avatars navigate through virtual fashion. Ready to revolutionize meta-style? Click here to apply.

 

This last offer caught Aloïs’ attention. Maybe finally, his skills in 3D realization and his knowledge in virtual fashion will give him access to the building that was not open to him earlier…

 

Conclusion

In 2050, the job market will be reinvented. Changed by the emergence of the metaverse and new technologies, new professions will develop to manage this new “life” space. At the end of 2021, the American gaming expert Jon Radoff proposed four major families of jobs related to the metaverse and web 3.0. On this basis, Jérémy Lamri, CEO of Tomorrow Theory, has pushed the exercise even further by drawing up a list of 40 professions, which inspired this article.

It’s not you, it’s me: the great resignation phenomenon

 

Subway, work, sleep. This expression sums up quite well the system that many American workers have been questioning in recent months, claiming a sense of enforced work routine. This is what the new workers, those who followed the “big quit” are questioning. They decide to resign from a job that no longer suits them, and go to work for companies that are in line with their values. So, how did this phenomenon export itself to France, and what lessons can we draw for the future?

 

The “Big quit”

This phenomenon is known as the “Big Quit” in the United States. In 2021, more than 38 million Americans left their jobs, 40% of whom had not found another job when they took the plunge. Since then, the phenomenon has intensified in France, albeit to a lesser extent, but affecting all jobs and sectors. For example, a large CAC40 company recently lost 23.5% of its workforce. The DARES (Direction de l’animation de la recherche, des études et des statistiques) indicates in a study that “the increase in employee-initiated contract terminations does not only concern permanent contracts. In June 2021, early termination of fixed-term contracts stood at 25.8%, above the level reached two years earlier. 

 

With the unemployment rate stagnating at around 8.1% and over 45% of companies experiencing recruitment difficulties in 2021, the phenomenon is making its way into France. With the French economy doing well even after the health crisis, employees have not hesitated to leave a job that did not suit them, even without necessarily having another guaranteed position. Moreover, the current labour market situation is rather to the advantage of workers, allowing them greater mobility. By the end of 2021, the same DARES study cited above reported that 130,000 to 265,000 jobs were unfilled and 80% of HR managers surveyed reported a labour shortage. These conditions have encouraged employees in all sectors to leave their jobs and look for better opportunities elsewhere. Nevertheless, the next few months will be crucial for our economy, which is likely to be affected by the domino effect of the war in Ukraine and may reshuffle the deck in the labour market.

 

A social phenomenon first and foremost

Two years ago, we did not yet know how to react to the health crisis and we were still in the process of adapting. Thus, the French workforce went through a series of confinements, periods of partial unemployment, teleworking, etc. This unstable period raised real questions about the future of the economy. This unstable period raised real questions about the absurdity of the system, made many employees question their real motivation at work. For many, the confinement was an opportunity to catch their breath, or rather, to breathe for the first time.

 

The health crisis has reshuffled the deck in many aspects of our lives. The world of work has not been spared: the balance between personal and professional life, the search for meaning, the prioritisation of needs, etc. For a number of French employees, the crisis has been a source of concern. For a certain number of French employees, COVID19 has served as an accelerator to take the plunge and leave their jobs for a more meaningful profession, which feeds a real need for consideration at work.

 

Towards the “Big transformation

The expectations of employees have changed radically and we have to adapt to them. Make way for the “big transformation”. Indeed, if workers quit, it is also due to a lack of listening or recognition at work. According to Danny Nelms, president of the Work Institute in Franklin, Tennessee, organisations that want to retain their employees must “listen” and “put tools and processes in place to be able to respond to the needs and demands of their people”. For example, Danny Nelms suggests tools such as ‘retention interviews’.

 

The phenomenon of large-scale resignations, although on a lesser scale in France, bears witness to a real change in the needs and expectations of employees. Nevertheless, this phenomenon is not inevitable, if the company transforms itself and does everything possible to adapt to this new labour market. On the manager’s side, listening is therefore crucial. The work environment must be pleasant and the teams play an essential role in maintaining a positive work atmosphere. On the recruiters’ side, the attractiveness of an offer is a key point to attract talent. Teleworking, flexible working hours, geographical proximity and other advantages are all motivating factors. More than the benefits, it is also the company’s values that will give employees a sense of belonging and commitment.

 

From then on, learning takes on its full meaning when it comes to onboarding new talent, retaining employees and training them in the company’s challenges and values, or even creating or reinforcing a corporate culture, etc. It also allows managers to adapt management methods to each personality and to learn how to encourage employee commitment.

 

There is an urgent need to develop work environments that are pleasant to live in and that encourage employees to make a long-term commitment rather than to quit. Training is an essential tool for this, because learning is the only way to evolve.

 

Management 3.0

 

Tell me how you remote work and I’ll tell you what country you are from

 

Since February 2nd, remote working is no longer compulsory in France but still strongly recommended. Although this legal constraint has now been lifted for companies, employees have adopted this practice, which has rapidly become normalized since the first lockdown. 

Une récente étude de PwC révèle que 68 % des dirigeants déclarent que les employés doivent être présents au bureau au moins 3 jours par semaine pour maintenir une culture d’entreprise unique. Si la situation est plutôt favorable à l’adoption du travail hybride en France, qu’en est-il pour les entreprises et les collaborateurs chez nos voisins Européens ?  Ces réponses, nous les trouverons dans une enquête menée par l’Ifop pour la Fondation Jean Jaurès auprès d’actifs issus d’échantillons représentatifs en Allemagne, en France, en Espagne, en Italie et au Royaume-Uni.

A recent PwC study reveals that 68% of managers say that employees need to be in the office at least 3 days a week to maintain a unique corporate culture. If the situation is rather favourable to the adoption of hybrid working in France, what is the situation for companies and employees in our European neighbours?  These answers can be found in a survey conducted by Ifop for the Fondation Jean Jaurès among working people from representative samples in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK.

 

How many days do you remote work in a week?

If you are in France, you may have “less access” to remote working. Indeed, according to the survey, only 29% of French workers declare to remote work “at least once a week”. This compares to 51% of Germans, 50% of Italians, 42% of British and 36% of Spaniards. Globally, remote working is present, but not to the same extent, and therefore covers a desire for a balance between face-to-face and remote working.

 

What is your socio-professional category?

Remote working is not accessible to all. Indeed, even among our European neighbours, inequalities in access to remote work by socio-professional category (CSP) are visible. All the countries surveyed showed that the CSP+ have more access to remote work than the CSP-. This gap is reinforced in France, with a 39 point difference (56% of CSP+ and 17% of CSP- have access to remote work) whereas the gap between the two categories is “only” 8 points in Italy, the country where access to remote work is the most socially homogeneous (with weekly rates that concern 56% of CSP+ and 48% of CSP-).

 

How many days would you ideally like to remote work?

At least 2 days? Are you thinking of moving? On average, the number of “desired” days of remote work is 2.7 in Spain, 2.4 in Italy, 2.2 in Germany, 2 in the UK and… 1.8 days per week in France.

 

How old are you?

In Europe, a majority of workers under 35 remote work, while those over 50 do not. In France, this discriminating variable is more homogeneous. 31% of those under thirty-five work remotely at least once a week, compared to 28% of those aged fifty and over. This shows that “digital natives” and “boomers” are not as different as they would have you believe!

 

Do you have children?

According to a study by Valoir, remote working has resulted in an overall productivity decrease of only 1%. However, a nuance appears! Among parents, for whom the balance between personal and professional life is more difficult to guarantee, productivity is of 2%. This is lower than for employees without children, for whom productivity has fallen by 3% since they started remote working. Perhaps more accustomed to juggling multiple tasks and organising their time, parents also have obvious reasons for wanting to work harder to manage other daily tasks!

 

What are the advantages of remote working?

La pratique comme le souhait de télétravail diffèrent selon les pays. Néanmoins, ses représentations associées y sont partout plutôt homogènes et positives. En effet, trois avantages reviennent systématiquement : les économies financières (trajets, repas, garde d’enfants…), l’autonomie supplémentaire en matière d’organisation et la meilleure conciliation entre vie personnelle et vie professionnelle. Les pays qui ont davantage recours au télétravail voient la motivation de leurs actifs augmenter. Tout du moins en Europe. Au Japon, une étude révèle qu’alors que le télétravail a concerné jusqu’à 25% des salariés japonais (contre 6% avant la crise), il a paradoxalement débouché sur une baisse de productivité d’environ 20% en moyenne. Ainsi, le télétravail n’est pas accueilli et vécu de la même manière selon les cultures :  il existe des spécificités et exceptions.

Both the practice and the desire for remote work differ from country to country. Nevertheless, the representations associated with it are everywhere rather homogeneous and positive. Indeed, three advantages are systematically mentioned: financial savings (commuting, meals, childcare, etc.), additional organisational autonomy and better reconciliation between personal and professional life. Countries that make more use of remote work see an increase in the motivation of their workers. At least in Europe. In Japan, a study shows that while remote work has reached 25% of Japanese employees (compared to 6% before the crisis), it has paradoxically led to a decrease in productivity of about 20% on average. Thus, remote work is not welcomed and experienced in the same way in different cultures: there are specificities and exceptions.

 

We are only at the beginning of the managerial and organisational transformations that the implementation of remote work implies. If it is an increasingly common practice for some, it would be wrong to think that it concerns the entire workforce in France. However, aware of the advantages brought by these new ways of working, these figures can only evolve positively. Therefore, supporting companies in these developments is a priority in order to give them the keys to meet the expectations of their employees and ensure their commitment at work. 

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

 

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

 

Transforming to last

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

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

Continuous learning to evolve in a changing world 

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

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

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

Key skills for the future 

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

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

Topics that are on the rise

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Training to meet the challenges of COVID19

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

The future of learning

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

Sources 

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

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

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

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.

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.

Manager of tomorrow: 3 skills to adapt to the managerial revolution

 

Companies are changing. Like the world around us, organizations are evolving and with it, the teams that make them up. To guide these transitions, managers are the ones who will take the first steps towards change. New work methods, project management, and new cultures require the adoption of a 3.0 management style that adapts to the new needs of employees, and also responds to the upcoming challenges. So how can we transform our management so that everyone invests in the common good and achieves their objectives?

There is no ideal organizational model. When we talk about transformation, we may tend to believe that there is an ideal to be reached and that it is enough to meet the challenges of major transformations for them to be “completed”. But in a world that is constantly and rapidly evolving, transformation is never finished, it is renewed.  Today, all major transformations ultimately depend on the ability of individuals and organizations to adapt, to evolve serenely in an uncertain world, and to react to the unexpected. Management is a pillar for supporting business transformations, because they are driven by teams. The challenge for management in 2021 is to guide change.

Towards a management 3.0

Companies are facing new challenges: hybridization of work, digital and cultural transformation, renewal of skills and talents, to only name a few. The context of the pandemic has transformed our management methods towards more agile methods and requiring more autonomy. Added to this is the arrival of the younger generations, called millennials, which implies, for example, a review of management methods. 

According to a study by the recruitment site Monster.fr carried out in 2020 with the Yougov institute, at the end of May 2020, 19% of 18-34 year olds said they did not need meaning in their jobs, whereas at the end of 2020, only 4% shared this view. 

In search of meaning, millenials are therefore no longer just looking for compensation, but rather a sense of purpose. It will be important for these new recruits to understand how, at their own level, they participate in the company’s collective adventure. These new generations of employees are also looking for feedback and encouragement. In exchange for their involvement, it is important to be thanked and congratulated regularly.

The term management 3.0 was coined by Jurgen Appelo, a writer and lecturer, who works on leadership issues. Today, a manager is a leader. This means that they use their power of conviction to lead people towards their objectives. This concept describes all the methods of agile management: the manager-leader gives meaning to the employees, rather than giving them directives. 

Management 3.0 would be an agile management type, based on a sharing contract. More linear, horizontal and collaborative, it would increase the autonomy of each person, and would be more empowering for employees. For the smooth running of organizations, it is essential for managers to develop certain skills, which will enable them to better understand the needs and expectations of employees, and to get closer to the role of coach. To do this, managers must learn to better manage their emotions, but also those of their teams. So, what skills should a manager develop today to reinvent his management and better support employees in the future?  

Management 3.0

Active listening

Knowing how to listen is an essential professional skill for any good manager. Sincerely listening to one’s employees has important consequences on the overall efficiency of the team, both individually and collectively, but also on the quality of inter-colleague relations. So what is active listening? First of all, it’s about clearing your head to make room only for the information that your interlocutor communicates to you. Without thinking about what you are going to answer, you let the other person finish what they are saying. To draw the best conclusions from what your interlocutor communicates, you should not think about what you are going to say next. You let the speaker finish what he or she is saying, and only decide what to think about it once it is over. You can ask questions, show that you are attentive and constructive to what the person you are talking to is telling you. By developing your listening skills, you will truly understand the needs of your teams, and be able to respond effectively to their expectations. 

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Managing conflicts at work 

Within the company, we are in daily contact with each other and this can lead to conflicts. Indeed, in all human groups, tensions can occur and it is up to the manager to take charge of these conflictual situations in order to transform them into an opportunity to improve relations. Because it is by building together that we reach a satisfactory solution, managing conflicts is a crucial aspect of management. Between conflicts of objectives; conflicts of strategy or methods; conflicts of interests or needs; and conflicts of values, dealing with these tense situations requires very specific listening skills, particularly in order to resolve them. Even if the conflict often appears in a brutal way, it almost always presents signals beforehand, which one must learn to identify in order to manage them as soon as possible. As a manager, you must not only learn to identify situations of tension – which can lead to a rupture – but also learn to prevent conflicts between employees by instilling the right practices and behaviors. 

Discover more on Managing conflicts at Work

Leadership

The company is first and foremost made up of people, each of whom will have different behaviors. The adoption of new processes and the smooth running of certain projects can be encouraged – or not – by the employees and their behaviors. Thus, the organization is influenced by the personalities that make it up, and the manager’s mission is to unite these pluralities of behaviors around the achievement of common objectives. To guide transformations, leadership is a key skill because it allows one to learn how to respond to the needs of individuals and to understand the behaviors of each person, in order to better guide them. Getting teams involved in projects and enabling them to achieve their objectives requires a climate of trust, which can be fostered by the social influence of the manager, who knows how to communicate with the various individuals who make up the company. To go from manager to leader, you don’t necessarily need to have a strong personality, but above all you need to be aware that leadership is about motivating people. 

Learn more on Evolving from manager to leader

Of course, there is no ideal organizational model. However, well-managed teams can make all the difference in creating the optimal conditions for collectively achieving business goals. According to a Gallup study, organizations that manage to personally involve employees in their missions achieve very good annual results. For example, a 10% improvement in the connection between employees and their organization’s mission or goal leads to an 8.1% decrease in turnover and a 4.4% increase in profitability. And finally, managers themselves want to be better trained to improve their job performance. According to a TalentSoft study, during the pandemic, 44.5% of public sector managers requested training for themselves, and that’s good! Managers, in their role as leaders, set an example and encourage employees to learn, so that they can continue to perform well in the long term, despite the unforeseen events that the future holds.

New skills available on the Coorpacademy catalog!

 

Coorpacademy’s catalog is being renewed to better meet the training expectations of tomorrow. In a constantly evolving environment, it is necessary to know how to train continuously. To do so, it is crucial to identify the essential skills to be acquired. As mentioned in our article on the 10 key skills to be developed by 2025, identified by the World Economic Forum in its Future of Jobs 2020 report, training is essential to prepare companies and employees for the challenges that will disrupt them, and to anticipate the major transformations to come. While we already cover 100% of the skills identified by the World Economic Forum, we are investing in new skills for the future, such as sustainable thinking!

Therefore, we are glad to enrich our training catalog with 3 new skills. The ones that we, and the World Economic Forum, believe will shape the future of work in the years to come. In order to better accompany you in the training of your employees, in your upskilling or simply to feed your curiosity, discover the new skills to be developed on Coorpacademy:

Adaptability and Resilience

Showing adaptation and resilience is crucial in all circumstances. We can never say it enough, being prepared for the unexpected is essential to remain efficient and not to be destabilized by the obstacles we encounter. For companies, developing a culture of adaptability and resilience allows them to prepare for the unexpected, paradoxically. 2020 has shown that the unexpected is often confusing, which is why you should learn how to react to such situations, and do so before the next event.

Sustainable thinking 

The next (r)evolution will be ecological and to prepare for it, we are adding the competence entitled “sustainable thinking” in the Coorpacademy catalog. The ecological transformation of companies involves numerous stakes and the changes it implies must be thought sustainably, in order to conceive an organization that would take into account its whole ecosystem (economic, social and environmental) to build a sustainable model. To begin the acculturation to these vital subjects, we’re adding the sustainable thinking competence to the Coorpacademy catalog!

Learning to learn 

Because learning is not always easy, between notification and lack of concentration, we think it is important to go back to the basics: learning to learn. This is the theme of the new skill added to the Coorpacademy catalog. Rediscover the mechanism of your brain, to better understand the way it processes information and thus learn more efficiently. As we evolve in an uncertain world, learning to learn is essential to develop your adaptability and respond rapidly to the transformations of your profession. Become a learning ace with this new skill available on Coorpacademy! 

By enriching the Coorpacademy catalog with new skills, we enable companies to promote their transformation(s).  To ensure a successful digital transition, discover the 3 main skills to acquire:

Digital transformation: what if it is not over? Discover the top 3 skills for a successful transition

To discover in detail the new skills available in the Coorpacademy catalog, click here.

Training in the midst of transformation: a look at the impact of the pandemic

 

This Wednesday, June 16 at 6:30 pm, Jean-Marc Tassetto, co-founder and CEO of Coorpacademy, will participate in a roundtable discussion on the impact of the pandemic on the EdTech sector in France. During this round table, co-founders and investors of leading companies in this sector will discuss their vision of the future of education following this pandemic that has disrupted the uses. In anticipation of these discussions, discover this article that set the context of post-COVID digital learning.

Educational technologies, commonly referred to as EdTech, represent digital solutions that are revolutionizing the learning experience, through mobile apps, learning platforms, and other mediums. 2020 has redrawn the contours of learning, adapting to the exceptional measures that have been imposed on us, and thus shaping new uses. To say that learning is changing is an understatement. It is transforming.

We have been told for months: stay home! And for the better good. However, this measure raises a major question: how can we ensure that continuous learning is maintained if we are individually isolated at home? To address this issue, we had to implement solutions and take full advantage of the tools at our disposal. Thus, the use of new technologies, which was already obvious for some, has become indispensable for all. Both for educational institutions, which had to organize themselves to guarantee access to education and for companies, which had to reorganize teams and introduce remote working measures, while ensuring remote team training. The use of digital technology has therefore become vital to meet the challenges created by the pandemic and to ensure the smooth running of organizations despite the constraints of this unprecedented context.

The first lockdown allowed the French population to integrate the new digital uses more permanently and intensely. For institutions, distance learning has been adopted very quickly and for companies, between remote working and online training, the use of digital technology has made considerable progress. We are moving towards an era of digitalized training, where digital tools feed the learner’s experience and reinforce the pedagogy. Farewell to the traditional face-to-face courses and the dusty e-learning: they are reinvented to offer a digital learning experience that better adapts to individuals, their learning styles, their educational content consumption habits, and their life rhythms.

To constantly improve the learning experience and adapt to the world in which we evolve, it is necessary to rethink educational formats and ways of delivering information. It is certain that our attention spans are impacted by the use of digital technology, especially with social networks and the culture of immediacy. Accelerated by the COVID19, the use of digital has increased, shaping new habits, which are the beginnings that will shape the of the future of education and training in companies.

To learn more about this future, don’t miss the roundtable discussion on June 16 at 6:30 p.m. organized by Speedinvest, which will feature the leaders of the EdTech sector in France: 

Jean-Marc Tassetto, co-founder & CEO of Coorpacademy
Pierre Dubuc co-founder & CEO of OpenClassrooms
Charles Gras co-founder of Simbel
Benoit Wirz partners at Brighteye Ventures

Register for free to the round table by clicking here.

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