The Swedish-based company Dometic Group is a global leader in the production of high tech air conditioning, hygiene, refrigeration, and security for all type of vehicles (RVs, cars, trucks, and boats). This company, whose slogan is “Mobile living made easy”, has over 6,500 employees worldwide, with a turnover of 1.25 billion euros in 2016.
Like many other companies, Dometic faces the difficult challenge of attracting and retaining talent. The professional world has become an almost completely cloud-based environment where knowledge truly is power. It is now of utmost importance for companies to have the best employees possible to beat out the competition—more so in the competitive German market where its strong economic growth is making it more and more difficult for HR departments to attract and retain talent.
A training community for all employees
In the midst of this so-called “talent war”, the Dometic Academy hopes to find a way to attract and retain talent by offering modern training opportunities that promote personal and professional development for its employees. The company wants to offer growth opportunities, modern formats and courses that will make their employees grow professionally and personally. In this way, Dometic seeks to increase employee engagement, seduce new applicants and retain their current employees.
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In addition to that, the company also hopes to create a varied, high quality training community that is able to reach all of its workers. The goal is to have a wide variety of formats and topics available that could be of interest to the many generations working in the company (millennials, baby boomers, generation X, etc.). The youngest of this group are the most difficult to satisfy, as they have grown up with the internet and have only ever known a world where everything is available instantly and in the palm of their hands.
Solution: video games with Gamelearn
To face these challenges, Dometic has decided to use video games (serious games) with Gamelearn and their learning platform based on game-based learning. The three key advantages associated with this are as follows:
• Complete flexibility. A username and an internet connection are all you need to start training with Gamelearn. Dometic employees are able to access the video games on their computer, tablet, or smartphone. This not only drives down training costs (travel, hotels, etc.), but also and more importantly, it allows for the really attractive option to learn and complete training programs from anywhere at any time.
• Emotion-based learning. It is scientifically-proven that one of the keys to learning is for it to be driven by emotion. Gamelearn’s video games, because of the story and characters surrounding each game, make it possible for students to interact with the content in an emotionally-charged way. This results in greater brain stimulation, higher completion rates, and students reporting back that they retain the material for a longer amount of time.
• Learning by doing. Beyond the excitement surrounding this new learning experience, Dometic employees also have the opportunity to use Gamelearn’s simulators. The serious games are not just made up of long texts and related questions, but rather, they have integrated simulators, which make students put into practice what they have learned. This allows for development to happen through trial and error, one of the most efficient methods to train new skills— experiential learning.
Results: more involved and dedicated workers
All of these advantages are precisely why Dometic has been so successful meeting its goals. Employees truly appreciate the flexibility of the platform (24/7 availability) and the possibility to progress at their own rate. Beyond this, many were surprised at the fact that the format was innovative and modern, giving them the luxury of learning and having fun at the same time. Because of this, Gamelearn’s video games scored an 80% completion rate and an 87.5% recommendation rate at Dometic, well beyond what alternative e-learning methods most commonly achieve in the market.
For training and development managers, the biggest advantage of this training initiative was the ability to motivate and stimulate involvement from employees. With a wider variety of training options available, the company now can reach more of their employees, while increasing engagement and commitment with the company.
All of these measures have resulted in higher levels of employee satisfaction, greater interest for candidates and there has been a positive impact on the employer’s branding.