Connect - Schneider Electric

usiness leaders, in particular on the 3E approach (Experience,
Exposure and Education) and on the real business problem solving.
About 300 participants joined these regional cross-entity programs.
“Leadership Roundtable”, an innovative learning approach of
“leaders developing leaders”, has been led by many countries with
the involvement of leaders at every level of the Group (country,
regional, corporate) and in all functions including our CEO, and
other members of the Executive Committee. Using a book-sharing
approach, these leaders have addressed a wide range of topics
from Trust to Entrepreneurship, to an audience of sometimes as
large as 500 managers, through a combination of face-to-face
sessions and video links. Asia Pacifi c alone delivered a total of 48
such sessions with over 2,000 managers’ participation.
Other functional skills development
In addition to Solutions & Leadership skills development, Schneider
Electric has initiatives in key functional areas such as:
• Global Supply Chain: The Global Supply Chain Academy was
set up to provide every supply chain professional the opportunity
to learn and develop their functional knowledge, capability and
competencies in the six domains of Customer Satisfaction
& Quality, Manufacturing, Purchasing, Logistics, Safety,
Environment, and Industrialisation. In 2011, more than 2,500
people have been trained on 60 learning modules of the Global
Supply Chain Academy.
• Research & Development: The Offer Creation Academy
addresses the competency needs of the Offer Creation Process
(OCP) to ensure the right competency levels of R&D employees
globally. Our range of learning offers cover the entire OCP
lifecycle, addressing skills such as project management, design
& testing, R&D processes, software tools, etc. The Group is also
increasingly focusing on building learning offers around software
development competencies. More than 3,000 R&D employees
have been trained in 2011 on the 130 training offers structured
around 5 pillars of this Academy.
• Transactional Sales: The Sales Excellence Academy focuses
on the sales competencies needed to support transactional
4.5 Anticipating workforce needs
The business growth of Schneider Electric, its ever expending
locations, and the shortage of critical skills available on the market
inspired the Group to create a small team dedicated to Strategic
Workforce Planning in 2011. This team’s mission is to create a
practical framework which fl ows from the organisational strategy
and links operational HR execution to the medium and long term
business needs.
The aim is to enhance management practices so that leaders have
a practice of anticipating their workforce needs and develop their
employees to address the future business challenges.
The solution transformation and geographic expansion created a
sense of urgency around creating an HR practice comfortable with
anticipating the future competency and headcount gaps needed
to capture the market of tomorrow. With that in mind, the Strategic
Workforce Planning team has a responsibility to build skills and
confi dence in this methodology with strategic planners, business
leaders, fi nancial controllers and HR staff.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
COMMITTED TO AND ON BEHALF OF EMPLOYEES
business, which is also undergoing transformational changes
driven for example by EcoStruxure. In addition, the Group
developed and piloted in 2011 an offer targeting more than 2,000
sales managers addressing their roles as Strategist, Coach, and
Communicator. This offer is ready for deployment in 2012.
Access to learning
Schneider Electric made available to all employees its Leadership
& Desktop Library, which comprises a collection of 400 different
e-learning courses. In 2011, around 14,000 employees consulted
these courses. More than 80 learning paths have been created from
these courses to develop soft skills in different fi elds.
In 2011, Schneider Electric also completed the specifi cations,
call for proposal, and subsequent evaluation and selection of a
Global Learning Management System. This is targeted for phased
deployment globally beginning 2012, taking the Group another step
closer towards its ambition of making learning readily available to
every employee: in the 2012-2014 Planet & Society Barometer,
Schneider Electric set the target to achieve at least one day of
training for every employee each year.
Innovation in training
• Collaborative Learning: A number of pilots were launched in 2011
utilising web social media tools to build collaborative learning
groups as part of a Learning program. These groups were
centred on communities such as New Hires, Action Learning
Project Teams, etc. The learning the Group has derived will be
used to build upon further iterations in 2012.
• Technology: Pilot projects, for example Schneider Electric
Kindle e-book learning application, aims to make learning more
accessible. The Group also used media such as e-mail or SMS to
deliver “Bite-sized” learning to employees. Webinars are another
fast growing method that has been used in 2011 to deliver
training in topics ranging from leadership to technical skills.
Approach
The changing economic conditions around the world have caused
Schneider Electric to develop a workforce planning methodology
which is agile enough to adjust based on today’s results while
maintaining alignment with the organisation’s long-term strategic
direction.
Strategic Workforce Planning provides a framework to help the
Businesses manage change and risk through simulating factors out
of their control and developing strategies and responses to mitigate
that risk. It helps the leaders deal with the unknown and rehearse
how they might adapt to future events through decisions they make
today.
The availability of talent globally is vital to the execution of the Group’s
medium and long term strategy. As the business of Schneider
Electric evolves, the talent needs become increasingly complex.
With workforce planning, Schneider Electric is able to segment
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