SEAT has a strong commitment to training and employment, and offers its employees the chance to take advantage of summer breaks and their free time to continue learning whatever they want. Through the Always Learning|Learn at will platform, the company offers more than 3,500 courses on topics as diverse as mind mapping, tips and shortcuts for Excel, or languages.
In its first year of operation, more than 6,000 people, around 40% of the workforce, signed up voluntarily to take any of the available courses in their free time, depending entirely on their interests. Only during the slightly more than 3 months that the pandemic state of alarm lasted, 800 people registered to the platform. During this period, 4,000 training courses were completed, of the almost 10,500 that have been followed since the launch of Always Learning|Learn at will.
These programmes are in addition to the training possibilities that the company offers related with improving current job skills and development, as well as training workers in skills that will be needed in the future. Always Learning|Learn at will gives workers the opportunity to take control of their training so that they can learn about the subjects that interest them most, even if they are not directly related with their current work. In this way, SEAT reaffirms its commitment to employment and offers every employee additional opportunities for professional development.
“In just one year we’ve gone from offering 150 courses to more than 3,500 in response to the great motivation and desire to learn that our workers have shown us, dedicating their free time voluntarily to continue training in areas that will certainly be useful in the future”, explains Laura Carnicero, head of Training and Development at SEAT.
The courses combine online learning and classroom sessions, which in recent months have become virtual classes. These courses have been developed by companies such as Coursera and last between 2.5 and 18 hours, with flexible adaptation to each individual’s pace. Among the most popular courses are all those related to new technologies, such as Blockchain, Big data, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, an area that has been expanded lately with courses to further these skills. Also in great demand are those related with digital skills, such as Creative thinking or Mind mapping, which also enable workers to apply the acquired knowledge to their jobs.
Other highly popular courses are Elevator pitch: how to sell your idea in one minute, and Develop your team’s creativity, as well as those related with innovation for management.
Commitment to training
SEAT has been promoting an ambitious company-wide training programme for several years aimed at boosting the professional growth of its more than 15,000 employees and preparing them for the future challenges facing the automotive industry. In 2019, SEAT invested 23 million euros in training, or an average of more than 1,500 euros per worker, and provided more than 350,000 training hours to its employees.
The company structures its training programmes under the “Always Learning” umbrella, which in addition to voluntary training includes two other blocks: one focused on the training needs for current jobs, and the other on the skills that the company anticipates will be needed in the future, especially those related with technology and digitalisation. With these programmes, SEAT reaffirms its commitment to employment and training as a means of offering professional development opportunities to all its employees.
SEAT offers 3,500 courses to its employees who want to study voluntarily this summer.
In addition, SEAT has been committed to youth employment for more than 60 years through its Apprentice School, a centre that offers dual vocational training with advanced three-year programmes. Also, to reinforce its commitment to the generations of the future, and to inspire, empower and provide tools for their development, SEAT recently joined David Calle, Spain’s most famous YouTube teacher. David is SEAT’s Education and Youth Empowerment ambassador, and both have the common goal of promoting educational change to respond to the major challenges that new generations will face in the workplace and to empower them for the future.
