Municipality of Helmond: love of innovation, speed and dynamism

Within a municipality that strives for connection, pride, innovation and trust, continued learning and development fit seamlessly. Tom Fletcher, Learning & Development consultant within Helmond municipality, is concerned with the future of the municipality and its employees every day for good reason. He gives an insight into their use of their online academy.

Development within the municipality

"Development is highly valued within our municipality. It ensures that people optimize and expand different skills, always ensuring that they perform their duties correctly. In the end, the resident of our municipality is always the focus, so in short, we can say that just about everything we learn is centered on being able to help the resident as well and respectfully as possible," Tom explains.

The added value of SkillsTown offerings

"You can't fall behind these days, and with our partnership with SkillsTown, you don't have to. In fact, in addition to tutoring our employees, we offer continued learning as something fun. As a result, our employees experience more job happiness, productivity and feel better about themselves. In fact, in addition to gaining skills for your current job, you can also continue learning about your own well-being, physical condition and numerous soft skills."

The strength of being able to continue learning online, according to Tom, is that it fits so seamlessly with the hybrid working of our time. "Working from home naturally allows you to learn from home as well, and in doing so people sometimes feel more comfortable. In addition, thanks to online courses and e-learnings, you often no longer have to deal with awkward intake times and you can start and continue a training course at your convenience," Tom adds.

"SkillsTown is the breath of fresh air for us to be able to offer different forms of customization to all of our colleagues. It feels like collaboration, not a service we're buying."

A dynamic collaboration

The match between Helmond Municipality and SkillsTown exists in part because of the shared love of innovation, speed and dynamics that both parties find very enjoyable. "SkillsTown is the breath of fresh air for us that we need to be able to offer different forms of customization to all our colleagues. It feels like collaboration, not a service that we are buying." One of the other major benefits Helmond City Council is experiencing is integrating its own training, courses and essentials into one platform. "This way everything is together. It's clear, user-friendly and it also saves us costs."

Something for everyone

Funnily enough, there isn't really an arrow to be drawn on which workouts are popular now and why. "That diversity is just so much fun!" says Tom. "Very telling for our employees as well. For example, trainings around time management and productivity are followed just as much as those on mental resilience and the Office 365 package." Something for everyone, in other words.

In any case, the Municipality of Helmond gets up every day with the goal of encouraging its employees to develop further so that they can serve the residents. Own pace, own interests, without ever losing sight of someone's individual learning needs. "And with such an offer, it hardly ever occurs that there is nothing in between for someone. Whatever your desire or goal, you can always move on!"