Case study
Industry
Technology
Company HQ
Dortmund, Germany
Number of Employees
8,000+
Office Locations
13 countries
adesso Develops its Established L&D Program to Foster Self-Driven Learning and Greater Operational Agility
Udemy driving business outcomes
Case study details
Employing people with the right skills and expertise — particularly in the fast-changing world of technology and software — is critical to addressing customer needs and staying competitive. Germany-based adesso Group knows this more than most, with its team of more than 8,000 benefiting from a mature L&D strategy and an established LMS.
But looking at its future needs, adesso wanted to take this further. The group used Udemy Business to offer its employees self-driven hard and soft skills-based learning through its portfolio of subject matter expert-created courses. With employees free to upskill and reskill as necessary, adesso has gained newfound agility and expertise, helping it better serve its customers and cater to a broader range of industries.
An established L&D program with plans to go further
adesso Group (hereafter shortened to adesso) is one of the leading IT service providers in the German-speaking regions of Europe, specializing in improving its clients’ core business processes. And with operations covering 13 countries across Europe, adesso relies on a team of more than 8,000 employees covering a wide range of industries to help keep it competitive.
It’s why adesso has invested so much time over the past few years expanding its L&D program, offering digital learning opportunities through its LMS. The group also significantly emphasizes internally-curated learning content, developed by its inhouse subject matter experts, it makes up 80% of its overall content catalog. But the group’s wide-spread workforce and broad portfolio presented a considerable challenge to offer appropriate L&D opportunities that enhance skills and knowledge, whenever and wherever people need it.
“Our employees work across many different locations; they use different tools and have wideranging requirements,” says Lena Grundmann, HR Manager – Talent Development at adesso. “While this means our employees know exactly what skills and competencies they need to do their best work, offering targeted learning opportunities and curated content is only possible if we can understand our learners’ needs.”
With these requirements, adesso needed an L&D platform that could offer a wide range of nuanced courses with the capability to produce detailed reports on what people are choosing to learn and when. Moreover, the group was keen to extend its professional qualification opportunities to help it retain and garner the best industry talent.
HR Manager - Talent Development
Self-driven learning that complements an existing L&D portfolio
After trialing several other online learning platforms, adesso landed on Udemy Business as its favored solution. “We use Udemy Business because it offers what we need, from quality content about various topics and user friendliness to easily accessible reports and transparent feedback directly from our employees,” says Lena. “Our employees now look autonomously for suitable courses or certification preparations that they need for customer projects or to update their skills generally.”
adesso’s learning program is divided into four categories: technologies, consulting, frameworks, communication and personal skills, with Udemy Business complementing its learning platform portfolio to support each area. And being a tech-focused business, the majority of adesso’s L&D centers around technology and software skills.
Custom Learning Paths for more nuanced learning outcomes
While many adesso employees now have access to Udemy Business, the group took the important step of ensuring its people have a tailored learning experience. So, rather than just offering licenses to access the platform without formal guidance, adesso emphasizes the importance of curated Learning Paths tailored to each employee’s specific needs.
What’s more, adesso subject matter experts create and test these Learning Paths to ensure their quality and usefulness before they’re rolled out to the wider team — meaning they’re highly relevant to learners’ needs both today and in the future.
“Part of the good learning adoption rate for Udemy can be attributed to the fact that our learners benefit from curated learning paths from our internal subject matter experts through our LMS,” says Lena. “We track what our people are learning on different platforms to guarantee L&D is tailored to the needs of our employees, and we allow a hands-on approach to new skills and knowledge for customer projects. We believe in taking the essential parts of different courses that are acutely needed without the requirement to complete the entire course.”
Native language courses for a diverse workforce
While adesso is a predominantly German-speaking group, it also has several sites throughout Europe, each with employees working in various local languages. With Udemy Business International Collection, adesso’s employees now have access to local language content from a network of global experts and practitioners, helping increase employee engagement with L&D content across the group.
By engaging its learners in their native languages, adesso can offer culturally relevant content that also helps it achieve strategic organizational goals through greater platform engagement. It also means that regardless of English proficiency, adesso’s workforce can feel more confident in their ability to upskill and reskill — creating a broad talent pool to help fuel future business growth.
“As a company, we particularly benefit from German- and English-language learning content produced by experts around the world. We have many international locations, such as in Spain, Turkey, Hungary and Bulgaria”, explains Lena. “Udemy’s courses, which are offered in different languages, are a great advantage for us as they help us to further educate our diverse workforce.”
Greater agility for a changing world
As the world of work continues to change and develop, adesso is keen to ensure its L&D not only keeps pace but also preempts the needs of the group and its people going forward.
“We’re focused on growing our digital learning offering to complement our synchronous training,” says Lena. “By using our flexible self-learning, microlearning, or learning experience platforms, we’ve successfully blended the worlds of work and learning.”
The changes adesso has made to its L&D program since adopting the Udemy Business platform have also given it the agility to respond to its customers’ needs faster than before, and cater to wide-ranging sectors.
“It’s important to us that employees can start customer projects as soon as possible — and to that end, we provide quick access to knowledge and certifications, both via learning platforms and through internal and external training,” says Lena. “To keep pace with new technologies and software is a critical factor for us. Learning platforms like Udemy Business help us accomplish our ambition to cover much-needed competencies in our learning program for customer projects across sectors like automotive, health, insurance, and retail.”
HR Manager - Talent Development
Self-managed personal growth
While adesso has created a diverse portfolio of learning courses, it has also taken significant steps to promote its offering around the group. For example, its annual learning guide offers greater direction to help develop self-directed learning.
And as adesso looks to develop its L&D program further, the group intends to go one step further by launching a new learning program that will encourage employees to self-manage their personal growth, helping strengthen its culture of needs-based learning.
HR Manager - Talent Development
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