The Colombini Group continues to implement its network training plan through the Colombini Academy, a real in-house school dedicated to the creation of paths of excellence for the training and updating of staff and business partners of all the Group’s brands: Rossana, Febal Casa, Colombini Casa, Offic’è and Colombini Group Contract.
The Colombini Academy is structured in two professional training paths:
- Sales Academy, dedicated to the sales network and Italian and international business partners;
- Production Academy, created specifically to train production team in order to develop their operational skills.
The 2021 training plan, presented to the entire Agency and sales point network, includes over 5,000 hours of online training for the first part of the year, which will be modulated in the following months in relation to the needs of the sales network and staff.
I believe it is crucial to invest in people,” comments Giovanni Battista Vacchi, CEO of the Colombini Group, “because they represent the Group’s most important value. The Academy is a fundamental strategic project because our sales success also derives from the training level of our partners and dealers and their ability to transfer to customers all that we are and the strength of our products to the customers. Our investment in the Academy differentiates us from our competitors because it is a structured, long-term project; it means being close to our employees and the entire Group network and allows us to provide continuous, tailor-made information and training”.
In detail, the Colombini Sales Academy provides the Group’s network with a multi-channel training path, with in-person and online courses, based on a mix of technical and commercial content, with the aim of providing employees, collaborators and partners with qualified professionalism. The courses mainly concern products, design and sales management software and some sales techniques. There are five types:
- basic, in Italian and also in English, French and Spanish;
- advanced, dedicated to perfecting basic skills;
- management of contract-hôtellerie activities;
- course for agents focusing on products, software and sales issues;
- course for private label and multi-brand businesses.
At the end of the interactive courses, available on the e-learning platform created in conjunction with Docebo, there are learning tests that allow the Group to map the learning levels and progress of each individual participant.
The Sales Academy training plan also includes coaching and shadowing sessions carried out directly at points of sale with specific focus.
The Colombini Production Academy, created in 2018, is a real “school of trades”, dedicated to the training and improvement of employees who work daily in the Group’s factories. Highly automated plants and tested production flows are in fact not the only factors to ensure the high quality standards of the products of the Colombini Group brands, which can only be guaranteed by continuous training.
The training path is mainly developed “on the field”, through direct coaching by a selected tutor specialised in the subject. A marginal part (about 20%) is carried out through theoretical sessions in the classroom.
Newly recruited personnel are placed in production through a defined gradual path, which goes from training on basic criteria to the development of specific skills.
For employees with greater experience and skills levels, the Academy ensures constant updates related to the evolution of production systems, automation mechanisms and quality control at every stage of the production process.