Self-taught empowerment: benefits of investing in training

"The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave, is not training them, and having them stay". This phrase, attributed to the successful entrepreneur Henry Ford, creator of the Ford Motor Company at the beginning of the 20th century, sums up the secret of the success of large companies in recent years.

A recent Accenture report examining how to nurture the potential of the workforce found that some of the factors that influence employee motivation and retention to avoid talent drain include the ability to grow, career development, the flexibility that technology allows, and the opportunities offered by training and lifelong learning schemes. 

Accordingly, Prosegur renewed its online learning platform in 2019, keeping Prosegur Corporate University accessible to all employees in all countries where the company is present, with the aim of promoting self-learning and the learning of new skills.

The first major deployment through the University was with the 2020 Innovation Deep Dive Training Plan aimed at indirect employees in 15 countries, which sought to respond to Prosegur's ambitious vision of becoming an innovative and digital company, with a wide range of degrees on subjects such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, 3D Printing and Information Security. This major launch contributed to the completion of over 643,000 hours of online training in that period.

Our employees' use and engagement with the University has been growing exponentially in line with our corporate digitalisation strategy, enabling us to be more strategic in defining the most appropriate training approach for each solution.  The 2021 Global Training Plan involved indirect groups from 23 countries in 20 training actions on topics related to the Prosegur business, Sustainability, Agile Methodologies and Change Management. We have clocked over 1,000,000 hours of online training.

"Some of the content at the Prosegur Corporate University are mandatory for certain positions, depending on the job, yet are still available to all employees. If a security guard in Peru, for example, wants to complete the Data Science module because they are interested in the subject, they can do so", explains Rocío Castañeda, Global Director of Talent and Culture at Prosegur. And she adds: "It is important for us to create accessible content and for employees to own their self-training, as a source of discovery and inspiration in their day-to-day work. After all, it can be difficult to innovate if you don't know that certain tools are available to you. Introducing new technologies with practical examples that they could actually apply, in the form of open innovation, was eye-opening".

The incorporated local nuances within global training have allowed the contents of the Prosegur Corporate University to be diversified by country. Brazil shines brightly as one of the many success stories within the platform. Since 2019, Brazilian employees have had an "Essential" Training Plan that amalgamates a battery of onboarding courses for all employees regardless of their position, with all the procedures, tools and mindset that must be brought to life in their day-to-day work to ensure our culture and Prosegur values. By 2022, the Plan's focus will be on innovation and diversity, targeting themes such as an innovation mindset, continuous improvement processes, diverse teams for high performance and always based on our Perform & Transform Strategic Planning.

"Our goal is to have our employees reach a 90% completion rate of the essential pathway by year's end. To help them, we send weekly e-mails with course suggestions and create an internal ranking to motivate teams to take the training", explains Marcelo Rucker, Human Resources director of the Prosegur Group in Brazil. "It is very gratifying to know how committed the teams are to fulfilling their personalised learning trajectories. The materials available at Prosegur University are constantly updated, precisely to offer the best possible qualifications to professionals and deliver cutting-edge work to the customers we serve worldwide", he says.

In Brazil, Prosegur's Espaço UP engages its operational bases, so that employees can continue their self-taught training with the company's computer equipment, in an environment specially prepared for study and which follows all the guidelines of our Health and Safety team for distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Monitoring tools were also developed in this country to track Business Intelligence and enquire about the percentage of employees who complete the minimum courses required by the company. The aim is to renew training materials every year and update the courses which, at the moment, in addition to technical and strategic training, also provide content on Human Rights and Diversity, Communication, Emotional Intelligence, Change Management, Conflict Management, Attitude and Customer Relations, Behaviour and Ethics.

We currently have an extensive catalogue of specific training courses for developing softskills available in 4 languages (Spanish, Portuguese, English and German) and accessible to all Prosegur employees regardless of their position.

The most popular courses since 2020 have been Sustainability, Public Speaking Skills, Feedback in the Workplace, Elevator Pitch for Value-Centred Selling, Change Management, Designing Efficient Projects and Mindfulness. Overall, our training activities have affected the lives of over 54,000 employees with a total of 190,000 training hours.

"One of the contents we have opted for in the Prosegur Corporate University is the soft skills environment. We wanted to make management content accessible to all staff, how to give and receive feedback, for example, to improve both personal and team management, as well as mindfulness and digital detox courses". The courses are 100% responsive and integrated into the Prosegur Intranet application so that all content is accessible from anywhere. This means that workers don't need a computer, and can join the courses from a smartphone with access to the Internet. The aim is to make the content universal, understandable and accessible", concludes Castañeda.