The Crédit Commercial de France (HSBC group), with 14,000 employees, including 6,300 at the corporate headquarters, and a national network of 774 branches, quickly realized how important it was to set up a full-scale e-learning organization capable of providing training on a large scale. Corporate objectives: offer individualized training, reduce training time and optimize costs. The project was managed perfectly, from the audit phase to the creation of a customized e-learning organization.

"To successfully set up an e-learning project, you need to have an in-house sponsor." Justine Kellner CCF Project Leader

Industry : Banking Context : Optimize the effectiveness of training Solution : Self-paced learning at a learning centre, on dedicated terminals and at individual computers Products and services used : PROGRESSION® for Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Lotus Notes PROGRESSION® Express Consulting Distance tutor training Technical support Benefits : Personalized training No groups based on skill levels Provide training to large numbers of employees Validation and follow-up of learned skills

"All major projects need to have an in-house sponsor, and from the outset we had the support of the General Management and representatives of the different business processes of the bank, 15 people in all," says Justine Kellner, in charge of this e-learning project at CCF.

"We started out by performing a major analysis of the current situation and our needs - from a technical, instructional, and cultural standpoint - and then we identified various potential deterrents, before getting into the actual construction of the organization and choosing the content," explains Justine Kellner. A number of instructors and managers were interviewed and focus groups were held with the employees in order to "adopt a group approach."

We quickly identified a number of deterrents. Psychological deterrents such as "everyone is going to see that I don't know how to use a computer or Modern Technologies properly". Technical deterrents such as "setting up e-learning on the company's Intranet meant in our case allocating a budget for the computer network". Union deterrents, because labour and management had to agree on the approach. Finally, logistical deterrents, because "on-line learning during working hours means installing dedicated computers or setting up learning centres."

Training System Design

Once the deterrents were identified, they were resolved one by one and the CCF got to work with iProgress to design the training system. A number of desktop applications learning centres as well as dedicated terminals were set up in order to facilitate learner concentration. In parallel, the PROGRESSION® modules are also available on demand from employees' workplace computers. In-house tutors, who provide in-person and on-line training, were specially trained to facilitate the start-up of e-learning at the 200 points of sale throughout France. Enrollments are managed over the company Intranet.

"Publicizing the training organization is a huge job in itself," says Justine Kellner. "We made a strategic decision to inform the managers first and convince them of the immediate effectiveness of this type of learning, so that positive reviews of the solution would spread by word-of-mouth to the rest of the employees." The next step for CCF: Put content on-line dealing with good practices for using e-mail within the company.