Ensuring high quality across global operations
The Hansgrohe Group is a major player in the bathrooms, kitchens, and wellness industries, generating €1.4 billion in sales annually. The company lives and breathes premium quality and design. It needed a best-in-breed learning platform to ensure the highest quality delivery across all its global operations with over 5,400 employees in 34 companies and 20 sales offices.
How to achieve a consistent delivery worldwide
The Hansgrohe Group is committed to top quality. Delivering on this commitment entails communicating the quality message to all employees at multiple locations around the globe. To that end, the company needed to guarantee the same high level of expertise in all its divisions, whether in the USA, Europe, or China.
Face-to-face professional development was another challenge: shift workers in production had few options for attending courses held at remote locations during their normal working hours.
A top-tier distributed learning system
In 2006, Dynamic Media GmbH (later merged with imc) developed an LMS for Hansgrohe. Since that time, all employees have been able to learn independently, free of time constraints. They have access to industrial safety courses, fleet training programmes, and diverse learning offerings for topics in IT security, quality management, and staff development. More recently, the company introduced its employee app, giving its production workers easy access to the learning platform and relevant training content.
But that’s not all. In 2021, Hansgrohe adopted the imc LMS. This opened up a whole new category of learning to its installers, resellers, designers, and others. These users can now access a wealth of e-learning content and information on the company’s entire hansgrohe range and its AXOR luxury range.
Each division of the Hansgrohe Group is able to design its own training content. The company uses imc’s content authoring tools – Content Studio and imc Express – to create engaging e-learning content. Hansgrohe chose Content Studio because of its impressive user-friendliness and wide range of options for interactions. Thanks to imc Express, the company can now automatically translate user-generated content and integrate it directly into the LMS. This is possible because imc Express is browser-based. The system also includes approval workflows to ensure that only approved high-quality content gets shown to learners.
Flexible corporate training a big hit with employees
During the pandemic, Hansgrohe hit on the smart idea of using their imc LMS as a vaccination booking tool. The platform gave employees and their families an easy and convenient way of booking appointments, enabling them to take advantage of the company’s in-house vaccination offer.
The project manager in charge, Jasmin Gargano, is pleased with how the system worked. “Our main criterion was to give our employees a fast, bureaucracy-free booking system so they could protect themselves and their families. And the imc Learning Suite seemed the perfect choice for the necessary central administration capability. Our employees were already familiar with the system, so they found the booking process very easy. The resulting personal data was deleted from the system afterwards. Needless to say, the offering was very well received by our workforce.”
At Hansgrohe, learning ties in with the company’s core value of mutual appreciation and respect. A key tenet of the corporate culture is for all employees to be empowered to learn independently. Thanks to the adoption of the imc Learning Suite and imc authoring tools, this is now a reality at all the corporate locations.
The company also continually expands its learning paths and optimises internal processes with regard to skill and competency level. Hansgrohe plans to focus ever more closely on the needs of its employees to provide them with even better training.
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With chatbot and WBT to the
trade fair
Villeroy & Boch is one of the leading premium brands for ceramic products worldwide. Founded in 1748, the family business based in Mettlach, Germany stands for innovation, tradition and abundance of style.
As a renowned lifestyle brand, Villeroy & Boch has a presence in 125 countries with its bathroom, wellness and fine tableware products.
Fit for the leading trade fair
The ceramics manufacturer Villeroy & Boch needed to train around 400 sales representatives worldwide for a trade fair. Each employee attending the fair had to complete mandatory virtual product training so they would be able to present the new products.
The greatest challenges were:
- Time pressure: training had to be complete by a certain date
- Ensuring mandatory participation
- Subsequent testing of learning success
- Catering to different ages with different e-learning skills
Virtual product training
Two different web-based training courses (WBT) were created for the predominantly technical products. For all other new developments a chatbot was developed.
The chatbot was filled with short learning units aka learning nuggets, each taking 3 minutes to complete. Each participant moved through different topic areas and product training units.
Each employee arriving for the trade fair was required to complete these training courses in advance and demonstrate in a test that they had understood the learned content.
Delighted customers
The training received a strong response and achieved high levels of acceptance. Employees provided extremely positive feedback.
Villeroy & Boch therefore plan to work with equally innovative, digital training concepts for future trade fairs.
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Advanced training for service technicians
around the world
BSH Hausgeräte AG is the biggest domestic appliance manufacturer in Europe and one of the leading companies in the sector worldwide. The group’s main brands are Bosch and Siemens.
In addition to its eight special brands catering to individual consumers, BSH also serves selected home markets with the regional brands Balay, PITSOS, PROFILO and Coldex.
The product portfolio covers the full spectrum of modern household appliances
Adapting training content to
local standards
Global growth of the product portfolio, employee numbers and geographical coverage made it necessary to rethink the professional development concepts used by BSH.
The goal was to adapt the training content to local learning habits in the different countries to fill any gaps in the knowledge of the service technicians in each location. BSH’s intent was to achieve uniform training standards so that customers around the world would enjoy the same high-quality service.
It is of great importance to BSH that service technicians anywhere in the world are able to service appliances, repair them if necessary, and offer competent and professional advice to customers within a short period after the launch of a new product. Moreover, practical training on appliances was to be introduced locally.
What was missing was a modern, multinational professional development concept with a homogeneous database that allowed easy administration of face-to-face training and flexible implementation of tailored online training in real time.
Global professional development platform
for 10,000 technicians
Following an in-depth market analysis, the professional development administrators at BSH decided to implement a learning management system by (LMS) by imc, the “Learning Suite”. They called it the “BSH Learning Universe”.
With this global professional development platform, more than 10,000 BSH service technicians in 50 countries can quickly and easily access the training material tailored to the specific country and use it to support their daily tasks. Easy administration of face-to-face training, reliable assessment functions and reporting round off the solution.
What’s more, the blended learning approach facilitates lasting efficiency gains for the face-to-face training. This saves the technicians up to 20% in training time, while significantly reducing administration costs.
EUR 10 million in savings
The results speak for themselves: Since the LMS was introduced, service technicians have been saving around 20% in training time, which is equivalent to EUR 10 million in total.
Moreover, learners loved how flexible the platform is. The LMS by imc is capable of implementing tailored requirements for each country. This involves more than just using the right language: Basic knowledge relating to fundamental topics like maintenance and repair and customised training on new regional products also differ by country. The “BSH Learning Universe” precisely addresses the requirements and needs of the service technicians at the different locations.
“The imc Learning Suite is highly flexible and adapts to our requirements. The LMS not only covers our need for product training: We also use the system for our health training. Above all, the intelligent training booking processes make our work a lot easier. Since we implemented the LMS, Excel list administration is a thing of the past!”, Peter Tolaini, BSH Learning Universe Administrator, UK sums up.
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At the cutting edge with
blended learning
The Hager brand stands for straightforward and safe electrotechnical installations in residential, industrial and commercial buildings. The portfolio covers everything from energy distribution and cable routing through switch and building technology to door communication.
The Hager Group based in the Saarland town of Blieskastel is family-owned, looking back on 50 years of tradition. Thanks to its continuous development, the company now counts 11,400 employees worldwide.
Making role-based knowledge available
at short notice
At Hager, it is a known fact: Role-based knowledge must be available quickly and at short notice. To ensure this while also providing blended learning and gamification elements for independent electrical engineers, Hager was looking for a suitable partner.
When a new meter cabinet system was introduced all the way back in 1997, information had to be shared with customers almost immediately. Even in those days, the company took a step towards e-learning: Computer-based training (CBT) was recorded onto CD-ROMs and supplied with the products. A lot has happened since. CBT has become WBT. Learners are no longer provided with physical, tangible CD-ROMs on which knowledge is stored. Instead, clicking a link gives them access to the virtual training camp where up-to-date knowledge is transferred.
“Very clearly, the trend in e-learning is to quickly provide learners with role-based knowledge at relatively short notice,” explains Martin Zimmer, Online Training Advisor at Hager.
Instant availability, maximum scalability
and lower costs
Hager has been using the SaaS version of the imc Learning Suite learning management system since 2012. The cloud solution facilitates instant availability and enormous scalability while achieving significant cost savings compared to the traditional on-premise variant.
This learning environment provides learners with a lot more than just access to web-based training (WBT): They can also view webinar recordings or utilise interactive operating instructions in the form of smart lessons – anytime and from anywhere.
But why pick one if you can have it all? Hager leverages blended learning to inform independent electrical engineers about the company’s products. For this target group, imc and Hager have already produced four WBTs on topics such as “Lighting control and dimmers” or “Smart metering” – both of which are key content for energy efficiency.
An effort well received by the learners
Always new WBTs, gamification elements and interactive training courses: The online learning opportunities are well-received by the learners. It shows in the high click rates, as well as in the satisfied feedback. “It’s safe to say: The more up-to-date a WBT is, the greater its acceptance,” Zimmer sums up the feedback.
“The training courses are becoming more sophisticated, and we use a range of interactive elements to communicate the learning content,” he continues. “Our efforts are appreciated!”
The latest web-based training develops know-how on modern cable routing and room connection systems in a playful way. Instead of old-fashioned question-and-answer tests, the partners leveraged realistic exercises in an appealing, virtual world. This training course is more like a serious game than a traditional WBT, and allows learners to compete against and challenge each other.
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Learning management system helps
cut red tape
S&G was founded in 1898. In 1998, on its 100-year anniversary, it was renamed S&G Automobil AG.
The subsidiary S&G Automobilgesellschaft established in 1990 is now the biggest Mercedes-Benz representative in Saxony-Anhalt. Today, around 1,400 employees including almost 300 trainees and apprentices at 11 locations in Baden-Wuerttemberg and 8 sites in Saxony-Anhalt ensure that we keep our promise every single day:
“With S&G, you are in for a good drive.”
Meeting documentation obligations
with mobile learning
S&G wanted to bring the company’s professional development and training measures up to date and drive digitalisation. The objective was to quickly and directly provide information to around 1,300 employees across 19 locations. This required reductions in email traffic while ensuring that employees really do receive information on training courses. Furthermore, all employees regularly need to complete training courses on topics such as money laundering, compliance and data protection. This process was to be uniform and clear to map.
In addition, solutions were needed to equally train employees without permanent access to a desktop computer.
Uniform processes and time-savings
The solution came from imc, featuring a central platform and the learning management system – which S&G named “Lernwelt” – world of learning. Once implemented, the LMS ensured that employees actually receive information and are able to complete the right training courses.
The allocation of training courses and instructions is automated, and employees are assigned groups and receive course information and bookings automatically depending on the group they belong to. For instance, an automated reminder is sent out when its time for an employee to refresh their training on a particular topic.
“Lernwelt” brings greater acceptance
S&G was able to achieve some of its goals immediately after implementing the LMS: The paper and email overload decreased significantly. S&G intensively uses the automated allocation, and automatically assigns advanced training and instructions or sends out reminders for mandatory training to individual user groups. This also simplifies verification and documentation of mandatory training on topics such as money laundering, compliance, and data protection.
The fact that employees can now register for training courses directly rather than having to go through their line manager also helped to cut administration costs. Moreover, transitioning some of the face-to-face training to an online format resulted in major time savings.
The Content Studio also helped to improve course quality, and employees highly appreciate the training units designed by their own colleagues. This boosted acceptance of the LMS.
Find our more about S&G and further details about the LMS-implementation in the interview of the article series LMS Hot Topics.
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