The number of apprenticeship contracts has surged in recent years. At the same time, some companies are recruiting without requiring a CV, and practical skills are progressively taking precedence over qualifications in certain selection processes. Is the workplace becoming a school in its own right? The answer is more nuanced than the debate suggests. What is certain is this: workplace training has become a strategic priority that organisations can no longer afford to treat lightly, for fear of falling behind in the race for skills.
Qualifications or Experience: Is the Question Already Outdated?
This debate takes up considerable space in HR discussions, yet it is frequently built on a false opposition. School and the workplace are not in competition: they address different needs and complement each other far more than they conflict.
What School Offers That the Workplace Cannot Replace
School remains the natural home of theoretical learning. It provides a structured framework, disciplinary perspective and solid foundations that allow one to interpret and analyse real-life workplace experience. For many sectors, qualifications remain a central recruitment criterion: the number of years of study post-A levels still features as a key indicator on the majority of job platforms.
Some companies are nonetheless evolving their approach, prioritising practical skills over formal qualifications. This trend is real, even if it remains a minority position. What matters is that every pathway remains open: every employee can build a solid career from the route they have chosen, whether academic or experiential.
What the Workplace Offers That School Cannot Provide
The workplace is the terrain of practical learning. It exposes employees to real situations, decisions that must be made, and operational constraints that forge reflexes which school cannot replicate. This is what makes workplace experience so valuable in professional development: it brings a concrete dimension that theoretical learning alone cannot provide.
The complementarity of the two learning environments is not a pedagogical slogan; it is the reality of most career paths that genuinely work. Workplace training enriches theoretical knowledge, brings it to life and makes it operational. It does not replace it: it extends it.
The Workplace Faces a Considerable Challenge: Aligning Training With Real Needs
If the workplace is taking on an increasingly significant role in developing its employees, it is also because it no longer has a choice. Needs are evolving faster than curricula, and the transformation of roles demands continuous, agile training.
A Labour Market in Accelerated Transformation
The figure is striking: 80% of the knowledge to be delivered by 2030 is not yet known, either by learners or by those who teach. New generations entering the labour market find themselves needing to acquire skills that their initial training never anticipated. Sometimes by choice of progression, often out of necessity, as roles evolve faster than curricula are updated.
In this context, organisations must build a training policy that adapts to market changes in real time. One indicator speaks clearly to the scale of the challenge: skills development has become the second most important driver of employee satisfaction, just behind salary (KPMG). It is no longer a differentiating advantage; it is a fundamental expectation of teams.
Employee Feedback: A Compass for Steering Training
To adapt to real needs, organisations require reliable information gathered from the ground up. Employee feedback is a valuable source: it highlights missing skills, tools that are not yet mastered, and practices that need to evolve. Analysing this feedback methodically means building a culture of listening that is grounded in the concrete challenges facing teams.
This is precisely where the workplace fully assumes its role as the new school: by responding to the feedback of its learners, by adjusting training priorities on the basis of factual data, and by making visible for each individual both the ground already covered and what remains ahead.
Workplace Training: A Powerful Lever, Provided It Is Properly Structured
Training offered within an organisation is designed to develop the practical and behavioural skills that teams genuinely need. But its effectiveness is by no means guaranteed. It depends entirely on how it is monitored and measured over time.
Measuring Impact: The Condition for Training to Deliver on Its Promise
A common mistake in organisations is to treat a completed training session as a skill acquired. This shortcut is misleading. Nothing guarantees that learning has been truly embedded and will translate into day-to-day practice. Measuring the impact of training is not an administrative formality; it is the condition for ensuring that the investment in training genuinely serves the organisation and its employees.
This requires defining clear indicators before each programme launches, collecting immediate feedback at the close of the session and follow-up feedback a few weeks later, and observing behavioural changes in the field. Without this measurement, training remains an intention. With it, training becomes a measurable driver of progress.
The Manager: A Key Player in Skills Development
The manager occupies a central position in this process. They are the one who supports employees in applying what they have learnt, validates the skills absorbed and adjusts the pathway where necessary. Their role is not limited to directing teams towards training programmes: they are the person who gives meaning to learning, embeds it in real responsibilities and creates the conditions for skills to develop durably in the field.
Without this managerial follow-up, training remains a one-off, isolated action. With it, training integrates into a coherent development pathway and becomes a genuine lever for collective performance.
