Lifelong learning for your employees? This is how Driessen does it!

Driessen is one of the largest staffing agencies in the Netherlands. The organisation works with a wide range of employees who are placed with organisations in government, education, and other socially meaningful sectors. Driessen aims to offer all these employees the opportunity for lifelong learning and development.

How do they do this? Daniëlle van Deijck and Rinske van Gerwen, HRM Advisors at Driessen, share their story in this article.

The Five Work Promises of Driessen

Driessen works with five core work promises: meaningful work, job satisfaction, diversity & inclusion, vitality & financial well-being, and education & development.

About the latter, Rinske explains: “We believe it is extremely important that employees continue learning throughout their entire careers. This ensures they remain sustainably employable for our clients.”

Daniëlle adds: “Development is central to our employees. Our employee satisfaction survey shows that they value personal and professional growth highly.”

For these reasons, Driessen proactively took steps to fulfil this work promise.

“Development is central to our employees. Our employee satisfaction survey shows that they value personal and professional growth highly.”

In Search of a Broad Learning Offering

A broad learning offering is essential for Driessen, as the organisation wants to support not only its internal staff but also its many flexible employees in lifelong learning.

Daniëlle explains: “Our flexible employees are somewhat more distant from us. They work for different organisations across various sectors. This makes them a diverse group with different roles. That is why it is so important for us to offer a broad learning portfolio that is relevant to all employees.”

“Choosing online learning was a deliberate decision in our search for a learning platform,” Rinske says. “Our employees are geographically dispersed. You need to be able to reach everyone. And online, you can offer a much broader learning range than through live sessions.”

This is how the Driessen Academy was born.

The Driessen Academy

“Together with SkillsTown, we developed the Driessen Academy, our online learning platform for all employees,” says Daniëlle.

“We consciously chose SkillsTown because they offer many online courses at different levels and in various learning formats. In addition, they provide a training package for the public sector, which is important because many of our flexible employees work in government. We were also already familiar with their contacts and appreciated how closely they collaborate and how accessible they are.”

“The launch of the Driessen Academy was our proudest moment in employee development. With SkillsTown’s learning platform, everything has come together.”

Rinske adds: “The launch of the Driessen Academy was our proudest moment in employee development. With SkillsTown’s platform, everything has become fully integrated. It also supports our blended learning programme. Using the calendar tool, we can schedule all our offline activities, such as workshops.”

Daniëlle continues: “With the Driessen Academy, we have fully realised our promise of lifelong learning and development.”

A Positive Change

“Since launching the Driessen Academy, we have seen a significant increase in platform usage,” Rinske explains.

Daniëlle adds: “Employees love the learning platform. We have received many positive responses. Self-directed learning is highly appreciated, and their growth is rewarded through certificates they can earn.”

Daniëlle continues: “Learning and development are important to us, which is why we make sure it remains highly visible. For example, we regularly share platform updates in our newsletter and ensure it is prominently featured on our intranet. We recommend every organisation keep employee development high on the agenda.”

Would you like to offer your employees lifelong learning opportunities just like Driessen?

With our didactic expertise and innovative learning methods, we create an online learning platform that perfectly aligns with your organisation and business goals.