THE CHALLENGE

Mammoet is a global specialist and heavyweight in heavy lifting and transport operations. In 60 countries or so around the world, some 6,000 Mammoet professionals work for clients in a wide variety of sectors and industries.

Melvin Schaap is responsible for Learning and Knowledge Management at Mammoet. With a small Academy team, he ensures that his 6,000 colleagues have all the knowledge they need to do their job to the best of their ability. However, Schaap has identified two key problems:

• ‘The world is changing rapidly, and digitization means that everyone has access to an enormous amount of information,’ says Schaap. ‘And that, in turn, is affecting the way we learn. Employees today are overwhelmed, easily distracted, and impatient. They expect flexibility in where and how they learn.’
• ‘We can’t keep up with the demand with our core team. That’s why we’re going to take on a more advisory role and let the business generate its own content.’

THE SOLUTION

1. Launch Mammoet Academy – a successful blended learning strategy

Schaap founded the Mammoet Academy with a colleague in 2014. This is the central hub for L&D with the goal of rolling out a uniform way of working worldwide. Safety and the ‘Mammoet way of working’ are the pivotal components. Operators must be certified to work with Mammoet’s equipment.

From the moment the Academy was launched, Mammoet introduced blended learning. ‘We developed the classroom training ourselves, while an external partner took charge of our e-Learning modules. We wrote the content with a global course development team comprising internal subject matter experts and a few technical writers,’ explains Schaap. ‘Given that most of the material has now been written, the focus these days is much more on course design. We want to make our training more engaging through short, interactive training blocks, and we’re starting to work more with video-based training.’

2. Scale the digital training program by allowing employees to easily create engaging digital learning paths on their own with FLOWSPARKS Authoring Tool

Mammoet needed an accessible, high-quality tool that would enable employees to easily create engaging digital learning paths on their own. ‘I also wanted a tool with enough features to avoid what I sometimes jokingly call “PowerPoint plus”—where you’re just transferring knowledge without engaging learners in the process.’

Opting for FLOWSPARKS was actually a quick decision. ‘As an L&D manager, you get inundated with people wanting to introduce their tool. Cédric Herregodts was one of many. I remember saying to him in our first conversation: ‘If I can use your tool to create training courses like GoodHabitz’s, we have a deal.’ To which Cédric casually replied that GoodHabitz had been working with FLOWSPARKS for years.’

3. Eliminate the operational burden of scaling content, including managing variety, translation, localization, and maintenance

Schaap is especially pleased with the many formats and templates that FLOWSPARKS has to offer, which makes it possible for Mammoet to create programs that enhance efficiency even further. ‘One of the reasons we started using this tool is its ability to create themed programs that incorporate smaller microlearning modules in various formats, rather than standalone, traditional e-learning courses that require individual subscriptions for each module.’

The ease of adding languages in FLOWSPARKS is also a big help at a multinational like Mammoet. ‘We have lots of courses in lots of languages,’ he says. ‘In most LMSs, you have to publish each language as a separate training course. In FLOWSPARKS, you add different languages within a single training course, and, thanks to the integration of DeepL, you can even do that at the click of a button. Okay, you have to check and adjust the translations, but the time savings are still huge. I could never have facilitated our amount of training with any other tool.’

‘What I also really like is that once I’ve published a training course, I can make adjustments while the training remains available online. With other tools, you have to adjust and then republish your course. And you have to do that for each language separately. On that front, too, FLOWSPARKS is a real breath of fresh air.’

THE IMPACT

Mammoet has been using FLOWSPARKS since 2023. They have since rolled out a Life-Saving Rules training course worldwide and 35 ‘learning journeys’ have been created for various positions as part of the SHERPA program.

The SHERPA project has been designed to transform Mammoet into a future-oriented and digitally dynamic organization, with the right tools and skills to provide the flexibility required by today’s market. This is a big change impacting every role within the organization, so new training courses had to be created.

‘With the FLOWSPARKS team, we also set up an IT security program that serves as a blueprint for our other programs. We also worked together on the development of a six-month onboarding and development program for new project managers. We are now translating that process into programs for Engineering, Sales & Tendering and for our SHE-Q (Safety, Health, Environment & Quality) departments.’

‘We are moving forward quickly with the Academy team so that we can properly advise colleagues as we roll out FLOWSPARKS further within the organization,’ continues Schaap. ‘They are seeing a huge improvement in the way we offer training. It’s mobile, fun to work with, and comes with a wealth of content. It has been so well received that colleagues are eager to share their knowledge and engage with FLOWSPARKS themselves.’