New learning opportunities that beckon in the Digital World

Graduates are digital natives for whom it is normal to learn in an integrated way in their everyday working life.

My name is Stephanie Philipp and I am the L&D manager for Capgemini Deutschland GmbH. I have been working in HR for 20 years now, starting as an HR specialist at Capgemini in 2000.

After five years with the company I left and spent the following 12 years as an HR generalist in different HR roles, of which the last 10 years were spent as the HR director in an SAP CRM boutique, mainly focusing on recruiting and L&D.

A little over three years ago I decided to specialize in L&D and – due to very good, old network connections to a colleague with whom I started the same day at Capgemini 20 years ago – returned to Capgemini as L&D Manager. I deal with the digital transformation of learning on a daily basis and my team and I are here to make L&D fit for the future to meet future learners’ demands and needs.

Graduates are digital natives for whom it is normal to learn in an integrated way in their everyday working life and for whom a separation between learning and working is hardly noticeable.

To motivate this target group, a combination of different parts in the learning journey is needed:

• Agility
• A learner-centric focus
• Value-added and curated content
• On-demand and self-paced offerings
• A collaborative experience.

Along with this, as a company we need to establish a personal learning culture that enables change in our attitude towards learning:

• Learning by self-motivation.

This change in mindset is supported by the introduction of learning portals.

Young people have grown up with Netflix, Spotify, etc. and it is a natural development that learning should follow that same path, by establishing “learning experience platforms” for social learning. A learning ecosystem should combine learning and development content, single platforms and communities, and create value for the learners. Platforms such as Coursera, Pluralsight, or Harvard ManageMentor offer state-of-the-art content. They are available 24/7, sized to learners´ needs, and allow the learner to decide how much and what she wants to consume when and where.

Capgemini has integrated all its learning platforms in an overall learning experience portal, “Next” by Degreed. Next is a one-stop-shop to track, share, curate, and validate learning and skills from any source. It is a mix of featured pathways aligned to our priorities and addressing business, technical, and soft skills with global content on the portfolio, technology, professional communities, and leadership. And, last but not least, it enables learners to learn collaboratively by sharing content, working together in groups, and following each other.

Graduates don´t ask for a booking code for learning. In our experience, they don´t mind learning in their spare time. They do, however, expect an environment in which learning is organic and supportive. When talking about virtual training offers, it is important to keep the learners engaged and to use visual collaboration platforms, such as DEON or Mural. Including these into virtual sessions enables collaborative group work, makes the training much more diverse and keeps the learners from distraction. Graduates are also used to working with their own devices and use apps frequently. So, all learning platforms should be accessible anytime and anywhere.

Referring back to my introduction, it is all about the network. The network can enable so many opportunities and you cannot start early enough. This is why we offer the “GetStarted” Program for graduates, guiding them through their first year at Capgemini with a set of training sessions tailored to their needs. The program connects this group of young people from different units and brings them together with mentors from the business.

In a nutshell:

• Learning has become much more personalized and collaborative, with the possibility for users to generate their own content.
• Content should be accessible in the right format at the desired time.
• Most of our graduates are already familiar with self-learning and highly appreciate it, and for those who need help to overcome any qualms they may have – ask L&D and we will assist you!

Come and join the learning experience at Capgemini.

If you would like to find out more about the Graduate program at Capgemini, click here.