A day focused on practical applications and peer-to-peer exchanges
This inaugural event was designed as a valuable opportunity for companies, HR leaders, managers, trainers, and skills development professionals.
The goal was simple: to take a step back and reflect on training practices, share common challenges, and identify actionable strategies to enhance the impact of training programmes. Keynote speeches, roundtable discussions, and workshops thus provided an opportunity to exchange perspectives and develop concrete tools.
For the House of Training, this event is part of an ongoing effort to listen to companies. The discussions, questions, and feedback from participants serve as valuable input for better understanding on-the-ground needs and adapting skill-building programmes.
This first edition is fully in line with our mission: to support companies in developing skills development programmes that are useful, sustainable, and measurable.
From Satisfaction to Impact
A high satisfaction rate, the number of hours completed, or a high level of participation are useful indicators. But they are not enough to measure the real impact of a training programmes.
The keynote presentation led by Jonathan Pottiez, a training evaluation expert, and Jonathan Piarrat, a cognitive psychologist and co-founder of Flowbow, invited participants to dig deeper: What do we really want to see change after the training? Which behaviours need to evolve? What results are expected for the team, the manager, or the organisation?
The great misunderstanding is believing that simply putting people in a room is enough for the magic to happen.
Drawing on the Kirkpatrick model, the two speakers emphasised that evaluation must not stop at satisfaction. It must also allow for the observation of learning outcomes, behaviours transferred to the workplace, and results produced for the organisation.
They also presented the APA model—Before, During, After—as a practical framework. Before training: clarify objectives, expectations, and target behaviours. During: actively engage learners. After: reinforce what was learned, encourage practical application, organise feedback, and ensure follow-up.
The Manager, an Essential Link in Knowledge Transfer
The roundtable brought together Adina Lupu, HR Manager at ALFI; Yasmine Goudembourg, HR Director at Goodyear; and Alexandre Villière, Head of People Development at Société Générale and trainer at the House of Training.
The discussions confirmed the manager’s central role in skills transfer. Managers serve as the link between corporate strategy and its implementation on the ground. Working directly with teams, they understand the needs, operational constraints, and situations in which skills must be applied.
Several practical approaches were shared: actively listening to employees to identify needs, clarifying objectives before training, discussing expectations with employees, organising a debrief after training, setting aside time for practice, encouraging feedback, and recognising progress.
In the face of changes in the labour market, continuous learning is first and foremost a human journey. It is the daily synergy between HR partners, managers, and employees that constitutes our value and strength in meeting the challenges of tomorrow.
These discussions allowed participants to see that, despite the diversity of sectors, many organisations share the same questions: How do we identify the right needs? How do we engage managers? How do we move from training completion to the actual application of skills?
Workshops to Take Action
The afternoon continued this momentum with two hands-on workshops: one focused on measuring training effectiveness, the other on designing blended learning pathways.
Participants worked through real-world scenarios. They were able to discuss their practices, compare their approaches, and identify strategies applicable to their organisations: better defining expected outcomes, structuring post-training follow-up, involving managers, or combining different learning formats.
These workshops confirmed that impactful training does not rely solely on content. It also depends on how it is prepared, facilitated, followed up on, and integrated into work practices.
A Shared Responsibility
This first Training Day reaffirms a strong conviction: skills development is a shared responsibility. It involves senior management, HR, managers, employees, trainers, and training partners.
In a context shaped by artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, sustainability, regulatory changes, and societal shifts, skills needs are evolving rapidly. These challenges are numerous. They also present an opportunity to rethink training as a concrete lever for adaptation, employability, and competitiveness.
For the House of Training, this first edition marks the start of a promising new chapter. It confirms the importance of staying close to companies, listening to their challenges, and working with them to build training programmes that are more targeted, more useful, and more grounded in real-world realities.