Training sessions at their own pace
‘The fact that employees can follow the training sessions at their own pace and can repeat or skip sections is definitely a major advantage. It allows them to focus on what is important to them.’
Atos is a global leader in digital workplace services, offering clients in 71 countries a wide range of digital solutions including cloud services, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. The company is committed to reaching net zero, working towards decarbonization for itself and for its clients and partners. Atos has 111,000 employees.
Atos was already focusing on digital learning solutions long before the pandemic. ‘We have been organizing webinars and online workshops with interesting speakers for years’, says Mihaela Dencheva, who is a Learning Service Manager at Atos and the team leader of twelve learning service managers. ‘Our main priority is to always create a pleasant learning experience for our employees and to offer them high-quality content in the most efficient way possible.’
‘Based on the feedback from our people about their learning experience and their needs, it’s safe to say that we discovered FLOWSPARKS just in time. This platform has helped us to identify new opportunities and possibilities. FLOWSPARKS has everything we were looking for: it is both smart and adaptive and compatible with our LMS (SuccesFactors). It enables us to be creative and offer our employees the best possible experience.’
Atos already knew that the many languages in which e-learning modules had to be available was a major challenge. ‘Before switching to FLOWSPARKS, we had already worked with several other providers. In each case, we discovered that you had to create a separate training course (item) for each new language version’, Mihaela explains. ‘Any changes to a given training course meant we’d have to ask the provider to update each language version individually.’
This proved very labor-intensive. Availability was another issue that Atos encountered. ‘Each time we adapted a training course, it was temporarily unavailable. You had to take the old training course offline, implement the changes and then upload the new version’, Mihaela explains.
‘Thanks to FLOWSPARKS, we have made great progress in this respect. All the language versions are now grouped in one content package, ensuring they can be easily updated without having to take them offline. An additional advantage is that participants aren’t affected and always get to work in the latest version. Users simply select the language of their preference at the start of the course.’
‘The fact that employees can follow the training sessions at their own pace and can repeat or skip sections is definitely a major advantage. It allows them to focus on what is important to them.’
Atos has a team of digital learning specialists. As soon as a knowledge holder or subject matter expert has defined a subject for an e-learning, Atos assigns a member of the digital learning team to the job. He or she packages the subject in a format that is in line with organization’s standards. Obviously, the digital learning team knows FLOWSPARKS and all its functionalities and templates very well.
‘When we started using FLOWSPARKS in the spring of 2021, nobody knew how to use it. The FLOWSPARKS team thus ended up developing our first e-Learning on our new Code of Ethics’, says Mihaela. ‘During the first weeks, our digital learning team attended several workshops, where they learned how to develop microlearning and e-learning modules. Since 2022, they have been developing training courses completely independently, selecting the right templates that meet the needs of our people and are consistent with the look and feel of our organization.’
The Global Compliance courses program served as a test case for the first four training courses that Atos developed. Each of the more than 111,000 employees has to follow four training courses every year as part of this program. ‘That’s a lot to take on, on top of your daily tasks’, Mihaela acknowledges. ‘So, you need to be sure that the content is easy and relevant. And that it’s also available in six languages.’
Because they go through the program every year, many employees are now familiar with its major components. Thanks to FLOWSPARKS, Atos now has the possibility to conduct an intake test beforehand. The better your score, the more content you can skip. ‘If we really want them to review certain sections, we obviously don’t ask any questions on this subject during the intake test.’
By using videos, case studies, charts and many images, Atos makes the compliance program as interactive and accessible as possible. ‘The fact that employees can follow the training sessions at their own pace and can repeat or skip sections is definitely a major advantage. It allows them to focus on what is important to them.’
The innovative compliance program was well received. The employees were very enthusiastic. ‘People used to often tell us that the training sessions were not sufficiently interactive, that the tools we used offered few possibilities,’ says Mihaela. ‘Now, however, they are so eager that several content owners have already approached us with ideas for new training courses or have asked us whether they can update older training courses’.
‘The enthusiasm is such that it is hard for our digital learning team to keep up with all the requests, which is why we are discussing the possibility to also give people from other teams authoring access to FLOWSPARKS.’
