After bringing home the silver at U-Spring’s 7th edition for its Digital Learning program, Havas University was recently recognized as the Best Onboarding Program of the Year at this year’s UBS Forums Award. We spoke with Juliette Couaillier, Chief Talent Officer of Havas Village France, Dana Blanco Revah, Senior Manager Product & Content Digital Learning, and Zoya Gonthier, Digital Learning Manager, all members of Havas University, to learn more.
What is Havas University?
Havas University is the group’s digital learning solution, which provides daily support for the group and all its talent. Our objectives are to support the group’s transformation in terms of business and compliance, as well as meeting our collaborators’ expectations in terms of personal development. Therefore, Havas University is built around 4 pillars that address the different challenges of our business sector: Upscale business skills, Discover, Soft skills & new trends, and Compliance. We also developed a more user-friendly way of learning, adapted to the pace and needs of each individual.
Havas University is also available for clients, as a product that offers personalized LMS (Learning Management System) and around 10 courses that harness our internal expertise. We accompany each client’s learning experience by offering courses that help us establish a common language and best fit the learning needs of each client.
“Nowadays, the platform has 5,500 unique visitors each month, representing 12,000 monthly visits on average, and 85,000 completed trainings in 2022.”
Who is behind it?
Havas University is a small but hard-working team, Dana and Zoya are dedicated to Havas University and also benefit from the technical support of Beatriz Martinez Garrido, Global IT Applications & SW Solutions Director, and Arkaitz Bregel Del Barco, Global IT Web Development Manager, who are both based in Spain. However, the group’s digital learning community is much larger, including external developers, input from local HR teams, the Compliance Department and many internal experts.
We work on the development of the e-learning platform (Open-Source Moodle), its integration with our ecosystem (HRIS, Intranet), editorialization and content creation. This small but highly integrated organization allows us to adapt our product to the needs of the group. The key word for the team is agility, inspiring them to constantly evolve, come up with innovative formats, establish priorities and coordinate the various stakeholders. The team also ensures that the content isn’t outdated to keep pace with a constantly changing world. For example, the removal of cookies has forced us to revise our training on data.
What were some of the difficulties encountered during the platform’s development?
One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced is rapid growth. From 2019 to 2020, the platform saw a 350% increase in participation from users worldwide due to the global lockdown and a greater need for online education. We not only had to produce a wider variety of courses and create new categories, but we had to do so while improving the user experience.
Today, we have almost 300 online courses, and targeting has become another key challenge. How do we get the right content to the right person at the right time? One solution is through “corners” one of our latest developments. Corners act as private country or regional spaces within Havas University, dedicated to curating our content to users according to their specific Talentspace data. This, along with many other improvements and developments, has allowed the platform to overcome challenges associated with rapid growth.
What types of courses can we find in the platform? Are there any new courses to come?
The courses available in Havas University can be broadly divided in two categories: those we create internally with our Havas experts, and those we offer via third party partners, such as the GAFA.
Internally, we create courses not only via the Knowledge Management team of Havas University, but also thanks to collaboration with other agencies, countries, regions and our parent company, Vivendi. Thanks to this integrated approach, we have modules that draw on the expertise of Vivendi on broad strategic topics like CSR and Compliance (you’re likely familiar with modules such as Duty of Vigilance, Anti-Corruption or Impact + Act Together for the Planet), while also offering our own set of strategic Havas modules like Understanding Mx/MBi.
We classify our almost 300 courses in the following categories: Media, Creative, Information Security, Personal Development, Strategy and Innovation, Compliance, Management, Havas Impact+, and Software and Tools & Webinars. Our new courses under development will focus on Client Experience, Creative Copywriting, and Cutting-Edge Technology like Generative AI, the Metaverse and NFTs.
Can you talk about the platform’s partnerships?
Externally, we have partnerships and integrations with other learning platforms such as META’s Agency Education Project, Google’s Skillshop, Twitter Flightschool, Linkedin Learning, Coursera, and many others. We have also liaised with the Institute of Advertising Ethics to offer all collaborators and clients free access to the first and only ethical certification for advertising industry practitioners.