team Archives - Coorpacademy

Online training for SMEs

Frédérick Benichou and Armelle Lavergne’s interview on B SMART

Wendy: This is the continuation of SMART Campus, thank you for being faithful to this meeting of education and training stakeholders! What is the right path for your identity and what is the job behind it? We are going to be concrete and efficient with a reference in online training, Coorpacademy, represented by its co-founder Frédérick Benichou.

Frédérick: Hello!

Wendy: And with Armelle Lavergne in charge of content and partnerships, hello!

Armelle: Hello Wendy!

Wendy: Your platform is almost 10 years old, you created it with former Google employees.

Frédérick : We are very proud of course! We created ourselves, we were three. I’m not going to say in a garage because it sounds a bit cliché, but it’s not far off! Today there are more than 55 of us, we have more than 800,000 active users, 150 major account platforms open, we are present in about thirty countries, and 40% of our users are outside Europe. So we’re actually quite proud of our little journey.

Wendy : Oh yes, indeed, it’s quite enormous. That is to say that in 8 years, an identity has been created with a clear pedagogical line, right Armelle?

Armelle : Yes, exactly! I’ve been lucky enough to work for Coorpacademy for 7 years, and we’ve set up a Content division that I manage. Today, we have more than 1800 training contents available and we are very much oriented towards soft skills – we talked a lot about this during the confinement because it is what enabled us to face the crisis. The editorial line is therefore very soft skills and it can cover 5 areas of transformation: digital, managerial, operational, cultural and sustainable.

Wendy : Right. So the relational skills are what the companies that call on your services increasingly ask you for?

Frédérick : To carry out a transformation project in a company, at least 70% of employees must understand what it is all about. Our platform, with its microlearning format, its permanent accessibility at all levels and its fun game modes, enables a large proportion of employees to be acculturated almost instantly before consulting firms or major company reforms are required. It is therefore part of our DNA to be able to deploy this acculturation very quickly to digital transformation projects, sustainable development projects, cultural transformation projects, and employee ‘upskilling’.

Wendy : That’s interesting because if we talk about content, in connection with what Frédérick was saying, are we seeing a revolution in e-learning, Armelle? Is there an evolution in mentalities, a very different demand for training?

Armelle : I think that the training market today is very competitive, there are a lot of offers. What we see is that the personal use that you can have when you train in languages for example, you want to find it in your professional life. We target employees of large groups, but also today of very small businesses and the idea is to offer them a fluid, gamified experience – that means you can learn while having fun, because you can be serious without being serious – so the idea is to be able to pass levels, unlock these levels, talk to your colleagues, create emulation, win lives, etc. This fluid, very operational mode is also a way to make the learning process more efficient. This fluid, highly operational mode, which is also linked to our personal uses, is what we are asked to do today and that is the challenge.

Wendy : Yes, and all this with a minimum of time, because the problem is that we are also compressed in space and time!

Frédérick : It is indeed very important. You were talking about the e-learning revolution, about the evolution of mentalities, when we arrived on the market and we spoke to teachers and told them “we’re going to make courses, modules that are 5 minutes long, you’ll be able to do your 20 minute course in 4 modules of 5 minutes, but you’ll have to break up your content” they looked at us with catastrophic and horrified eyes. But it turns out that in our personal lives we are all addicted to our phones and the short format, so if we don’t do it, we don’t have a completion rate. People don’t get to the end, they stop, they interrupt.

Wendy : And so the 5 minute format is the right format?

Frédérick : So it’s more complex than that because in fact, we have a KPI, a key figure that we track a lot, which is the completion rate. We have an 83% completion rate on our modules, which means that 83% of people finish the modules they start. So that’s huge in the world of e-learning. And this completion rate can be explained by the fact that it’s a game, because we win lives, because they are short formats, because we have an editorial tone – thanks to Armelle’s teams – that makes it friendly and funny, and because we make the content our own, etc. So we’re not going to learn complicated jobs – we’re not in the business of learning – on the other hand, we’re in the business of acculturation and that works very well.

Wendy : Yes, on soft skills, it’s important to distinguish. So you were talking about your clients, the CAC40 companies, the large groups, but now there is an offer, a Team offer which is much more targeted at VSE/SMEs.

Frédérick : When we created Coorpacademy, we said to ourselves that we were going to bring the quality of the tools of the personal world – the quality of the digital tools of the personal world – to the world of large companies. Today, we say to ourselves that there is no reason why only large companies should have access to these quality tools and so we are going to bring to SMEs the quality of the tools of large groups – with preferential rates, an ease of subscription, an ease of parameterisation which is more standardised but more operational – they can create platforms in less than 15 minutes, it is open and they invite their employees instantly.

Wendy : With key topics coming out of this particular year but which also speak of competitiveness: digital, teleworking, sales, languages, etc. Are we in these contents too for this particular Team offer?

Armelle : Yes, that’s right. We carried out interviews and in particular a competitive benchmark study. The first thing we noticed was that there was not much difference between the training needs of large companies and VSEs/SMEs. We were then able to ‘pick and choose’, i.e. create training courses with the objective of being very practical and with concrete and rapid results. So the main points are office automation, management, negotiation management, etc. Very specific themes for VSEs/SMEs.

Wendy : So how do we know that it went well and that there is good feedback on the experience and on the completion rate?

Frédérick : The completion rate is a great indicator. We also have the duration of the subscription, if customers stay, if people come back, if companies stay subscribed, that’s very important! We have customers who have been subscribing for more than 7 years, so a priori, since there is no commitment, they are happy!

Wendy : That’s a good estimate. Do you have anything to add?

Armelle : No, we hope it will take off and we’ll see you soon to talk about it!

Wendy : I am very pleased with this Team offer in particular and with your follow-up of the evolution of mentalities, requirements and needs!

A new partner for office automation training: discover Mandarine Academy!

Dans le cadre du lancement de l’offre Team – la plateforme de formation conçue pour assurer la croissance des startups et PME – nous sommes ravis d’enrichir notre catalogue de formation en proposant des contenus de Mandarine Academy. Pour découvrir ces nouveaux modules de cours, nous avons posé quelques questions à ce nouveau partenaire d’édition qui met les outils digitaux à la portée de tous !

As part of the launch of Team – the training platform designed to ensure the growth of startups and SMEs (available in French) – we are delighted to enrich our training catalogue with content from Mandarine Academy. To find out about these new course modules, we asked a few questions to this new publishing partner that makes digital tools available to everyone!

Why was Mandarine Academy born?

Mandarine Academy has been supporting the digital transformation of companies for over 13 years now. We created Mandarine in 2008 because we realised how complex it was to support users of telephony solutions and software. The only players in this field were offering e-learning content only. We know that without support, e-learning content is rarely consulted. We therefore created our own human and industrialised training model.

Today we have more than 1,000,000 users, over 5,000 training contents and more than 3,000 clients whom we have helped to introduce new technologies. We have put in place a range of training solutions to meet all needs. From the self-employed person looking for training to the HR manager in charge of hundreds or even thousands of employees, everyone can find the solution that suits them.

What are the strengths of the Mandarine Academy courses?

Since the creation of Mandarine, we have always made it a point of honour to make training participative and engaging. As I said earlier, making e-learning available to users is pointless if there is no human support. This is why today, thanks to an exclusive approach that combines a digital training platform with personalised support, punctuated by individual training meetings, we are able to offer a new way of training that is more effective in terms of skills, capacity, time and budget.

We are also fortunate to be a Microsoft partner and have been an expert on Microsoft 365 collaborative tools for over 10 years now.

How long have you been in partnership with Microsoft?

We have been a Microsoft partner since April 2010. As a Gold Partner, we have a strong relationship with Microsoft’s marketing teams to be able to anticipate the evolutions of Microsoft 365 tools and the new needs of users in order to create the most relevant and up-to-date training content.

What is the methodology behind the Mandarine Academy training courses?

For us, there is no successful training without human support. This is why we have a team of CSMs (Customer Success Managers) who provide our customers with tailor-made support every day according to their needs. They help them to define which training resources are the most relevant to view and in which order, according to the needs of each user and each business.

As for formats, each user is different, so we offer different training formats, including video (tutorials, use cases, etc.). Video is the mainstay of the training format, and we have an internal team dedicated to producing it. We produce videos for our own catalogue but also customised videos for our clients in France and abroad.

Another of Mandarine‘s flagship formats is videoconferencing. It is even Mandarine’s DNA. For more than 13 years, we have been delivering remote training courses of 45 minutes to 1.5 hours, which can be easily deployed in 48 hours thanks to our own training logistics tool. The advantages of this format are numerous: on the user side, they exchange live with a trainer, ask their questions and are involved in the training thanks to our participative teaching methods, which facilitates the commitment of the learners. For the company, it gets rid of the logistical costs associated with user travel, room hire, etc. A computer connected to the Internet is all that is needed for training!

We regularly update our teaching methods to adapt to users. For example, we have a partnership with Klaxoon. We integrate their collaborative tool to get learners involved and participate throughout the training sessions.

Why is it crucial to train in office automation tools?

For more than fifteen years now, we have been facing an increasing presence of digital technology in our daily lives. It has become commonplace to use the Internet to make medical appointments or carry out administrative procedures. This digitalization has led to a divide in the population, as many people have difficulties with digital technology. This is known as digital illiteracy and affects 13 million people in France.

This phenomenon is therefore also present in companies: how do I share my document, how can I easily contact my colleague with the tools available to me? It is therefore necessary to raise awareness and train on the tools. Especially since the tools are multiplying, it is essential to understand which tool corresponds to which use in my daily work to be productive without wasting time finding the tool to use or looking for how it works.

What are your most popular courses? And where do you start?

On the Office 365 MOOC, training content on Microsoft Teams, OneDrive/SharePoint and Power BI are always the most viewed.

Here are some of the most viewed courses for example:

So I would recommend starting with two of the most viewed pieces of content to begin to understand the capabilities of Microsoft Teams for communication and OneDrive and SharePoint to understand the difference between the two, how to store documents and how to share them.

How often do you publish new training content?

Every month, we release new content on the Office 365 MOOC platform (courses, courses, tutorials, use cases). In total, we release more than 600 pieces of content per year (creation and updates). We follow the evolution of the functionalities of the tools that make up the Microsoft 365 suite, so we update our content according to these evolutions.

Our proximity to our customers also allows us to discuss their future needs in order to build tailor-made content. For example, in January 2020, during a workshop with a client, he shared with us their end-of-year objective, which was the implementation of teleworking. So we started working on dedicated content. In March 2020, everything accelerated with containment, and this content became essential for this client and for many others. Without this proximity to our customers, we would not have been as ready to face this situation.

To discover the new Mandarine Academy course modules and reinforce your knowledge of office automation tools, discover the Team offer! In a few minutes, create your massive training platform and benefit from a 15-day free trial by clicking here.

Training is a big deal!

Training is above all a human adventure. It puts people at the heart of the company and helps the talents that make up the company to progress. Through the story of my experience, I would like to try to answer the following question: does the size of the company count when it comes to training?

Having had the opportunity to work within groups of different sizes and operating in different sectors or regions, I have always noticed a common denominator in these experiences: my desire to learn. Whether it was learning how to produce an editorial calendar, something very concrete, or developing my adaptability, a so-called soft skill, the size of the company was never a hindrance to progress. But then, if size doesn’t matter, what’s left to measure? To help you understand, let me tell you the story of my rise in skills.

Here we are 3 years ago, I land in Montreal, and I discover the queue to enter the bus. If I decided to join Céline, it’s not for the love of poutine but for an internship in a big international cosmetics company. The dream – with 20 degrees less. With more than 8,500 employees, this first experience in marketing will allow me to develop skills that will be essential to me later on… Because in addition to the management and coordination tasks that I carry out on a daily basis – and which I quickly adopted the basics of – I am developing an unfailing ability to adapt without even noticing it. FYI, I work in French with Quebecers who work half the time in English. Since Canada is an English and French speaking country, all communications are done in both languages, but not all communications can be adapted to both languages. I adapt the speech, change the slogans, arrange the visuals. And when I get back to France, I feel like I’ve become a chameleon who can’t wait to change my appearance.

I’m back in France, I’ve just got a work-study contract to validate my last year of a Master’s degree in Communication, I’m starting in 2 days. The chameleon that I have become is not disappointed: I will now work in a telemedicine start-up! A dream come true – minus the Quebec accent. From my very first days, I’m learning new tools, adopting a new tone in my communications and immersing myself in new subjects. Offering teleconsultations and understanding the care pathway is a bit different than selling perfumes and understanding different skin types. And while I’m gaining skills in the Adobe suite, developing my creativity and gaining self-confidence, something happens that turns my life upside down: a certain extremely contagious and dangerous virus has appeared in the Wuhan region. You already know the rest: confinement, teleworking, Zoom aperitif and increased screen time. For my company, which has about forty employees, the adaptation is fast, and that’s good because we are at the front line. Although size doesn’t matter when it comes to training employees, it does influence the available manpower. This is why I had the opportunity during this pivotal period to provide support for tasks other than those usually assigned to me. This experience and this unprecedented situation allowed me to develop resilience and flexibility. But as I finish my work placement and head towards the world of work, I know that I will miss the school benches because I am thirsty to learn… Unless?

Unless the world of work is finally similar to the school benches. To finish our story, we are – almost – out of the health crisis and I finally found my first job as a Community Manager! The dream – minus the terraces. So I work in a start-up that does digital learning. A platform for massively developing the skills of employees, while meeting the needs of each learner. If joining a digital learning company makes it easier to increase your skills – I admit it – I discovered that, in the end, what I want to do later on is learn. Indeed, today I have understood that the common denominator of my employability, and above all of my motivation, is to progress, to improve myself, to adapt my skills to my environment. And as my environment is constantly changing, the chameleon that I am wants to learn continuously.

Thus, I have noticed through the writing of this article that all my experiences have led me to mobilise essential soft skills. Adaptation, resilience, creativity, team spirit, stress management, etc. are the soft skills that I have developed and nurtured throughout my professional life. The development of my skills is mainly based on my motivation and, to a certain extent, on the tools or situations that allow it. If the size of the company does not matter for my motivation to learn, the tools that will be made available to me can be influenced by this factor. In 2015, the inequality of opportunity in terms of training is reflected in the figures: the proportion of employees who received training in 2015 increases significantly with the size of the company employing them: 25% in the 10-19 employee group, 29% in the 20-49 group and 41% in the 50-249 group. These figures then increase to 58% above 250 employees, and to 63% above 500. Employees of large companies are therefore proportionally two and a half times more likely to have been trained in 2015.

This is why it is crucial that all companies, regardless of the number of employees, should be able to offer – and be offered – training that is engaging, impactful and accessible from anywhere. In conclusion, to train effectively, let’s not measure the size of the company, but rather measure the commitment of learners to develop their skills and the relevance of the devices put in place.

Are you a company with less than 250 employees and are you looking to develop your staff rapidly and massively? Discover Team by Coorpacademy, the training offer specially designed for start-ups and SMEs! Take advantage of a 15-day free trial – only available in French: https://coorpteam.coorpacademy.com

The playlist: a new asset to simplify the learning experience

It knows you better than anyone else, adapts to your desires, and facilitates your access to choice pieces: the course playlist, a new feature of the Team offer.

Monday morning, you open your favourite music streaming application and on the home screen, you hesitate. Are you more in the mood to discover the new releases of the month or to listen to your classics again? You’ll opt for your favourite playlist, but you’re not sure if the transition from that little alternative rock band you’ve just discovered to Adele’s latest album will go smoothly – then you feel like starting the week on a pop note, Adele, that’s for a rainy Sunday night.

On any platform, from music streaming to binge-watching giants, personalisation is key. To engage users, it is crucial to simplify their experience on a platform. Because on Monday morning, while you’re wavering between two musical styles, you also get 2 WhatsApp messages, 3 LinkedIn notifications and a reminder for Friday lunchtime: finish the Excel file for accounting. Ouch, Excel is not your forte.

So instead of browsing your playlists on Spotify, you decide to take the subject in hand! On Team by Coorpacademy, your company’s new e-learning offering, you discover a simple interface and quickly identify the ideal playlist to fill in your gaps by Friday. Having become an ace in office automation, you excel on Friday lunchtime, and the auditory dilemma of Monday morning is transformed into a learning dilemma between the playlist “Understanding digital and e-commerce” or “Make your teams more agile”.

As you will have understood, organising training content in the form of playlists is an effective way of customising and simplifying the learning experience. Specially designed for start-ups and SMEs, the new Team by Coorpacademy offer aims to facilitate access to training for smaller companies. Following interviews with start-up and SME managers, their needs and constraints have been clearly identified. Their employees need to be trained on a massive scale and quickly in subjects that are strategic for the company. This is why the Team offer is adapted to their expectations and proposes our catalogue of premium content organised in the form of playlists, in order to simplify learning on the platform.

The Team offer – available in French only for now – includes 17 carefully selected course themes to stimulate employee productivity, including digital culture, social networks, sales performance, agile management, language learning, office automation, etc. Indeed, following interviews with start-up and SME managers, these topics were mentioned as essential for the competitiveness and strategic development of companies with less than 250 employees:

1. 1. 1. 1. Don’t make any more mistakes when writing!
      2. Master professional English
      3. Express yourself perfectly in writing and speaking
      4. Succeed in your team management
      5. Manage your projects with agility
      6. Develop your learning skills
      7. Optimise your time management
      8. Learn to manage your emotions at work
      9. How to combine teleworking and performance
      10. Digital security: adopt the right reflexes!
      11. Strengthen your digital culture
      12. Use and value data
      13. Initiate the sustainable transformation of your company
      14. Corporate Social Responsibility: take action!
      15. Promote diversity and inclusion in your company
      16. Succeed in all your sales
      17. Become an outstanding negotiator

Test the Team offer in French for free for 15 days by clicking here!

Organising skills development in the form of playlists simplifies access to knowledge and makes it more fluid. Simplifying the learners’ experience encourages the development of new habits. The aim is for them to develop a real desire to learn, a boundless curiosity, and a good capacity to retain information. And simplifying the learner experience encourages these behaviours.

Your music streaming application knows your tastes by heart, so it can recommend the best content for you. Within the playlists it recommends to you, it identifies the music genres and artists you like. On your e-learning platform, we also observe your behaviour within the course playlists, so that we can then offer you courses that are better suited to your profile, your level, or to guide you towards a related subject!

Get 15 days trial to test the new Team offer in French 👉 https://coorpteam.coorpacademy.com/coming-soon-in-english/

Tag: team