Read the interview of Richard Marchant & Anne Loison about the Novacel Academy
To capitalize on its expertise and manage our succession plan, Novacel has announced the launch of Novacel Academy to train tomorrow's talent and help them meet the future challenges we will face.
What exactly is it all about? Why create this training? What are its objectives for Novacel? You can learn more about the Novacel Academy by reading the interview with Richard Marchant, our CEO, and Anne Loison, our Human Resources Director.
You have announced the creation of the Novacel Academy; could you tell us more about it?
Richard Marchant: Novacel Academy is our tool for managing our technical know-how, our company knowledge, training our future talents, securing our growth, as well as building the best teams to ensure our customers are satisfied. We will begin a pilot in February, but we will be training more and more people beyond 2021, wherever Novacel and its associated trademarks do business (Boston Tapes, Walco, Omma, Novacel Performance Coatings). We are also targeting the training of our suppliers and customers on our products. Indeed, that is a service that they are all looking to have.
Anne Loison: The job of coating cannot be learned in schools, so we decided to create our own in-house training school. We have set ourselves the objective of welcoming, for this first class, six work-study interns on 12-month professionalization contracts.
Why create this training? What are the needs in relation to existing academic training?
Richard Marchant: We had to create Novacel Academy, initially for the coating, because no school was providing preparation for jobs involving coating. We went on to look at the age pyramid because we need to train up many operatives in Deville to replace those entering retirement.
Anne Loison: Novacel Academy is our tool for managing our succession plan for our operatives and develop expertise. A coating operative takes one to two years to fully train for the job.
What are the main objectives for Novacel ?
Richard Marchant: The aim for Novacel is to support our activities by retaining our expertise, even develop it further, by employing effective people capable of embracing the future challenges we will face, along with people able to act proactively on strategy (customer experience, Asia, acyclic markets, greener solutions, innovation).
Who is this training for?
Anne Loison: Initially, the training will be mainly intended for people from outside the company (or temporary workers who would like to follow the full course of training to take up a post in the company). Our ambition is to then offer it to our customers (based on technical learning modules) and above all to roll it out across our other production sites (Europe & the Americas)
What skills are taught?
Anne Loison: The skills taught cover 3 main areas:
General training (global corporate culture, marketing, HR, R&D, etc.), transversal subjects (maintenance, methods, safety & environment, engineering, etc.) plus technical skills of course (the coating process, printing, winding, quality, for example). This involves 210 hours of classroom teaching, but also, even more importantly, practical on-machine training as part of a team.
Who are the trainers?
Anne Loison: The trainers, two in number, are in-house coating professionals who have mentorship training. They themselves have worked on our coating machines for many years.
What organization and tools/resources have been put in place?
Richard Marchant: This year it is a pilot, but we are already devoting substantial resources to it (trainer & training material, trainees, dedicated new classroom, among other things). We will be adding further resources beyond 2021 with an employee portal offering e-learning modules, and we will be extending the Academy beyond Déville to all our facilities in area subsidiaries.
What is the training format?
Anne Loison: The training is dispensed over twelve months with 290 hours of theoretical training and practical on-the-job training for the rest of the time.
What are the benefits for students?
Anne Loison: CQPI validation (this is a professional certification) for the operation of industrial equipment.
It is a qualification that is recognized across industries, including in metalworking and pharmacy
Download the interview in French Download the interview in English
