Playing an active role in your own training

Sopra Steria, a European leader in the new technology sector is recognised for its consultancy, digital services and software publishing activities. They guide their clients through digital transformation, helping them to obtain tangible, long-lasting benefits. The group provides a global response to the competitiveness challenges faced by large companies and organisations, combining in-depth knowledge of innovative business sectors and technologies with a resolutely collaborative approach. Sopra Steria places people at the heart of everything it does and enables its clients to make the most of the digital world to build a positive future.

Offering an innovative training program in line with the highest technological standards, Sopra Steria Academy is key to transmitting the corporate culture, developing skills and supporting the digital transformation. Through Sopra Steria Academy, the group is there for all of its employees every step of the way.

Within the context of this strategy, Sopra Steria has undertaken to equip its employees with the resources necessary to develop their skills in the digital field. That way, they can update their professional competencies even quicker. It’s vital to have a platform that can be used to maintain and develop the employability or skills of their employees.

The company also wanted to establish an environment that facilitates and encourages the development of expertise through a more proactive approach, in which employees play an active role in their own training and have the tools to embark on the development journey that they want based on their motivations and abilities.

Why Cornerstone?

This partnership between Cornerstone and Sopra Steria began in 2017.

Sopra Steria uses Cornerstone's Learning Management System (LMS) platform, a centralised solution for managing and rolling out scalable and robust in-house training. The challenge for the company was to offer a holistic training package in-house that focuses not just on certain aspects of its employees' roles but incorporates several building blocks: corporate, managerial, business expertise, behavioural, CSR (eco-design, digital sustainability, etc.), to ensure that learning meets more than a single goal and shifts from a simple training culture to a learning and development culture.

While the pandemic put a stop to projects on Sopra Steria client sites, it also revealed opportunities for redesigning in-house training. Sopra Steria's HR teams, with the support of Cornerstone, decided to entirely rethink learning processes to continue to enhance employee skills even while projects were stopped or projects cancelled. Before the pandemic, 90% of the training offered was face-to-face, with only 10% through e-learning. In two weeks, 90% of this training was converted to virtual classroom sessions, granting all employees access to the same training regardless of their location.

Sopra Steria invests to support its employees from onboarding and at every stage of their development. The company helps them thrive within an international group and with their clients. The training aims to let each employee play an active role in their own development through consolidation, acquisition and knowledge sharing.

By choosing this development approach driven primarily by strategic skills, Sopra Steria offers its employees access to certified training with undeniable added value. It also has led to increased legitimacy with their partners and clients, who are always on the lookout for competent external consultants ready to rise to a challenge.

The Results

"We've been using Cornerstone's Learning Management System platform for 6 years and it's allowed us to deploy an innovative group-wide training policy that meets the highest educational standards. The next challenge we'd like to tackle with Cornerstone involves shifting from a training culture to a learning culture in order to become a 100% learning organisation where the development and transmission of skills are anchored in the everyday lives of all our employees."

Jean-Charles Noirot, Deputy Director Sopra Steria Academy