“Employees no longer want to train”: How the skills fresco wants to make training more sexy

In 30 years, the lifespan of a skill has gone from 30 to 2 years according to the OECD, a particularly rapid obsolescence in digital technology. Enough to give HR a cold sweat and make training a hot topic for companies. Paradoxically, “employees no longer want to train”notes Agnès Alazard, co-founder of the edtech Maria Schools, a training school inspired by Montessori philosophy.

The causes of this lack of interest are multiple. The notion of skills still remains vague for some employees who struggle to recognize their hard and soft skills, which can make it difficult to detect their needs. “Apart from the fact that following training is not always valued internally by managers” because of the time it takes, also points out Agnès Alazard.

Today, training retains an unattractive “catalog” image according to François Debois, director of “Excellence and Innovation” training for the L’Oréal group. A set of findings which translate into a major challenge for HR and managers alike: “make training more desirable. »

Make employees responsible for their training

To hack this problem, the founders of Maria Schools brought together a pool of training experts from Axa, Bpifrance, Docaposte, Société Générale, L'Oréal, Metro London and Pernod Ricard London. They discussed and worked for six months on these blocking points and the development of a tool capable of responding to them: the skills fresco.

“As the discussions progressed, we came to the idea that, to put yourself in a learner position, you have to realize everything you have to transmit, reveals the co-founder of Maria Schools. By becoming aware of the possibility of helping others grow, we change our posture and our relationship to learning. »

The training course must no longer be top-down, that is to say, based solely on suggestions from managers but on employee proactivity. The business challenge “is to succeed in ensuring that employees mobilize time and energy to train by showing curiosity, by seeking development solutions that suit them”summarizes François Debois.

Create knowledge and cohesion

Designed like its predecessors (climate fresco, biodiversity, etc.), the skills fresco takes the form of a three-hour workshop that is both practical and fun. The experience, carried out as a team, is divided into four stages, all timed and orchestrated by a mediator external to the team. A gamification specialist was contacted by the founders of Maria Schools to boost the process.

After having determined an initial objective (strengthening team cohesion, determining the present skills or future needs of the team, etc.), the members of the team (6 to 12 maximum recommended) take action:

– Each employee is first invited to present their individual skills. Other participants can intervene to cite others. Cards have been developed to facilitate exchanges.

– All of the team's soft and hard skills are identified to establish an assessment of the skills already present within the team.

– This also makes it possible to determine, in a third step, the missing skills to be developed to lead the team's projects.

– The course ends with the development of a concrete action plan intended to facilitate the transmission of skills internally and meet the needs of each participant.

As the workshop progresses, the information thus updated is listed in the form of a tree. The roots represent individual knowledge and know-how, the trunk the team's skills and the branches project future needs.

Create a new dynamic of exchanges

“We get to the heart of the matter very quickly, the approach is quite fun and very concrete because we start from individuals”, observes Christel Hennetier, HR development manager Crédit Agricole Provence Côte d'Azur who tested the workshop with members of her team. This created a new dynamic of knowledge sharing between team members. Two of them will also work together on managing the stress of one of them.

Qualified “inspiring” And “exciting” by the participants, it is also “intellectually demanding”, notes the HR manager. The presence of a mediator allows “pace and rhythm well” each part.

Maria Schools, which takes care of the organization of the fresco in structures of all sizes (start-ups, SMEs, CAC40 groups, etc.), also trains internally, one or more members, likely to take on this role of facilitator for companies that wish to benefit from different centers.