Success factors of a sustainable education

Companies outside the metropolitan regions have to fight particularly hard to secure their next generation of employees and to recruit new ones. This is because the declining number of qualified school leavers is attracting more people to urban centres than to rural regions.

With around 3,500 employees, Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall is one of the largest employers in the north-east of Baden-Württemberg. It began actively "managing" demographic developments ten years ago in order to prepare for the future and to make its HR work "demographics-proof". Today, HR work takes into account all phases of working life, from the start of training to retirement.

More personal responsibility and individuality

In recent years, Schwäbisch Hall has decisively developed its training concept, because due to G8, comprehensive schools and the Bologna process, the competence profiles of (high) school graduates diverge more strongly today than in the past, as do learning types and learning speeds. Increasing demands of the world of work are not infrequently confronted with a lack of educational maturity. The ever shorter half-life of knowledge and high speeds of change place greater demands on those entering the world of work than in the past. A training concept that aims to optimally prepare young men and women for working life must be more oriented towards the individual today than it was ten years ago. In addition, it should impart the ability to act on one's own responsibility, to reflect on one's own behaviour and to self-direct already during training. The further developed training concept has been implemented in several stages at Schwäbisch Hall in recent years. The training is consistently oriented towards the question of which competences enable a successful career start at Schwäbisch Hall. This is summarised in a competence profile with nine professional, methodical, social and personal competences. These include, for example, "ability to learn" and "ability and willingness to reflect" in the area of "personal competence" and "independent work" as well as "goal and result orientation" in the area of "methodological competence". The new learning concept thus focuses on specific learning objectives in the individual training sections in addition to the specialist content, for example in behavioural topics (e.g. conversational behaviour on the telephone, dealing with colleagues in the work team or independent problem solving).

The trainer 2.0: More coach than teacher

In an initial three-month training block, the prospective bank clerks learn the necessary basic specialist knowledge of banking and home loan and savings business. And even here, they sharpen their focus on their own competencies and practice the self-directed implementation of identified learning needs. During the subsequent six three- to six-month training periods in the specialist departments, they are expected to acquire the learning objectives defined for this phase largely independently. In this process, they are supported by five full-time instructors in the Bank's internal service and 80 departmental instructors who act as "learning process facilitators". Their role and self-image have changed significantly in the new concept: Observation and feedback replace assessment and marking. The trainers are more of a coach than a teacher. They have been specifically trained and educated for this purpose.

A lot of freedom within clear structures

The new concept is based on the trainees' independence and responsibility. In order for this to lead to success, crash barriers are needed. Each training phase has the same structure: In an introductory meeting, the trainer and the trainee jointly analyse the status quo and define the specific learning and development needs in a learning agreement. Forms help to maintain the necessary process discipline. Learning takes place with the help of weekly tasks that almost always depict real business processes at Schwäbisch Hall and help the trainees to acquire step by step the skills and abilities that they are to develop in the relevant training phase. The learning tasks with formats such as "group puzzles" and "home inspections " are methodologically diverse and tailored to the needs of "Generation Y" and "Z". In a competence diary, which accompanies them throughout the training, the trainees note successes and failures, progress and areas for action on the way to achieving the learning objectives and document their growth in competence in the process.

Observe and moderate the learning process

In his defined role, the trainer is available to the young employees as a contact person as well as a source of advice and impetus, whereby it is left to the initiative of the trainees to ask him for support if necessary. The trainer primarily observes the process and only intervenes as a moderator if necessary. The intensity of the learning process support therefore varies greatly from individual to individual. Intermediate talks for feedback and reflection herald a new learning agreement for the second half of the training period.

The entire training program is based on this basic concept of competence development and assessment with the central elements of self-reflection and self-control. In the future, junior staff should be able to recognise for themselves when they need to find new solutions, for example due to changing customer requirements or market conditions. In addition, they should independently acquire the skills and knowledge required for this.

Success factors

The learning process described above results in essential success factors for a future-oriented training concept:

1. competence-based learning processes with a high degree of self-control,

2. individual support through feedback, encouragement and challenge, and

3. part-time and full-time trainers who are able and willing to implement this individual support.

In order to continue to find and retain the right junior staff for Schwäbisch Hall, it is important to have targeted training marketing that enables junior staff to be approached at an early stage. And so that the trainees feel Schwäbisch Hall as their professional home right from the start, they should already feel like fully-fledged employees during their training period - this presupposes that the contribution of training to the future viability of the company is also accepted and appreciated within the company. Furthermore, it is important to be able to show the prospective bankers an attractive perspective after their training.

Experience and conclusion

The introduction of the new training concept based on self-reflection and self-control is costly and needs sponsors. The trainers are the decisive catalysts in this process. Their role change from "instructor" to "learning process facilitator" requires time and training. The early involvement of the specialist departments and the works council ensures the necessary acceptance within the company. Culture also plays a role: mistakes must be allowed and seen as learning opportunities.

For generations Y and Z, who have grown up in an environment of the Internet and mobile communication and expect a varied and practical mix of formats when learning, Schwäbisch Hall is ideally positioned with this training concept. This is important. Because in the future, these people will shape the corporate culture and thus change not only the way of learning, but also the way of working at Schwäbisch Hall.