I met with Caroline Jost a few years ago as we were working on a joint project. I was charmed by her passion and her vision. I spent a few hours with her for discussing on iNNERSHIP, an innovative plateform for onboarding and professional development.
Caroline, would you introduce yourself and tell us about Innership?
With pleasure. Well, I’m passionate about talent management, continuous improvement and innovation. In my career in HR at the international level, I’ve systematically found that employees experience difficulty navigating HR tools, taking charge of their own development and actively driving their career forward. Even more so during changes or transformations: people wonder about what will happen and what contribution they can or wish to make. They can easily become disengaged and don’t know where to turn.
At Rio Tinto Alcan, where I worked with my colleague Thomas d’Hauteville, there were a lot of good talent management practices in place but it seemed clear to us that there was not enough space for everyone to be supported in the success of their professional next step, in connection with their aspirations.
We joined together in late 2013 and developed a first prototype in 2014 with a first client, and a first funding exercise in 2015, with the aim of making professional achievement easier, more engaging, and accessible to all.
Today iNNERSHiP is:
-A mission: to make each individual take the lead on their professional development
-A full-stack team of 10 people spread between Montreal and Montpellier, and a wide network of partners
-25 programs that engage individuals at every stage of their career. These 3 to 6-month programs include a digital pathway, individual coaching and collective workshops. Among the courses available: Succeeding in my new position, Developing my leadership, Succeeding in my career mobility project, Successfully returning from expatriation, Reahing professional fulfillment as a woman, Retraining, Strengthening my health at work, Getting ready for retirement. . .
-Enterprise customers in North America, Europe and Asia who want to increase their employees’ commitment and performance.
You’ve developed a program specifically for employee onboarding. Can you tell us more?
Onboarding is a critical step in the employee’s journey. The onboarding experience says a lot about the company and its culture. It’s a crucial first contact. Yet it’s very rare that it constitutes an engaging and well-executed experience. For example, a friend in Montreal told me recently that she had lunch alone every day on her first week, and that she was asked only 10 days after her arrival to replace a person who would be absent for a month. The stories on this theme are unfortunately all too frequent.
We work with an illustrator—Étienne Appert—to illustrate the before/after of our programs. Here is the before/after illustration of a new employee’s onboarding: