Life-long Continuous Learning Is At The Core Of Capgemini: Arti Srivastava
In your view, what is unique about the L&D initiatives at Capgemini?
At the core of our strategy at Capgemini is life-long continuous learning that ensures that our employees stay up to date with the latest tools and technologies while also growing their Power skills. We embed learning into our daily work and culture while striving to create learning experiences that are unique to each employee’s needs.
At Capgemini, we invest in continuous learning and professional development programs while delivering in-depth, specialized certifications and face-to-face programs, through to hackathons, webinars and 5-minute coffee break courses, we have a world of learning to offer our employees.
Our learning is based upon five pillars, Capgemini DNA (ranges from our core values dissemination & Compliance to CSR and Sustainability commitments), Leadership, Industry, Technology & Innovation, Business & Methods). Learning is firmly embedded in our Environmental, Social and Governance.
We also try to bridge the technological gap in our society with our Digital Training Academy, which forms an integral part of Capgemini’s CSR efforts. As part of our vision for the programs, we aim to leverage Capgemini’s expertise to create efficient processes, thereby transforming the lives of marginalized students belonging to the programs. The Learning and Development team works (on a pro bono basis) in several capacities to ensure the efficacy of the training and placement processes to achieve desired outcomes.
How have your organization's L&D practices evolved in the hybrid model of working?
We at Capgemini leverage our hybrid working model to help our people meet their career expectations and further enhance their experience by fostering cross-staffing and collaboration, providing them with broader and more diverse work opportunities.
With our online learning platform, NEXT, our talent can access the learning content anywhere, anytime. Curated by Capgemini's best subject matter experts and external content providers, it can be simply viewed on a laptop or on phone through the App. Employees can grow skills to support our purpose of unleashing human energy through technology for an inclusive and sustainable future.
We offer flexible, personalized learning journeys accessible from anywhere at any time. We have partnered with some of the world’s leading learning and development content providers, such as Pluralsight, Udemy, Harvard ManageMentor and Spark, and Coursera to create our NEXT digital learning platform. NEXT gives our learners access to 250,000+ courses, 3 million learning activities from 1200 sources, and numerous external certifications. One also gets access to the latest technologies, functional skills, and industry developments. We design learning programs to complement the self-driven learning on the NEXT with well-defined certification readiness pathways which includes trainer mentoring sessions, focus on labs and practice assessments. This approach enables us to Upskill, Reskill, & Building Technology Skilled Workforce.
We also provide employees with learning opportunities to attend learning events in France and India. Our learning programs are also a unique opportunity for employees to connect with colleagues around the globe and expand their networks.
We have invested in a wide variety of content providers for our employees to leverage, at no cost to them, to expand their skill set. We enable them to explore and grow for their current or future role!
How does the company identify the learning needs of its employees and curate training programs based on their preferences?
The L&D team at Capgemini strategizes to ensure that learning is driven across Business-as-Usual initiatives and by way of special and targeted initiatives. The vision was to ensure existing talent as well as new talent, is initiated into the Cloud upskilling conundrum, in a planned and phased manner.
Based on an avant-garde learning experience platform, there are multiple learning interventions driven as part of the Technical Training Landscape, focused on three areas of Upskilling, Reskilling and Building a technology-skilled workforce. The interventions in this area were based on two core themes of “Content” & “Connect” – “Content” being about Self-paced online/digital learning, and “Connect” being about interventions that also incorporate some face time with Instructors / Mentors / Coaches or other Certified colleagues.
We evaluate market-required skills against current skills within the organization as this helps us to understand business inputs on potential skill investments as per Business Unit Skills Status & Market Trends to guide us on Skills to - Invest, Develop, Sustain and Divest.
It also helps us identify future skills, which in turn helps us build the learning content and capabilities through learning journeys and build assessments to check the knowledge application. Accordingly, the learning content/pathway is refreshed and both calendar-based and need-based training are designed and allocated to the respective group of audience.
We have designed the Blended Learning Program to meet the needs of a hybrid workplace in the post-pandemic era. These programs are a blend of self-directed pathways on the NEXT Digital Learning Platform and trainer mentoring sessions. This provides our learners with the ‘best of both worlds,’ as Pathways include curated content, cloud labs and assessments, Touchpoints involve mentor connects to enable Query resolutions, reiterating the concepts and hands-on demos.
The approach has resulted in an enriched learning experience, enhanced learner engagement, and allows customizations as per the business needs.
How do you incorporate technology and digital learning solutions into your L&D programs?
At Capgemini, we have a next-generation learning platform that delivers multimodal, blended learning. Capgemini’s Digital Learning Operations (DLO) is a set of services that provides a consumer-grade employee experience for attracting, growing, and retaining the talent you need to fuel business strategy in a world of fast-changing skills sets and competing global demand. Our Digital Learning Operations (DLO) offering is a comprehensive learning suite of small, quick-to-activate digital learning platforms and integrated service management that delivers enhanced business value.
DLO provides a next-generation learning platform based on the principle of “Read, Watch, Listen, Do.” DLO also leverages big data analytics and machine learning that tailor push-and-pull learning content to the requirements and expectations of your individual, multigenerational employees.
The ‘Universal’ is our one-stop “Digital ‘‘Learning Experience Platform (LXP) which is AI-driven and focuses on learner experience integrated with Content Providers and it enables us to upskill them at scale, on our key priorities. We leverage the best learning content available in the market and bring it to our people through NEXT.
With just one click, our employees can embark upon a leadership journey for the future, and supercharge their development with the best-in-class learning partners such as Udemy, Coursera, Harvard, Pluralsight, etc.
What methods or tools do you use to assess the effectiveness of the training programs and initiatives?
We enable multiple levels of assessments to ensure we make learning stick. We leverage various skill assessment platforms and tools such as doselect, iCompass, and SkillIQ from Pluralsight. These tools and platforms help us with benchmarking the existing employees and be ready with a pool of skilled resources. They provide end-to-end assessment solutions through actionable skill proficiency data, thus allowing the business to make sound decisions across the employee lifecycle.
We assess our learners right from checking for primary skills to project-related skill efficiency. We leverage pre-assessment to identify skill gaps, and post assessment for application of knowledge and prepare for certifications. Assessments even help us with prepping our talent for deployment and job rotation – in turn boosting employee engagement and retention.
Our employees build their expertise and get certified through our alliance partners such as Microsoft, AWS, PEGA, SAP, etc.
Can you provide examples of specific training programs or initiatives that have been successful in developing employees' skills or advancing their careers?
The most recent example I can provide is of an ongoing, and immensely successful Competency Baselining program known as OCEAN. ‘OCEAN’ is an acronym which stands for Organization is Committed to Educate, Assess & Nurture.
It is a transformation program to drive skilling with role-based assessments. It is a unique initiative to enable our employees with their role-based up-skilling/cross-skilling learning journey. Learners go through an extensive role-based assessment; and are subsequently taken through a phase-wise learning journey, thus propelling their competency-enhancement and career progression path.
With the OCEAN program the organization aims to drive upskilling & help our talent understand their strengths & improvement areas, provide visibility to their aspirations, enable career progression, & guide in both vertical & lateral movement to enable our vision of ‘Get the Future You Want.’
The program lays an emphasis on high-volume strategic technical skills and other relevant soft skills. At the end of the program, the participants will not only ‘perform’ optimally but also develop leadership traits, enabling them to lead projects from the front.
Our talent leverages OCEAN to:
Key Program Outcomes include:
How do you measure the impact of L&D initiatives on employee performance and organizational success?
Today, the learning function has evolved to become a strategic partner and collaborator for the Business. We measure the business impact of learning through three key areas:
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