Under the umbrella of the College of Leadership Excellence, Dentsply Sirona employees can now access eLearning courses on-demand and focus on professional development at their own pace.

Studies show that career development may be one of the most important factors in workforce retention. Similarly, growth opportunities are cited as a key element in forming a great employee experience. Dentsply Sirona values its employees and the availability of professional development programs. Learning opportunities are crucial to job satisfaction and for the Company’s ability to attract new talent. As part of its continuing investment in learning and education initiatives, there is some exciting news – Dentsply Sirona University continues to expand digitally and is making training offerings available through our eLearning platform. 

Within the University, College of Leadership Excellence courses aim to create a strong linkage between the Company’s values and leadership competencies while helping managers and leaders build confidence and achieve their greatest potential. Some of the courses, such as the Global Leadership Development Program, take a nominated group of employees through a combination of group work and individual assessment over a year-long learning journey. The Connections eLearning platform will make a new group of courses available not only to people leaders, but to all employees within the Company, so everyone can benefit.

Entitled “Management Fundamentals,” the courses aim to develop new skills and people management acumen focused on five topics: 

• Developing key talents 
• Self-awareness 
• Building and motivating a team 
• Managing poor performance 
• Leading difficult conversations 

Developed internally by a community of HR professionals around the globe with a passion for learning and development, the new courses are tailor-made for Dentsply Sirona’s unique culture and values. The chosen topics are based on a survey conducted within the global HR team in terms of those most requested by people managers. Initially available in English, the Leadership and Organizational Development team will work with interested countries to provide translations for the courses into local languages as a next step. 

Employees can select and enroll in the courses based on their individual development interests. HR teams will also have the ability to assign specific courses to managers in their local offices. Individuals will be able to track their course completion through the platform. 

Learning on-demand is a great way to gain knowledge, new skills and build the confidence to handle everyday challenges. Worried that you might not have the time to participate in learning that takes you away from work during a busy period? Online courses are a great option that gives the flexibility of achieving goals at your own pace, when you have time.

As the eLearning platform matures, the College of Leadership Excellence is looking into offering facilitator kits for a blended program. This would bring people together who have completed the eLearning modules to practice with more traditional in-person activities.  

Employees can check out the new eLearning platform here.

Overview of DS University activities by program, region and customers for 2018

In 2018, Dentsply Sirona expanded the DS Academy course offering across all program types to a total of 11,835 courses (previous year: 10,786). This is particularly evident in the participative hands-on training courses, which increased by around 25 percent to 3.936 (previous year: 2.993).

Of the total of 11.835 exchange rates, 3.657 were quoted in 19 countries in South and North America, 2.707 in 13 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, and 5.471 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, a total of 67 countries.

As in the previous year, live lectures (37 percent), participative hands-on training (33 percent) and product training (24 percent) represented the majority of the offerings (94 percent), supplemented by 360-degree events, self-studies, webinars, recorded on-demand courses and "Train the Trainer".

The participants were primarily dentists (330,633), whose number increased by 10 percent compared to the previous year. In addition, students, dental technicians, hygienists, assistants and business teams (101,221 in total) also make use of the wide range of services on offer.