Roles are transforming, skills are evolving, and training models are frequently struggling to keep pace. Florent Grisaud Verrier, Global Head of Digital Learning & Innovation at MBDA, puts it plainly in his analysis of the current challenges facing digital learning: organisations have reached the limits of traditional training. Upskilling, reskilling, generative AI, on-demand learning: what does Training 2.0 actually change, what challenges does it pose, and where is Training 3.0 heading?

Training 1.0: Why the Traditional Model Is Reaching Its Limits

Roles in Accelerated Transformation

For several years now, digitalisation has profoundly reconfigured all professional roles. Processes, tools and working methods are hybridising. The arrival of generative AI in the public domain adds a new layer of organisation that companies must integrate, whilst remaining coherent with their internal culture and the expectations of their employees.

Faced with this rapid evolution, the reflex of many organisations has been to intensify training. Florent Grisaud Verrier describes this dynamic:

"Companies tell themselves: everything is changing, in an extremely volatile world, so we'll train more with a bigger budget and more top-down. The employees coming out of these training programmes are overwhelmed, because putting them through 3 to 4 weeks of training per year is simply impossible. That's where we reach the limits of Training 1.0."

The Fundamental Objectives of Training Called Into Question

Training responds to basic objectives found in every organisation: attracting, developing, retaining and nurturing talent. Yet the traditional model today struggles to meet these objectives. New organisational structures, new working methods and changing employee expectations have rendered this framework obsolete. Poorly trained teams, or teams not trained at all; organisations that fail to account for evolving roles or listen to field feedback: this is the concrete reality that Training 2.0 must address, by developing an approach that is both more agile and more sustainable.

Training 2.0: Three Challenges to Overcome

Training More and Training Better

The first challenge for Training 2.0 is one of coverage and quality. Training more is not enough if training does not address the right needs. Organisations must take into account the evolution of their roles, but also listen to employee feedback — people who are frequently left without clear development prospects. A training programme that only half meets its objectives in terms of quantity and quality simply fails in its purpose.

Learning Anywhere, at Any Time

The second challenge is accessibility. Remote working, flexible hours, hybridised roles: these changes require training to evolve in the same direction. Being able to train during a commute, at any time of day, on any device and at one's own pace: this flexibility creates genuine coherence between frontline employees and their development prospects. Training must follow the employee, not the other way around.

Balancing Quality With Budget Constraints

The third challenge is often the most difficult to address: training with limited resources. Not every organisation has unlimited training budgets across all areas, and choices must be made. Training 2.0 must make it possible to maximise pedagogical impact without multiplying costs, by intelligently combining off-the-shelf content with high-value bespoke developments.

The Risks of an All-Digital Approach: Keeping Training Grounded

Staying Connected to Operational Reality

The digitalisation of training carries a risk that Florent Grisaud Verrier identifies precisely: treating learning resources as standardised content, available on an open-access basis, without genuine personalisation according to the individual or the context. A pitfall particularly present in sectors where skills are critical:

"With the new roles emerging in cybersecurity, there is a genuine talent shortage. Not only will companies need to equip their employees and develop their skills, but they'll also need to train them on subjects directly tied to the company's own performance. There's a difference between staying coherent and staying redundant."

Losing touch with operational reality, becoming disconnected from the skills genuinely needed, forgetting the deeper purpose of training: these pitfalls exist, and they directly interfere with teams' progress.

Towards a Shared Learning Culture

To avoid them, Training 2.0 must be embodied in a genuine learning culture, conceived as a learning journey unique to each employee. Each person absorbs and integrates training in their own way: this operational reality is one that learning frameworks must respect. Florent Grisaud Verrier illustrates this approach with the concept of learning factories deployed at MBDA:

"A learning organisation is one where everyone can both transmit and learn. Today we give it a physical form, in a place, in a sanctuarisation of learning embodied by these networked learning factories, where everyone can come and share. Because knowledge only has value if it is shared."

This logic extends to the design of the training offering itself: an ecosystem that combines off-the-shelf content, high-value bespoke developments and tools that empower employees to create content themselves. An approach that keeps the employee firmly at the centre of their own skills development.

Training 3.0: Towards Fully Individualised Learning

AI and Adaptive Learning in Service of Personalisation

If Training 2.0 responds to the need for greater flexibility, Training 3.0 goes further: it aims for complete personalisation. Resources are no longer off the shelf but on demand, adjusted to the needs and aspirations of each individual employee. Adaptive learning platforms, growing increasingly powerful, are progressively making this possible. The contribution of generative AI to the training value chain represents a resource to be integrated and optimised in order to accelerate this individualisation.

Preserving the Social Dimension in Individualised Learning

Yet this personalisation also carries its own risks, which Florent Grisaud Verrier articulates clearly:

"We are now able to offer pathways that are extremely individualised. We have adaptive learning platforms, and I believe we are moving towards an even further individualisation of learning — which may bring a risk: losing this notion of social connection within learning, which will need to be rebalanced in order to embed learning within the employee experience."

The challenge for Training 3.0 will therefore be to reconcile personalisation and the collective dimension: developing each individual's skills without isolating learners, whilst preserving the social and shared nature of learning. A balance to be actively built, one that places the frontline employee at the centre of their own progress whilst maintaining team cohesion.