Training & Education

Employee development is vital to maintaining and improving the skills of our workforce and the quality of our offering.

Our approach

Today’s dynamic and globalized world requires new competencies. At the same time, many industries face serious skills shortages, especially in the areas of information technology and digitalization. To address this challenge, it is crucial to focus on employee development, as it is vital to maintaining and improving the skills of our workforce and the quality of our products. We want to prepare our employees for the fast-changing world. This improves their motivation and performance on the job and increases their long-term employability. We continually increase our investment in the development of both our employees and business leaders.

In FY 23/24 we established the People Development Center of Excellence, to develop consistent global training and development programs. Leadership development programs in particular have benefited from this change, as these were streamlined globally across the organization, allowing the colleagues at regional or country level to serve local needs.

dormakaba previously established a Learning Hub, a matrix of regional campuses and functional academies to deploy training programs. In FY 23/24 we put more emphasis on regional deployment and also established a learning and development partner network to support global processes and adapt them to local needs.

We regularly gather and evaluate participant feedback after training sessions in order to maintain and continually adapt the quality of our training and education programs. In addition, our training programs are regularly evaluated as part of external audits for ISO 9001 certification. If a negative trend is identified through this audit process, management meets to review the root cause and determine any potentially required remediation, which may include increased communication and/or modifying the training program.

Our activities

Our goal is to increase average training hours to 20 hours per employee per year by 2027 (baseline 13 hours/FTE in FY 20/21). To provide our staff with the competencies they require to perform their tasks safely and efficiently, and to support their career advancement, dormakaba focuses on three areas:

1. Leadership development
2. Individual development and career management
3. Vocational and technical training

Leadership development

In line with our strategy and ambition, we aim to have the best leaders in key positions. We have therefore designed and delivered core leadership training, like Leading for Success, Leading Leaders, and we support individual executive coaching. Furthermore, we also continue to offer both agile and classic project management training as standard curricula. During FY 23/24, 224 employees took part in a leadership development program.

In this fiscal year, we prioritized the standardization of our core leadership programs focusing on managers who lead other managers, and which now caters to more complex leadership topics. Furthermore, we successfully carried out several Leading for Success programs, our basic leadership program, delivered in a blended learning approach.

This includes incorporating the latest leadership strategies, our company vision and behaviors, and customized mentoring that caters to our new managers’ unique needs. Lastly, we carried out additional Advanced Management and Talent Development Program modules for our top talents.

Our focus on leadership development reflects our commitment to cultivating strong, effective leaders who can help drive our company’s success in the long term.

Individual development and career management

As part of our commitment to promoting individual development and career management, we have continued to offer LinkedIn Learning licenses to our employees, providing more flexible training opportunities to a wider audience across various topics. In FY 23/24 we simplified the authentication process to reach even more dormakaba employees. This has enabled us to offer our employees a diverse range of learning opportunities that cater to different learning styles and preferences. This micro-learning format makes it easy for employees to fit training into their busy schedules. We have now reached 6,695 active users, with 42% monthly returning learners. This yielded a total number of 6,947 training hours through LinkedIn Learning. With the help of LinkedIn Learning, we are fostering a culture of continuous learning and development and aiming for a more engaged and committed workforce.

Our combined performance and succession management process known as Perform & Grow provides a common framework for measuring and managing performance and potential. The objective-setting is based on the principle of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

In FY 23/24, we expanded the number of users of Perform & Grow to around 5,000 employees (approx. 500 more compared to the previous financial year) and will continue with further rollouts in the coming years. In addition, performance assessments through Perform & Grow are now also linked to our new Behaviors.

Focusing on the blue-collar employees – without access to Perform & Growth – the Job Redesign Program at our manufacturing site in Chiayi (Taiwan) provides long-term professional development opportunities for middle aged and senior colleagues who have difficulties with physical loading activities due to health and aging. The purpose of this program is mainly to help them maintain or improve their work efficiency, without any health compromises. Since the program was launched in 2019, 75 employees have participated, including four in FY 23/24.

Vocational and technical training

In today’s rapidly changing world of work, the importance of lifelong learning is steadily increasing. For our business success, it is essential that our employees have the skills relevant for their work. The training we provide covers topics such as lean management, health and safety, and product offerings. Additionally, the increasing digitalization of our products and services also requires new competencies – for example, related to big data analytics and artificial intelligence. To ensure that our employees have the relevant skills in the long term, we continue to invest in their vocational development and in promoting their talents.

For example, in FY 23/24 we offered online language training for 50 employees in Vittorio Veneto (Italy), and in Wah Yuet (China) we continued the Operational Excellence Kaizen Program with five training sessions and about 150 employees, focusing on problem-solving processes and standard work engaging. Around 700 employees have participated in the training sessions since 2021. Furthermore, in Switzerland we launched the Future Competencies program last year with 12 participants and in the FY 23/24, 16 more managers and employees received training to develop their skills in Agile Change Management.

Collaborations with local educational institutions

Corporate and educational partnerships are beneficial for both parties as they foster innovation, knowledge exchange, and can even land talents a job. By connecting classroom concepts to actual business challenges, students become more engaged and motivated, and at the same time a company can benefit from the solutions the students develop. Such collaborations also contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals by supporting Quality Education.

In the USA, we have established a strategic partnership with Purdue University, including sponsorship of the Hackathon for the past two years. During the 2023 hackathon, students participated in a competition to create solutions to help people with physical disabilities achieve easier and unassisted building access. During the competition, over 110 students engaged in hands-on empathy research, bodystorming (simulation in a physical environment), affinity mapping, cardboard prototyping, and role-playing. Industrial Design students contributed the necessary design skills, while the business school students investigated cost effectiveness, competitors’ products, marketing, and other issues. Justin Crotzer, Senior Vice President Global Innovation Value Engineering Management at dormakaba, led the event ,with 12 dormakaba leaders serving as judges. AACSB International (AACSB), the world’s largest business education alliance, has chosen the Purdue Hackathon in its annual Innovations That Inspire member spotlight program.

In Italy, Key & Wall Solutions (KWS) representatives are members of the Technical-Scientific Committee of Vittorio Veneto, to host students in a type of apprenticeship program and to provide practical knowledge to them by sharing business cases during lessons. They collaborate with the local Applied Sciences High School every year on a special project. Last year the key topic was the circular economy and this year, it is “GenZ attraction & inclusion". The purpose of the project is to improve our understanding of the needs of younger generations at work and to support the inclusion of diverse employees. Students benefit from learning about corporate diversity and inclusion and the process of survey assessments, as they interview about 50 dormakaba employees and more than 100 students. Local institutions, like the Equal Opportunity Counsel for the Province, are also part of the project. Lastly, KWS employees are also active in providing career orientation advice for management students at the Technical Commercial Institute in Sansovino and Oderzo.

Furthermore, in Rocky Mount (USA), Kaba Ilco is partnering with local schools and community colleges to provide insight into manufacturing and engineering careers for STEM students. They have been a sponsor for the local robotics and engineering program for many years and with the assistance of the local engineering team have participated in local competitions. The team has also participated in career fairs with Nash and Edgecombe Community Colleges, where they have shared their passion for STEM with the students at the community college level down to elementary-aged students.

Lastly, we have continued our partnership with the KEDGE Business School in Paris. Last year the students developed a concept for take-back programs for nine countries, focusing on best-selling dormakaba products. This financial year they supported the concept development of a training course and awareness raising activities related to our zero waste to landfill target.

Our performance

Besides the initiatives already mentioned, during FY 23/24 we continued to develop eLearning modules to support our employees during the change process associated with our corporate strategy, Shape4Growth. In addition to change management modules, a key focus has been on stress and resilience training. These resources have been specifically designed to help our workforce adapt to new ways of working, stay informed about the latest developments, and ensure that they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in this agile environment.

During the FY23/24 we also placed particular emphasis on introducing a global Onboarding Program including a common SharePoint site, a new “Welcome to dormakaba” eLearning module, and manager resources to support hiring and onboarding of new employees. Furthermore, we invested in developing interview training for hiring managers and launched our eLearning on the dormakaba Behaviors.

Below you can find the key results of our Learning and Development programs for FY 23/24:

• The average training hours per employee was 14.3 hours (versus 12.4 hours/FTE in FY 22/23). This is an improvement of 15% versus the previous year due in large part to an increase in blended, classroom training by over 30,000 hours. 
• Over 12,500 employees have access to our Learning Management System (LMS). In total, 84% (10,568 employees) of the users who have access to the system completed at least one eLearning module in the past fiscal year, compared to 88% in FY 22/23. 
• Combined, the compliance-related training activities (including those on the Code of Conduct, antitrust, anti-corruption, and information security) had over 9,731 participants, and over 67,597 training completions, making up 75.35% of all training completions. This is a slight increase (+4%) versus the previous financial year. Many of these topics were introduced in the past and continue to be assigned to new employees.

Outlook

In the coming financial year, we will focus our efforts on harmonizing the company’s job architecture, an important initiative that will describe and structure the various roles within our organization. This project is essential for creating clear career pathways and ensuring alignment with our strategic objectives.

We also aim to improve our tools, such as the Learning Management System, to give our employees new features and expand their learning options. These opportunities are critical for adapting to the ever-evolving business landscape and for personal career development.

Another core focus will be our ongoing commitment to change management. As our organization undergoes transformations, continuous efforts in this area will support our team in navigating changes effectively and with resilience.