17 October 2007

ILX sets the standard for SGS

...Multi-lingual course teaches staff to talk finance...

Wednesday 17 October 2007, ILX Group plc (ILX), the training services company, that provides flexible training services through traditional classroom, workshops, multi-media training and e-Learning is providing financial awareness training to Société Générale de Surveillance S.A. (SGS) which provides inspection, verification, testing and certification services.  A suite of six ILX financial e-learning courses in English, French, Spanish and Mandarin have been customised to suit SGS financial formats and terminology. The course, entitled ‘Finance for Non-Financial Managers’ has been provided to 600 managers across the company to date, with another 600 embarking on their training shortly.    

Dominique Ben Dhaou, International HR Manager for SGS, claims the need for the training emerged after research indicated that improvement of basic financial understanding throughout the Group was desired. “People tend to focus on their own technical expertise and field, and need to have a better understanding of the basic financial principles and mechanisms.  Managers were often relying on the finance people instead of raising their own knowledge levels, which would enable them to partner with finance.  The better their knowledge of finance the better they can take the right decisions for the sake of the Group’s financial success.”

Flexible blended learning is the key element of ILX’s products and a combination of E-learning and classroom workshops are being used to ensure that each delegate learns effectively.  The e-learning modules are hosted by the ILX Group, which means consistent training reaches SGS’s global audience.  The classroom session is run by regional finance managers (using ILX’s business simulation “Cash Flow Challenge”) to embed learning.
 
SGS is pleased with the outcome of the training to date.  Dominique Ben Dhaou said “Training effectiveness and impact is not always that easy to measure, but because ILX offers pre- and post-training evaluation the results are tangible on completion.  Also the nature of the training provides a clear and direct link to the efficiency of the business.” 

ILX attributes the level of success achieved in this project to SGS’s enthusiasm for the training.  Dave Jones, the ILX Project Manager, comments: “Throughout both the development and implementation stages of this project, the degree of cooperation and commitment shown by SGS has been fantastic. The management of the programme by SGS has been thoroughly professional and competent. We have benefited from improvements to our products and services as a result.”

The project is moving into phase two to train another 600 managers.