Siemens kicks off digital training

Siemens continues its training programme in full despite the coronavirus crisis

Together with Siemens Mobility and Siemens Healthineers, Siemens is continuing its training programme in full despite the coronavirus crisis. Training at Siemens Energy will be continued separately.

Nearly 1,190 young people being trained for Siemens’ own needs will be joined at Siemens Professional Education by about 190 participants from the company’s external partners.

“Our training programme faced tremendous new challenges but our efforts were rewarded with very good results,” said Thomas Leubner, head of the Learning and Education Department.

“We continued our training activities without interruption. To make it happen, we upgraded the programme’s digital setup by leveraging the digital expertise of our company and our trainers.”

In just a few weeks, virtual tools, platforms, software, and simulations were acquired, a trainer community was set up, and a virtual online curriculum was prepared and continuously developed.

Digital learning at Siemens got a huge boost overall. “We’ve also redesigned our training concept,” said Barbara Ofstad, head of Siemens Professional Education in Germany.

Trainers increasingly serve as mentors and coaches, using digital methods to create a mix of virtual and real, face-to-face learning environments.

“The new teaching methods have been well received by apprentices and work-study participants and will continue to play an important role in the future,” Ofstad noted.

Siemens’ application process has been digital for many years now. On the new training website shared by Siemens, Siemens Mobility, and Siemens Healthineers, applicants can continue to apply online and also directly via their mobile devices.

Since the website was launched in May 2020, more than 100,000 prospective applicants have visited the homepage, more than half via mobile devices.

Onsite training is slowly starting to pick up again, with coordinated safety measures now in place. The apprentices and work-study participants returning to face-to-face instruction are primarily trainees learning practical skills at machines and in laboratory facilities.

Training, however, will take place largely in a virtual format until further notice. In the first week of their professional careers, the new apprentices and work-study participants will be introduced to and integrated into the new learning environment.

As in previous years, the primary focus of this year’s training will be on technical and IT professions, with about 87 per cent of the participants preparing for occupations in one of those two fields.

For the first time, nearly 50 per cent of the training positions are for university students in work-study programmes.

While apprentices pursue vocational certification from the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK), work-study participants complete their studies with a bachelor’s degree in engineering or science – with focuses also on newly created job profiles such as industrial informatics, data science, applied mathematics, and computer science – often combined with an IHK qualification.

With a total of around 10,400 apprentices and students in work-study programmes around the world, Siemens has one of the private sector’s largest and most innovative training programmes worldwide. In the 2019 fiscal year, Siemens invested more than €227 million ($271 million) in the training of young people globally, nearly €176 million ($210 million) of which was spent in Germany.