AXA creates a development path for transversal skills

AXA Seguros has created an authentic development path in transversal skills for its employees. Through Gamelearn’s game-based learning courses, the insurance company has discovered an attractive and effective way to lay the foundation for employee training in soft skills. Thus, Pacific, Merchants and Triskelion have become the company’s core training programs for leadership, negotiation and productivity. This has been the case with the two initiatives launched at AXA: the training and development path and the Manager@AXA program.

Using game-based learning, the Human Resources Department has hit upon a solution that guarantees ‘learning by doing’ and that is capable of engaging employees.

With simulators, it has been able to offer its employees a risk-free environment that boosts their sense of safety, thus allowing them to effectively develop skills through repetition and feedback. In addition, the use of games and gamification techniques has been vital for getting employees to engage with the training, making it unnecessary to implement training promotion activities for the first time ever.

The development of transversal skills has led to the creation of talent development programs for different employee profiles within the company. Thus, technical specialization and day-to-day tasks have not been a problem, quite the contrary: AXA has managed to standardize training and this has had a direct impact on the way its employees negotiate, coordinate their teams, communicate and manage tasks.

The challenge: to promote self-learning and self-development in an attractive way

The main challenge set by AXA’s Human Resources Department was to foster self-learning and self-development in transversal skills in a standardized and attractive way for the employee.

Therefore, the quest to find a solution that would enable effective learning by different professional profiles and groups was the main challenge the department had to overcome. Executives, sales reps, managers, technicians, specialists, administrative assistants… The medley of staff specializations seemed like a huge barrier to the implementation of a standardized training program.

Therefore, the choice of skills appeared to be the solution; to find skills and competencies that were common to all professional profiles and which would have a real impact on employees’ day-to-day jobs. The initiative, moreover, had to fit into the two major development programs in place at AXA: the training and development path and the Manager@AXA leadership program for executives.

Both programs, targeted at multiple profiles in different geographical areas, set a new priority: to find a solution that would ensure the same results as classroom training, but which was provided online.

The solution: Game-based learning methodology and soft skills catalog

The solution ultimately chosen was the game-based learning methodology developed by Gamelearn and its skills training catalog.

Game-based learning methodology

This training model is specifically designed to achieve effective learning, engage participants and foster their self-development and motivation while training. By combining quality content with a practical approach, advanced simulators and gamification techniques, game-based learning courses are capable of meeting the new demands of training departments in large corporations.

This has been the experience of AXA Seguros, which discovered the following advantages of game-based learning for its two training paths:

• Self-development: the fact that game-based learning is provided online means that employees can set their own pace for development, deciding when, where and with what device to do the training.
• Self-motivation: the gamification techniques used increase employee engagement with learning. And because they are more motivated by games and the competition this generates, they are far more likely to complete each course.
• Learning by doing: simulators have been the distinguishing feature for AXA. Using case studies that simulate reality, participants develop the relevant skills in a safe environment, thus boosting their self-confidence.

Transversal skills catalog

Gamelearn’s game-based learning platform offers a wide variety of transversal skills that are common to all professional profiles. Thanks to simulators and the use of case studies, employees can practice, work and develop skills packages:

• Pacific leadership simulator: this course is designed for the development of leadership, team management, self-confidence, self-control, coaching, change management, impact and influence, initiative, integrity, stress tolerance and decision-making skills.
• Merchants negotiation simulator: participants work on their negotiation, effective communication, focus, conflict management, innovation and creativity, results-orientation, analytical thinking and problem solving skills.
• Triskelion productivity simulator: here, employees are able to create their own personal productivity system through the development of skills such as time management, work-life balance, flexibility, planning, organization and coordination.

The results: the first “self-sufficient” training experience

In total, more than 400 employees have developed new soft skills through the use of game-based learning. For the company’s Human Resources Department it was essential that the training program ensure self-development and self-learning.

For this reason, the following indicators were used to measure the success and shortcomings of the program:

• Completion rate. To measure the extent to which the initiative contributed to self-development in employee learning, AXA set itself the challenge of improving on the completion rates for previous experiences. In this case, 93% of the 400-plus participants completed the training.
• Feedback. The comments and scores given by employees were extremely positive. Some 97% of participants would recommend this methodology and the average score given to the courses was 9.7 out of 10. Training promotion activities. This is, without a doubt, the best indicator for measuring the level of employee engagement with this form of training. For the first time in the company’s history, the Training and Development Department did not need to carry out any activities to encourage participants to complete the courses, unlike with other solutions used in the past.

Conclusion

AXA Seguros is one of the first companies to implement such a program for the basic development of new, non-technical skills. Skills packages based on leadership, negotiation and time management have become the cornerstone on which employee career development within the company is built. And all of this has been achieved across different specializations: from executives and managers to technicians and administrative assistants. Irrespective of their backgrounds, they have all taken the same program, a standardized training course in soft skills.

And this would not have been possible without the use of game-based learning methodology, which provided the elements required to achieve the goal and allow every AXA employee to expand their own knowledge in the areas of negotiation, team management and personal productivity.

• Quality content that is capable of turning skill into a set of useful tools and techniques for the purpose of effective learning.
• Simulators that enable learning by doing.
• And gamification techniques that complement the above because they impact on an essential component of any learning program: participant motivation.