EPFL now has an in-house team for staff training
© 2016 EPFL
Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD students are not the only ones who learn at EPFL. Employees can take advantage of the school’s Staff Training Service, which even began offering E-Learning courses at the start of 2016.
They may work in a school with more than 10,000 students, but they are not overlooked. EPFL employees can call upon the Staff Training Service (STS) for continuing education courses and computer courses (the latter of which used to be offered by the DIT, now the VPSI). These courses are open to EPFL’s administrative employees, technical staff and PhD students – and even to the school’s apprentices, who number around 100 every year! “We deliver 350 courses per year, and we get around 2,500 enrollments annually, between French and English,” says Fanny Leuenberger, the administrative manager of STS.
And in a major change, as of July of this year the training service is entirely managed by EPFL. “We used to use an external service provider for the training,” says Eric Meurville, who is in charge of talent management and is overseeing STS during the transition. “By bringing it in-house, not only are we saving money, but the courses we offer are determined by the changing needs of staff members rather than by individual course enrollment figures. We also have a free hand in choosing our instructors, from within EPFL or on the outside market.” A network of staff representatives is currently being set up in order to identify users’ needs. This will provide the two steering committees – one for general courses and the other for computer courses – with the information they need to decide which courses to run. The standard course catalog will be supplemented by courses that STS creates to meet the specific needs of the various professions at EPFL.
And starting in 2017, the course catalog will move from print to the web. “This also reflects our desire not to plan courses a year in advance, but rather to be guided by the participants’ needs,” says Meurville. Sign-up will be online too, just like in the language center. Staff members will nevertheless still require their supervisor’s approval to take a course. “For EPFL, providing training opportunities to employees is an example of high value added,” says René Bugnion, the human resources delegate. “Managers also have a responsibility to provide this opportunity to their staff.”
Online courses: E-Learning for staff members
At the start of 2016, STS set up an online training platform. “These continuing education courses add to our catalog of online courses, which will continue to expand over time,” says Paul Bachelard, who is in charge of the E-Learning project for staff. “In the future, a course on safety delivered by the DSPS could, for example, be followed up by an online course that reviews the key takeaways.” These online courses can effectively complement classroom teaching, like MOOCs. But unlike MOOCs, they do not offer credits and can be followed at the user's pace.
Every online course consists of a series of modules lasting around 30 minutes each. Supporting documentation is available for download. Employees can do these online courses during their working hours with the approval of their supervisor and as needed for their job.