Why vocational training helps maintain lifelong employability in talent

"We need to get vocational training out of its outdated model," warns Fabien Ben N'Sir, Co-Founder of Shake my Firm. "What if we invent an (initial) training that will follow us throughout our professional career?" 

Despite the reform of the "law for the freedom to choose one's professional future" published last November, the picture drawn by the publication of recent studies is bleak:

• Less than six in ten believe that the training offer is adapted to the labor market and sufficiently innovative according to a Harris Interactive study
• Nearly one in four assets do not know what the Professional Training Account (CPF) is - a key tool for reform
• Nearly half of the French  do not know where to turn to focus their career, according to the Observatory of Occupational Trajectories.

This finding is shared by Fabien Ben N'Sir. The legacy of 19th century productivist industrial culture gives way to new professional models with digital transformation at the heart of the process. It becomes unavoidable and persists in company culture, no matter how small or large, and the challenge for employees becomes finding their place within a new organization of work.

New way of working, new ways of training

Technologies, its uses, consumer expectations, all involve mastering new skills for employees or the self-employed. In this context, vocational training takes a strategic dimension in each person's career, provided that it is modernized. Today, 97% of human resources take into account the soft skills in their recruitment process, 52% consider them as a determining criterion for hiring (according to Monster.fr). Indeed, technical skills (hard skills) and experience are not enough today to keep a job. This is certainly the reason why many French people consider their training as unsuitable. Why learn to use new software that will be obsolete in the years to come? For example, should not we succeed in piloting a large-scale project with very different profiles where partners and suppliers work together from several sites around the world?

The founders of Shake my Firm created their platform with the ambition to break the codes of the training by emphasizing the experience so that each learner can acquire a know-how and a well-being.

Experience allows users to return to a human-centered approach, to gain valuable knowledge from the field and give meaning to action. Training combined with experience, then has different functions: emulative, inspirational, transformative, unifying and emotional. It is in itself a real accelerator of training.

Easier access to training

However, 62% of those surveyed say they are not aware of the vocational training offer that exists near their homes. How then to encourage as much as possible entry to training?

"Our manifesto at Shake My Firm takes a strong bias: Why should it always be easier to book seven days of vacation 3000km away than two days of training on the 13th?" 

Training must be a simple act that can be done on a daily basis. In a few years, most trades will be changed in depth with the spread of artificial intelligence and the automation of most tasks. In addition, many of us will cooperate with an AI device reinventing work organization. In France, there is still too much importance placed on initial training, whereas training throughout one's life should be natural.

Today, career paths are no longer traced. We will all experience changes in soft activities or even more radical changes. Some will become "slasher" profiles while others will work hand-in-hand with robots. 

"Anyway, everyone needs to be able to get things done as they sees fit," Fabien concludes.

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