About 360Learning

360Learning is a collaborative learning LMS. They help organizations to transform their internal experts into drivers of talent, client and partner development.

With their LMS designed for collaborative learning, training departments can meet their companies’ needs for skills by leveraging the power of internal expertise, rather than focusing on top-down training. The company provides a suite of solutions to onboard new employees, to ensure employee development, to train teams in the field and to support clients and partners.

360Learning has more than 1,700 clients. Since 2013, they have raised more than $240 million with more than 400 employees in France, Europe and the US.

The challenge

In addition to its rapid growth, with the recruitment of 30 to 40 new employees every month, 360Learning faced added pressure as a company which provides training and which is therefore very familiar with the challenges of learning and development. How could it successfully apply the advice it gives to others to its own employees?

With its strong corporate culture, 360Learning decided to transform its ambitions into an everyday reality: being a fair company and advocating equal opportunities and transparency in human resources. The company opted for a very active recruitment and training strategy.

One objective in particular was seen as being key: ensuring gender parity in management positions, given that this has languished at around 30% in recent years in tech companies. Consequently, the aim was also to support the development of female talent within the company.

For the past two years, internal working groups have had the opportunity to participate in collaborative learning on all these subjects, including the inclusion of women.

To build on this momentum, 360Learning chose to providecoaching for certain female employees, whether or not they were already in management positions, so as to help them identify and achieve their professional potential.

The solution

A bespoke program called Woman@360 was developed with CoachHub. It has three key phases:

• Before coaching sessions: a DISC self-assessment by the coached employee, shared with their coach, followed by a three-way discussion between the coached employee, her line manager and her coach to identify the main areas of focus and the objectives of the programme.
• Eight sessions of individual coaching over a period of six months.
• After coaching sessions: a self-assessment by the coached employee and another three-way discussion between the coached employee, her line manager and her coach.

This managerial involvement reinforced the program’s impact and participants’ positive feelings. Topics covered include self-confidence and visibility.

The results

The program was a bonafide success with its first intake. Coached employees saw a clear improvement in their skills (with an average increase of 175% in terms of the objectives set by participants) and reported a 100% satisfaction rate. All managers of coached employees said that they were very satisfied with their professional development.

“There was a huge response to the launch of the programme, with more applicants than available places! Launching this programme for the first time, we focused on employees faced with a specific challenge, such as entering a new market or managing a new team.Learning self-confidence and dealing with complex problems were key areas of this targeted coaching,” said Audrey Jarre, head of learning at 360Learning.

“A real relationship of trust developed between each participant and her coach from the very beginning: as we know, this is a determining factor in the success of a coaching program,” said Guillaume Baraige, account manager at CoachHub.

Looking ahead

Given the success of this first trial, a second cohort has already embarked on the program. Having acquired significant experience with the first intake, the company’s human resources managers were able to refine the selection criteria for candidates, incorporating seniority and diversity considerations when choosing participants. The program has led to a qualitative improvement in the teams and in women’s confidence: it undoubtedly has a promising future.

Moreover, 360Learning is a signatory of the Parity Pact; as such, it aims to reach a minimum of 20% of women on the company’s board by 2025 and 40% by 2028. In addition, it has committed to providing training for all its managers on diversity issues and the fight against discrimination and harassment by the end of 2022.