Training audit: establishing excellence in the company's training process: bank Societe Generale Group

The optimization of human resources management practices is the wealth of any company, but to remain in the competitive market, require to take care of human resources, it is necessary to invest to train the employees who will guide us and give us strength and power to always have the keys of success and remain always in competitiveness, because the success of any company depends largely on the skills and qualifications of its human resources.

In this context, managers are led to question themselves and their collaborators about the functioning of the organization. The development of auditing has led to the appearance of different types of approaches classified according to different criteria. These different types have emerged with the development of the internal and external environment of companies and with the emergence of new needs for certification and organization.

The training audit is one of the results of this development and its objective is to improve the training system in organizations. Every training system has strengths and weaknesses.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

In this context, the purpose of the training audit is to evaluate the training system or structure, both in terms of structuring the response to training needs and in terms of organizational conditions (human, financial and material resources, etc.).

This work attempts to define the concept of training audit

And gives its approach and methodology of application. To further understand its applicability at the level of the group societe generale which concerns the application of the audit of training.

Social auditing is a process applied to the management, activities and relationships of individuals and groups in organizations; it is a methodical, independent and documented process that obtains audit evidence and evaluates it objectively to determine the extent to which audit criteria are met. Audit criteria are met

In our study, we used theoretical and practical models aimed at analyzing the training audit.

Training Audit: The training audit is an external contractual and efficiency audit, it examines the quality of the training rules and procedures and their compliance with predefined standards or benchmarks.

The steps of the training audit process are as follows:

• –    The three stages of the audit;

• –    The six essential steps;

• –    The essential documents (underlined elements);

The figure 1 below illustrates the training audit process.

Figure 1. Adaptation of the training program audit approach

Objectives of the training program audit:

To examine the efficiency and conformity of all activities related to the training programs followed by the company's employees (training plans, administrative management, training program design, choice of external training organizations and courses, organization of internal courses, management of a team of trainers, evaluation of actions and results.

Consolidate the group's societe generale training offer training in relation to the key competences of tomorrow

The Group's training policy has several objectives:

• •    To digitalize and diversify learning methods of learning;

• •    To make the employee a player in his development and employability, by providing them with a rich learning offer and guiding them to access relevant training content relevant to their projects for their projects, in addition to HR and managerial support from which they benefit.

• •    Anchoring a culture of responsibility through training in risk management and compliance training.

Societe Generale group training offer targets in priority:

• •    Expertise in the business lines and digital culture;

• •    Managerial culture and social and environmental responsibility;

• •    Behavioral skills (agile method, collaboration, management, change management, etc.)

• •    Customer orientation and new uses in customer relations;

• •    the culture of Risk, Responsibility and Compliance of collaborators (including risks of conduct, ethics, etc.) conduct, ethics and social and environmental responsibility).

In addition, the mandatory training programs for all Group employees in 2021 covered the following subjects:

• •    Financial security – Information security, General Data Protection Regulation;

• •    The Code of Conduct, conflicts of interest and harassment;

• •    Behavioral skills;

• •    Managerial culture;

• •    Env. and social risk management.

The Group is continuously developing its global training program and proposes more than 20,000 learning objects covering micro-learning, rapid-learning, МООСs, summary files, classroom, digital and blended (combining classroom and digital) courses, most of which are freely available and free of charge for employees.

The MYLEARNING training program platform is interactive and personalized, recommending programs to users that are adapted to their profile and their declared interests.

Training programs leading to certifications and diplomas, such as the Chartered Finance Analyst, Market Authority Financiers certifications, IT certifications (IТ4IТ™ Foundation, CISSP, CISM® – Certified Information Security Manager…), Lean Six Sigma certifications… can also be financed by an employer contribution.

Training programs, training paths specific to certain professions or sectors (e.g., corporate advisory services, retail banking sales profiles, private banking, human resources, auditing, etc.), targeted learning communities, expert groups on the internal corporate social network, and personal development offers (coaching, co-development, mentoring and reverse mentoring) reinforce employee support and enable practices to be aligned between Group entities.

Group employees benefit from the support of HR teams and their managers in managing their careers.

The individual development of employees, their wishes for change and their Training program needs are discussed during the employee's annual performance review and during individual meetings with the HR manager or the manager. In France, a professional interview is conducted with the manager every year.

In total, Group employees attended 3 million hours of training program in 2021, an average of nearly 26 hours per person. 88% of Group employees attended at least one training program during the year (compared with 85% in 2020)

Evaluate the effectiveness of the training program in societe generale group: societe generale evaluates the effectiveness of the training programs through different methods, depending on the program. the following methods can be used:

– Return on expectations (ROE), which seeks to measure the impact of a program based on performance indicators such as the Net Promoting Score of participants, the impact on the efficiency and quality of work, the impact on behaviors or knowledge, etc., based on surveys and questionnaires conducted on the spot and/or six months after training;

– for certain programs, an analysis of quantitative or financial returns, for example via the quantification of efficiency gains in Lean Six Sigma certification programs. In these programs, the return on investment of the training program is calculated on the basis of the gains declared by the certified employees on the Green Belt, Black Belt

Lean Six Sigma and Lean Management projects they have carried out. In particular, the Group has identified 15 projects carried out in 2021 representing a gain of €2.1 million. In Asia, the support teams for the high-potential development and mentoring programs are comparing the costs saved on the recruitment of key positions with the cost of the cost of providing training programs and administration of the programs.

Key indicators 2021:

5,000 employees trained in digital skills in 25 countries.

1,000 training programs realized by employees on the 15 references in the catalog in the agile sector.

64% of IT employees mature in agile practices.

Table 1.

Statistics on training programs within the societe generale group 2021/2019

CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL TRAINING			2021	2020	2019
Percentage of payroll spent on training programs			3,10%	2,52%	3,68%
Amount spent on training program (In millions of €)	Functioning of the internships organized in the company		18,0	17,1	18,6
	Remuneration paid to trainees		29,9	15,5	36,6
	Training programs provided in application of conventions		5,4	5,9	8,3
	FONGECIF payments		0,00	0,00	9,0
	Payments to the Treasury and others		0,00	0,00	25,6
	Contribution to Continuing Professional Training program		25,7	26,0	0,00
	Total		79,0	64,5	98,1
			39 620	37 297	41 324
Number of employees trained	Men	Technicians	3 331	3 143	3 843
		Frameworks	13 924	13 400	14 258
		Total	17 255	16 543	18 101
	Women	Technicians	9 652	9 028	10 862
		Frameworks	12 713	11 726	12 361
		Total	22 365	20 754	23 223
			900 867	463 779	1 098 225
Number of hours paid for training program	Men	Technicians	96 078	50 957	127 655
		Frameworks	279 670	138 839	324 675
		Total	375 748	189 796	452 330
	Women	Technicians	249 760	139 057	324 447
		Frameworks	275 359	134 926	321 448
		Total	525 119	273 983	645 895
Decomposition by type of training program	Number of participants:		788 607	692 790	904 046
	Adaptation to the workplace		788 607	692 790	904 046
	Maintaining a job or progressing in a job		0	0	0
	Development of skills		0	0	576
	Total		788 607	692 790	904622
	Paid hours:		900 867	463 779	1 098 225
	Adaptation to the workplace		900 867	463 779	1 098 225
	Maintaining a job or progressing in a job		0	0	0
	Development of skills		0	0	4425
	Total		900 867	463 779	1 102650
TRAINING PROGRAM VACATIONS
Number of employees who benefited from a paid training vocation			20	18	19
Number of employees who benefited unpaid training program vocation			2	1	7
Number of employees refused training vocation			0	0	0
LEARNING
Number of learning contracts signed during the year			1555	1311	853

Materials and methods

During our research, the internet was used as tool of searching necessary information and statistics with specific official websites including, yearly

Khorev A.I. et al. Proceedings of VSUET, 2022, vol. 84, no. 3, pp.

Results and discussions

An audit of the training system within the Societe Generale group not only allows us to identify the strengths and weaknesses of all the elements that make up the system, but also to propose recommendations to those in charge that will allow for the improvement of the general organization of the system and address both formal and substantive issues with the objective of establishing excellence within this process.

In 2021, the distribution of training programs has returned to a level comparable to 2019 despite the continuing health crisis, as a result of the digitalization of the training program offering.

The training program has been expanded with the development of new pedagogical content via the deployment of digital platforms for all, as well as the enrichment of the training program coconstructed with the CPF.

The training programs have answered the company's main challenges: to be the "champions" of customer experience and satisfaction, to develop the bank's Social and Environmental Responsibility and to improve our operational efficiency.

The training program audit missions carried out within the Societe Generale bank and presented in this article give a general idea of the application of the training program audit in the field within large international groups. Different reference systems and tools as well as different approaches have been adopted within the framework of these missions, however, the ultimate goal remains the same, namely to give an inventory of these training systems of this bank, to identify their strengths and weaknesses and to provide the necessary adjustments within the framework of the recommendations communicated to the managers in order to help improve these systems and at the same time to correct the stereotypical misconception that the majority of people have with regard to the concept of auditing itself

Conclusion

The audit profession is facing new challenges linked to the internationalization of business, the rapid development of information technologies and the increasing role of audit in corporate governance. Training program audit missions within the bank of societe generale, conditioned by the involvement of both managers and employees, will not only develop their training systems and improve it, but also increase its relevance and efficiency and make its procedures, methods and functioning conform to organizational standards.