by Content Manager | 12 Oct 2026 | Human resources, Management & Leadership, Workplace Training
What research reveals about workplace learning, and what managers and HR teams can do differently
From our summer series “A different way to learn”: article 4 of 4, now available in English. Read article 1, article 2 and article 3.
In Switzerland, employers play a major role in continuing education. Most employees who take a job-related course receive support from their company, whether in working time, funding or both. Many companies are clearly keen to help their employees grow.
The more delicate question comes afterwards. A manager returns from a course on giving feedback with new ideas and good intentions. Back in the team, the diary is full, old reflexes are still there, and the next difficult conversation may be weeks away.
Research on adult learning offers no miracle method. It does, however, shed light on what helps learning find its way into everyday work: experience, relevance, practice, feedback and the people around us. Many of these conditions are ones organisations can influence.
Experience: where learning begins
Employees don’t arrive at training as blank slates. Take a manager attending a session on feedback. They bring years of experience handling difficult conversations, along with successes, mistakes and a few well-established habits.
What they learn doesn’t simply get added to what they already know. They compare it, interpret it, and sometimes question it.
Experience supports learning, but established habits can also make change difficult. An experienced employee has plenty of reference points, and also routines that may have worked well for years. Learning can mean acquiring something new, but also revisiting a familiar way of working.
In Apprendre au travail (Learning at Work), edited by Étienne Bourgeois and Marc Durand, several researchers show that professional activity becomes a source of learning when people can link it to real situations, try things out, discuss them, get feedback and step back from their experience.
Experience alone isn’t enough. What matters is what people are able to do with it.
Why relevance matters in workplace learning
At work, one question comes up again and again: “How will this help me in my job?”
Swiss data show this question carries real weight. When the Federal Statistical Office asked participants why they took part in job-related continuing education, the most frequent answer was to perform better in their work. Personal interest in the subject and adapting to organisational or technological change also ranked high. Better career prospects came further down the list.
These findings suggest that practical relevance is a major motivation for work-related training, alongside personal interest and the need to adapt to change.
This doesn’t mean every course must deliver results the next day. Learning to manage, lead change or handle conflict takes time. But participants need to see the link between what they’re learning and the situations they actually face.
Learning through everyday work
Much professional learning happens on the job. Yet work isn’t automatically a learning experience.
Researcher Stephen Billett shows that workplace learning depends on two factors working together: the opportunities the work environment offers, and how each person takes them up.
A company can offer a new assignment, a chance to shadow a colleague or regular feedback. The employee, in turn, needs to be able and willing to engage.
A challenging assignment can help someone grow. It can also leave them struggling. The difference often lies in being able to ask for help, observe others and look back on what happened.
70-20-10: a useful guide, not a rule
The 70-20-10 model makes a simple point: we don’t only learn in the classroom. We also learn by working and by interacting with others.
The percentages themselves, however, are not established facts. In Human Resource Development Review, Alan Clardy shows that the available research doesn’t firmly support them.
The real question isn’t the right split. It’s how training, experience, exchange and practice complement one another.
Room to try, and sometimes to get it wrong
Learning means doing something you haven’t mastered yet. That involves trial and error.
At the same time, organisations rightly expect efficiency, reliability and performance. This tension is particularly visible in behavioural skills.
A manager may grasp in a training room how to handle a difficult conversation. The first attempt back at work may not go to plan. To improve, they need room to test, observe, adjust and try again.
This is where psychological safety comes in. In a now-landmark study, Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson linked it to learning behaviours in teams: asking questions, requesting help, flagging mistakes or suggesting another approach without fear of being put down.
Psychological safety doesn’t mean lower standards. It simply recognises a reality:
To learn, you sometimes need to be able to show that you don’t know yet.
Cecilia Mornata, researcher and lecturer at the University of Geneva, applies this directly to workplace learning. She highlights a concrete tension: learning involves hesitation and error, while work demands efficiency and reliability.
When employees feel able to try a new practice or admit a difficulty, an investment in leadership or communication training has a far better chance of becoming visible in day-to-day work.
Why learning is also a collective process
Professional learning is rarely a solitary affair. An experienced colleague can show how they approach a task. A trainer can bring a method and help people step back. And the line manager plays a particularly important role.
Managers don’t need to become trainers to support learning. Small conversations before and after a course can make a real difference.
Before the training, they can help the employee identify a situation they would like to handle differently. Afterwards, they can ask: What did you take away? Where could you use it? What support would help? A few weeks later, one more question is often the most useful: What happened when you tried it?
These conversations turn training from a one-off event into part of an ongoing dialogue about work. They build a bridge between training and real work.
From training to workplace practice
Learning a new software feature isn’t the same as learning to lead a difficult conversation. The first often follows a clear procedure. The second requires listening, interpreting, choosing your words, reading the other person’s reaction and adapting.
Brian Blume, J. Kevin Ford, Timothy Baldwin and Jason Huang pooled the findings of 89 studies on learning transfer in the Journal of Management. Their analysis shows that what happens during training matters, but so do the learner’s motivation, support from the work environment and the nature of the skill. Leadership, communication or negotiation call for more adaptation than procedural skills.
For these skills, knowing a method isn’t enough. People need opportunities to use it.
Take someone who has just completed interview training. They leave motivated, with new reference points. But if no interviews are scheduled for several months, the skill may fade before it’s ever used. One simple question, asked before the course ends, can help: “When will you first be able to use this?”
The aim isn’t to get everything right at the first attempt. It’s to create an early opportunity to practise, then reflect: what worked, and what needs adjusting?
The more a skill depends on context, the more closely learning needs to stay connected to real work.
Before investing in training: five questions worth asking
For HR teams and managers, these five questions can help connect training decisions with real workplace needs.
1. What work situation does the training address?
“Improving leadership” becomes more useful when tied to a specific situation: delegating, giving feedback or supporting change.
2. What do participants already know and do?
Their experience is a resource. It may also include habits worth revisiting.
3. What will they be able to try during the training?
A role-play or real case lets them test new approaches against reality straight away.
4. Where will they apply it afterwards?
A skill needs opportunities to become part of everyday practice.
5. What feedback will they receive?
Input from a trainer, peer or manager helps people see what works and what to adjust.
Swiss employers invest. What happens after the course?
In Switzerland, employers are central to continuing education. According to the Federal Statistical Office, in 2021 54.4% of employed people aged 25 to 64 took part in at least one continuing education activity. Among those who trained for professional purposes, 93% received support from their employer, in time or funding. Employers also supported around 80% of the total hours devoted to this training.
These figures date from 2021, a year shaped by Covid-19, and they measure participation, not effectiveness. Still, they show how much Swiss organisations already invest. That makes the period after the course all the more valuable: it is where companies can help that investment take root.
So how do people really learn at work?
Not just by listening to a trainer, nor simply by accumulating experience.
Learning takes shape when new ideas meet what people already know, when they see why it matters, and when they have room to try, discuss, receive feedback and adjust how they work.
For HR and L&D managers, this widens the perspective. Designing training is not only about choosing what to teach. It is also about shaping the conditions in which people can apply it. Which of these conditions already exist in your organisation, and which could be strengthened?
Image source: @ Cristina Conti
__________________________________________________________________
Want to develop these skills within your team?
Swissnova offers training designed to build skills that last. Contact our team for more information tailored to your organisation’s meeds.
Explore the programme and contact our team
Turning learning into everyday practice. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
by Content Manager | 21 Sep 2026 | Artificial Intelligence, Human resources, Management & Leadership, Training & Development
The relationship between technical expertise and AI is becoming an increasingly important question for employers.
In just one year, the share of Swiss SMEs using artificial intelligence in their business processes has risen from 22% to 34%.
Among companies already using AI, one in three says the technology is changing the skills they look for when recruiting.
This raises a question that receives far less attention:
When a tool does part of the work for us, how do we maintain the skills we need to judge whether its output is good?
Recent research is beginning to provide some answers.
When AI changes the nature of work
Our previous article highlighted a finding that may seem surprising.
The rise of transversal skills in Swiss job advertisements began before the arrival of generative AI. These skills are also growing at roughly the same rate in occupations that are highly exposed to AI and those that are less exposed.
AI, therefore, does not explain this shift.
But another question remains.
What happens to technical expertise when AI becomes part of everyday work?
What research is starting to show
Researchers from Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University surveyed 319 professionals about their use of generative AI. They analysed 936 examples of real workplace tasks. Their study was presented at the CHI 2025 conference.
The researchers found a change not simply in how much people worked, but in what kind of work they did.
- Searching for information became verifying information.
- Solving a problem became integrating an answer that had already been produced
- Execution became supervision.
In other words, the work did not disappear. It changed.
But producing something and checking it require different cognitive skills. And we do not necessarily maintain those skills in the same way.
The researchers also found an important relationship between confidence and critical thinking:
The more people trusted the AI tool, the less critical thinking they tended to apply. The more they trusted their own expertise, the more likely they were to question the AI’s output.
For organisations, this matters.
Knowing how to use an AI tool does not automatically give someone the ability to identify an error in its output.
That ability comes largely from professional expertise developed through experience and practice.
An experienced employee may quickly recognise that something is wrong. Someone at the beginning of their career may find that much harder.
A second study, from the MIT Media Lab, approached the question differently.
Researchers followed 54 people completing a writing task. They divided participants into three groups: one used an AI assistant, another used a search engine, and the third worked without external assistance.
Using electroencephalography to measure brain activity, the study by Kosmyna and colleagues recorded the lowest level of brain activity among participants using AI assistance. Participants working without external assistance showed the highest levels.
The study has attracted scientific debate.
A commentary published in early 2026 highlighted the small sample size and urged caution when interpreting the results.
That caution is important.
But both studies point towards the same broader question:
If regular practice helps us maintain our ability to judge the quality of work, what happens when we practise those skills less often?
This is where training and the organisation of work itself becomes important.
We previously described this mechanism as Skill Erosion, alongside Shadow AI and AI Washing.
Since then, researchers have started to build a stronger evidence base around the phenomenon.
The limits of the “we’ll adapt” argument
Several arguments tend to come up when organisations discuss this issue.
One is that companies have adapted to new technologies before. The comparison with tools such as spreadsheets makes sense up to a point. But the technologies do not work in the same way.
A spreadsheet performs an operation requested by the user. Generative AI can propose the answer itself. That difference matters because it can shift the employee’s role from producing work to assessing work.
Research is only beginning to measure the effects of that shift, but the first findings suggest that it deserves attention.
Another argument is that experienced employees already know how to check the results. In many cases, they do. The available evidence suggests that professional expertise helps people assess AI-generated output more critically.
But this creates another problem:
How will junior employees develop that expertise if AI already performs many of the tasks through which previous generations learned?
Someone cannot learn to recognise a weak argument, an incorrect calculation or a poor recommendation purely by being told what good work looks like.
Expertise also develops through practice.
A third argument is that organisations should wait for more evidence.
This is also a reasonable position. Research on generative AI at work is still young, and many findings remain open to debate. But waiting still requires observation. If output remains high and deadlines are met, skill erosion may be difficult to see.
Organisations therefore need to ask:
What would tell us that a team’s underlying expertise is weakening?
Without indicators, companies may not notice the change until that expertise is needed.
What Swiss companies are already seeing
Swiss data give us another view of the shift.
According to AXA’s study of the SME labour market, conducted by the Sotomo research institute among 300 companies in French- and German-speaking Switzerland, AI adoption among SMEs rose from 22% to 34% in one year.
But another figure may be even more significant.
One third of SMEs using AI say the technology is already changing the profiles they look for when recruiting.
Michael Hermann, Director of the Sotomo Institute, notes that companies increasingly want employees who are comfortable with technology and willing to keep learning throughout their careers.
These two capabilities require different approaches.
A company can often teach a specific technological skill through a course or training module.
The ability and willingness to keep learning develop differently. They depend on team habits, management practices and organisational culture.
This makes AI adoption a management issue as much as a training issue.
Training is only part of the answer
Switzerland does not start from zero.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, almost half of the working population participated in job-related continuing education in 2021, the latest year for which detailed survey data are available.
Of those who participated, 93% received support from their employer.
Switzerland therefore already has a strong culture of continuing professional development.
AI training, however, is still taking shape.
A Deloitte Switzerland survey, conducted in autumn 2025 among 99 executives, found that AI training was voluntary in 55% of organisations and mandatory in 24%.
The sample is relatively small, so these figures should be interpreted with care.
But they reinforce a broader point: many organisations are still deciding how AI training should fit into their learning strategy.
The challenge is not simply to teach employees how to use the tools.
It is also to maintain the judgement required to challenge them.
What should organisations preserve?
Before allocating a training budget, companies can start by asking a few practical questions.
Training the tool is not enough
Teaching employees how to use an AI assistant solves an immediate problem. But that knowledge may have a short lifespan. AI tools change quickly, and training must constantly keep pace.
Teaching employees how to assess an answer serves a different purpose.
- Can they identify what is missing?
- Can they recognise a weak argument?
- Can they detect unreliable information?
- Can they decide when not to trust the output?
These skills remain useful even when the tool changes.
Organisations need both.
The real question is how to balance them.
Who still knows when the output is wrong?
For every process that uses AI, ask one simple question:
Who can currently recognise when the tool gets something wrong?
If someone has the expertise but is not responsible for approving the final result, you may only need to change the process.
If nobody can reliably identify the error, you have identified a skills gap.
That gap requires training, practice or access to additional expertise.
Some skills should not be outsourced
Look at tasks your team performed directly two years ago that are now partly or fully delegated to AI.
Then ask:
Is it acceptable to stop practising this skill?
For some tasks, the answer may be yes.
Translating a routine administrative letter, for example, may not require employees to maintain the same level of manual practice.
Building an argument for an important client is different.
So is interpreting complex data, making a strategic recommendation or assessing a sensitive situation.
There is no universal answer.
The value of the exercise lies in making the decision deliberately rather than by default.
Building expertise before supervising AI
The question becomes especially important for people entering the workforce.
If employees need expertise to assess an AI-generated result, junior professionals face a paradox.
They may benefit greatly from AI because it helps them work faster.
At the same time, they have had less time to develop the expertise they need to recognise when the AI is wrong.
Organisations therefore need to think carefully about which tasks junior employees should still perform themselves.
This does not mean keeping AI away from them.
It means designing opportunities for them to build expertise before asking them to supervise it.
Training may also need to differ according to experience level:
- A senior professional may need to learn how to integrate AI efficiently into an existing workflow.
- A junior professional may first need opportunities to understand the underlying task.
Keeping human expertise at the centre
AI does not make technical expertise irrelevant.
It changes how organisations need to maintain it.
Research increasingly suggests that generative AI moves part of the employee’s role from execution towards supervision.
But good supervision depends on judgement. And judgement depends, at least partly, on knowledge and experience built through practice.
Swiss companies are already seeing the consequences. One third of SMEs using AI say it is changing the skills they seek when recruiting.
For HR and L&D teams, this creates a new balancing act:
How much should organisations invest in teaching employees to use AI and how much should they invest in maintaining the expertise needed to challenge it?
That question also leads directly to the final article in this series.
If people develop and maintain skills through practice as much as through formal training:
How do adults actually learn?
Want to develop these skills within your team?
Swissnova offers training designed to build skills that last. Contact our team for more information tailored to your organisation’s meeds.
by Content Manager | 7 Sep 2026 | Human resources, learning & development, talent acquisition
Are formal qualifications becoming less important in Switzerland?
Not exactly. But the way employers describe what they are looking for is changing.
A study published in April 2026 by Adecco Group Switzerland and the University of Zurich analysed more than one million Swiss job advertisements published between 2015 and 2026.
Its findings point to a gradual shift in the balance of requirements mentioned in job advertisements: transversal skills are gaining relative importance, while requirements related to formal knowledge and education are declining.
This does not mean that degrees are disappearing from recruitment. Nor does the study tell us who employers ultimately hire.
What it does show is that employers are increasingly describing successful candidates through a broader combination of qualifications, professional expertise and transferable skills.
A shift in employer expectations
To understand what is changing, it helps to look at how the requirements in those job ads were classified.
The study analysed more than one million advertisements published between 2015 and 2026 and grouped the skills and requirements they contained using ESCO — the European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations framework.
The categories include transversal skills, knowledge, occupation-specific skills and language skills.
One point is essential when reading the results: the percentages do not represent the share of job advertisements asking for a particular skill or qualification. They represent the relative share of each category among all the requirements identified.
In other words, the study shows how the balance of what employers ask for is changing over time.
A growing focus on transversal skills
According to the Adecco Group Swiss Job Market Index Q1 2026, transversal skills already account for the largest share of requirements identified in Swiss job advertisements — and their weight is continuing to grow.
Since 2022, their share has risen from just under 60% to more than 63%. Over a longer period, knowledge requirements have moved slightly in the opposite direction, falling from around 25% in 2015 to below 23% in 2026, while occupation-specific skills have remained broadly stable.
The significance lies less in the size of these movements than in what is moving and what is not.
Employers do not appear to be replacing specialist expertise with generic “soft skills”. Occupation-specific requirements remain remarkably stable. Instead, the data point to a gradual rebalancing of the candidate profile: what a person knows and can technically do still matters, but employers are placing greater emphasis on how that expertise is applied; through initiative, collaboration, adaptability and problem-solving.
Adecco’s analysis also shows that this shift occurs within occupations, rather than simply reflecting growth in professions where transversal skills were already more common. This suggests a change in expectations inside jobs themselves.
The emerging picture is therefore more nuanced than “skills replacing degrees”. Qualifications and technical expertise remain important, but they increasingly sit alongside a broader set of capabilities that help employees navigate changing and more complex work environments.
The skills behind the shift
The shift towards transversal skills is not evenly distributed across every type of capability. Three areas emerge particularly clearly from the Swiss data and together they say something about the kind of employee organisations are increasingly looking for.
1. Self-management and autonomy
Self-management is one of the most prominent categories identified in the Adecco analysis.
Skills such as proactivity, initiative and independent working feature strongly, alongside willingness to learn and adaptability.
The common thread is autonomy. Employers are not only looking for people who can carry out defined tasks, but for employees who can take ownership, respond to change and keep learning as their role evolves.
2. Social and communication skills
A second cluster concerns the ability to work effectively with others.
Teamwork and networking are among the requirements that appear most frequently in the data.
This reflects a workplace in which expertise is rarely exercised in isolation. Employees increasingly need to collaborate across teams, functions and professional disciplines, as well as ensuring their own expertise is useful to others.
3. Thinking and problem-solving skills
The third area concerns how employees make sense of complexity.
Analytical thinking, critical thinking and the ability to structure information all feature in the Swiss findings.
These capabilities become especially valuable when work cannot be reduced to a fixed procedure: employees need to interpret situations, weigh options and decide how their knowledge should be applied.
The skills mix at a glance
| Skill category |
Examples |
| Self-management |
Initiative, independent working, willingness to learn, adaptability |
| Social and communication skills |
Teamwork, networking, communication |
| Cognitive skills |
Analytical thinking, critical thinking, problem-solving |
Taken together, the pattern reinforces the broader shift identified in the data. Employers are not simply asking what candidates know or what tasks they can perform. They are also placing greater emphasis on how people use their expertise: independently, collaboratively and in situations that require judgement.
AI is only part of the story
It would be easy to assume that the growing emphasis on transversal skills is largely a response to artificial intelligence.
The Swiss data suggest a more complex picture.
According to the Adecco analysis, job advertisements for occupations that are more exposed to AI tend to list more requirements overall : around 7.3% more skills and competences than less AI-exposed roles.
But those additional requirements are not disproportionately transversal.
In highly AI-exposed occupations, the share of transversal skills is actually 3.1 percentage points lower, while knowledge requirements account for 2.3 percentage points more. Both differences are statistically significant.
This makes AI an unlikely explanation for the broader rise in transversal skills. If anything, the most AI-exposed roles continue to place particularly strong demands on specialist knowledge alongside other capabilities.
The shift therefore appears to reflect something broader than automation alone: work is becoming more complex, roles are changing, and employees are increasingly expected to navigate uncertainty, collaborate across boundaries and adapt as their responsibilities evolve.
For HR and Learning & Development teams, this changes the question. It is not simply a matter of identifying the “human skills AI cannot replace”.
The more relevant challenge is how to build combinations of technical expertise, professional knowledge, cognitive skills and interpersonal capabilities that allow people to work effectively alongside new technologies.
The skills race is not either/or
The Swiss picture is part of a broader international pattern: technological skills are rising fast, but they are not pushing human capabilities aside.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 identifies analytical thinking as the most important core skill among employers in 2025, cited by 69% of respondents.
Other leading capabilities include resilience, flexibility and agility, leadership and social influence, creative thinking, and motivation and self-awareness.
By 2030, the fastest-growing skills are expected to be technological, led by AI and big data, networks and cybersecurity, and technological literacy.
Yet the same report also expects several human-centred capabilities to become more important, including creative thinking, resilience and flexibility, curiosity and lifelong learning, leadership, and analytical thinking.
The implication is not that organisations must choose between technical and transversal skills.
They increasingly need people who can combine technological fluency with judgement, adaptability, creativity and the ability to work effectively with others.
From credentials to capability
The OECD Skills Outlook 2025 points in the same direction: as work changes, employers and labour markets need better ways to recognise what people can actually do.
The OECD places particular emphasis on lifelong learning and on capabilities such as literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem solving, which continue to develop throughout adulthood.
It also argues for a more skills-first approach to labour markets. One that makes competencies easier to identify, assess and recognise, regardless of where they were acquired.
That matters because skills do not come from a single source. They can be developed through formal education, vocational training, professional experience, continuing education and learning on the job.
The point is not to make qualifications obsolete. It is to avoid treating them as the only credible evidence of capability.
For employers, this means looking more closely at the full range of signals a candidate brings: what they have studied, what they have done, what they have learned and what they can demonstrate in practice.
What happens after the job ad
The shift visible in Swiss job advertisements is significant, but it should not be mistaken for proof that hiring practices have already changed to the same extent.
The Adecco study analyses what employers ask for in job ads. It does not track who is shortlisted, interviewed or ultimately hired.
That distinction matters. A stronger emphasis on initiative, teamwork, analytical thinking or adaptability does not automatically mean these capabilities are being assessed more systematically during recruitment.
Adecco itself remains cautious, presenting competency-based hiring as a possible explanation for the observed shift, rather than evidence of a completed transformation.
For HR teams, this is where the real question begins:
If employers say these skills matter, how are they actually measuring them?
A more skills-based recruitment process can include structured competency interviews, work samples, practical assessments, behavioural simulations and validated assessment tools. It can also give greater weight to evidence from professional experience and learning acquired outside traditional academic pathways.
The goal is not to remove qualifications from recruitment.
It is to ensure they are one source of evidence among several, rather than the sole proxy for a candidate’s ability to perform.
One trend, different realities
The growing emphasis on transversal skills is not uniform across the labour market.
According to Adecco’s occupational analysis, the strongest statistically significant increases are found in highly qualified social professions and in sales, administration and commercial roles.
Technical occupations also make a substantial contribution to the overall rise once the size and changing weight of different occupational groups are taken into account.
Craft and industrial occupations, by contrast, are the only broad group to show a statistically significant decline.
The pattern matters because it rules out a one-size-fits-all interpretation. The value placed on transversal skills depends heavily on the nature of the work itself.
Roles built around collaboration, judgement, client interaction or coordination may place growing emphasis on these capabilities, while other occupations continue to rely more heavily on technical or task-specific expertise.
For employers, the implication is clear: the relevant skills mix has to be defined role by role, not imported from a generic competency framework.
The next challenge for HR and L&D
The most useful conclusion is not that degrees matter less. It is that qualifications alone tell only part of the story.
A diploma can signal knowledge and learning. Professional experience shows how someone has operated in real work situations. Technical skills indicate whether they can perform role-specific tasks. Transversal skills add another layer: they show how effectively people can apply what they know when situations change.
These different signals are complementary.
For recruitment teams, the challenge is therefore to identify which capabilities genuinely matter for a role — and to assess them in ways that go beyond credentials alone.
For Learning & Development teams, the implication is equally important. Skills such as analytical thinking, communication, initiative and adaptability should not remain abstract items in a competency framework. They need to be developed through practice, feedback and situations that reflect the realities of work.
The broader question for organisations is becoming harder to avoid:
If skills matter alongside qualifications, how well are we identifying, developing and recognising them?
If this raises questions for your organisation, whether around recruitment, skills assessment or the development of transversal skills, our team would be happy to continue the conversation.
Get in touch with Swissnova to discuss your needs or find out more about our programmes.
by Content Manager | 16 Jul 2026 | Employer branding, Human resources, learning & development
Employer branding isn’t what a company claims in a job ad. It’s what candidates, employees and the market perceive.
It always present … even without a strategy, a campaign, or a modern careers page.
So the real question isn’t “do we have an employer brand?” The real question is: “are we shaping it, or enduring it?”
What is employer branding?
Employer branding refers to how a company is perceived as an employer. Generally, it rests on two dimensions. First, there is internal experience, meaning what employees live day to day. Second, there is external image, meaning how candidates, former employees, schools and the market see the company.
These two dimensions are closely linked. Indeed, a company can polish its image, but if the lived experience doesn’t match, the promise quickly loses credibility. That’s why employer branding isn’t built through a campaign. Instead, it’s built through practices: how the company recruits, welcomes, trains, manages, recognises and helps employees grow.
The EVP: the promise at the heart of it all
At the centre of employer branding sits the EVP, the Employee Value Proposition. According to Gartner, it is the set of attributes that employees and the labour market perceive as the value received from working for an organisation.
In short, the EVP answers a simple question: why work here rather than elsewhere? Certainly, the answer isn’t just about salary. It includes culture, management, flexibility, training, career growth, work-life balance and a sense of purpose.
A good EVP doesn’t promise everything. Instead, it chooses. It states what the company genuinely offers, and it owns what it isn’t. This is exactly where many organisations fail: they try to please everyone, and consequently, their promise becomes blurred.
Why employer branding matters in Switzerland
SECO publishes the state of the Swiss labour market every month. Currently, the latest available data show a market that is gradually normalising, yet it remains demanding for employers seeking qualified profiles. Meanwhile, The Adecco Group Switzerland tracks the shortage of skilled labour in Switzerland every year. Although the pressure has eased somewhat, difficulties still persist in several key professions, notably technical, IT and healthcare roles. This is precisely why employer branding in Switzerland has become a genuine strategic priority, not just an HR checkbox.
In Switzerland, SMEs make up more than 99% of businesses and generate two-thirds of jobs, according to the Confederation’s SME portal. Therefore, employer branding isn’t a concern reserved for large companies alone. Often, an SME has strengths that big groups lack: proximity, fast decision-making, autonomy, and a visible impact of one’s work. Still, it needs to state them clearly. Notably, an SME that owns its identity can attract candidates aligned with its reality, while one that copies the codes of large corporations risks losing what makes it distinctive.
Candidates check before they apply
Candidates no longer rely solely on job ads. Instead, they check review platforms, look at employees’ LinkedIn profiles, and analyse how clear the hiring process is. Above all, they look for proof.
Does a company promise flexibility? Then candidates want to understand how it works in practice. Does it talk about development? They expect concrete evidence: career paths, training programmes, internal mobility. Does it highlight a caring culture? Naturally, they look for signals in how people are managed and in employee testimonials.
Employer branding, then, plays out well before the first interview.
Who carries the employer brand?
HR structures recruitment, onboarding, training and retention. Leadership, meanwhile, sets the framework and priorities. However, it’s managers who embody the employer brand day to day. Often, it’s at their level that the promise is confirmed, or cracks. Specifically, a manager who gives feedback, supports progress and respects working conditions makes the promise credible, while one who ignores training needs or tolerates problematic behaviour undermines the official narrative.
Employees also play a key role. They talk about their company, recommend it or not, and sometimes become ambassadors. Still, you can’t decree an ambassador into existence. Rather, an employee recommends their employer when they live a coherent experience, not because a communication plan asks them to.
How do you build a credible employer brand?
It all starts with a diagnosis. Before communicating, a company needs to listen: internal surveys, qualitative interviews, exit interviews, analysis of online reviews, candidate feedback. Ultimately, the goal is to spot the gap between the narrative and reality. That gap isn’t a failure. Rather, it’s a starting point.
Next comes formulating the EVP. It must answer three questions: What do we genuinely offer? To which profiles? What proof can we show? Simply saying “we develop skills” isn’t enough. Instead, the company must demonstrate its training paths, mobility practices and managerial support.
If it promises autonomy, it should avoid unnecessary approval chains. Similarly, when it comes to training, it needs to actually give people time to learn. For example, an improvised onboarding, a hiring process that drags on, or a lack of feedback after an interview all send a message.
Making the brand visible, and managing it
Once the promise is clear, it needs to be made visible: careers site, LinkedIn, industry events, employee referrals, employee testimonials. Platforms like Glassdoor or JobUp.ch, for instance, shape how candidates perceive a company. Ignoring them doesn’t protect the company; it simply lets others speak on its behalf.
Employer branding also needs to be actively managed. Useful indicators include time-to-hire, quality of applications, offer-acceptance rate, new-hire turnover, referral rate, and internal mobility. Even so, a rejected candidate can still become an ambassador, but only if they went through a clear, respectful process.
Training: proof, not an option
In reality, training is one of the most concrete proofs that a company keeps its promise. Indeed, organisations that invest in career development and internal mobility see a direct effect on engagement and retention. In professions where recruiting will remain difficult, developing existing talent through upskilling, reskilling and internal mobility is also a strong signal. In other words, the company doesn’t treat its people as interchangeable resources, but as skills worth growing.
For training and L&D managers, this makes the topic genuinely strategic, since they contribute directly to attractiveness, engagement and retention.
Common mistakes
The first mistake is confusing employer branding with a recruitment campaign. Then comes the temptation to promise a culture that doesn’t yet exist. Too often, HR is left to carry a topic that also depends on leadership, managers and training. Another pitfall is copying large companies without accounting for one’s own reality. Finally, some companies measure only visibility instead of measuring the quality of the experience.
These mistakes are costly. Not only do they create disappointment, but they also erode trust and increase the risk of turnover.
What a company gains by managing its employer brand
A coherent employer brand improves the quality of applications, reduces reliance on emergency hiring, and strengthens team engagement. Its deepest benefit, however, lies elsewhere. Specifically, it forces the company to clarify what it genuinely offers, and it pushes HR, managers, leadership and training teams to work together. Above all, it brings to light the gaps between intentions and practices.
In this sense, employer branding isn’t just a tool for attraction. Rather, it’s a tool for transformation.
Employer branding in Switzerland: the promise is no longer enough
Employer branding isn’t a coat of varnish. Instead, it’s the visible result of everyday choices.
How do you recruit and welcome people? Similarly, how do you train and manage them? And how do you recognise effort, or handle departures?
These answers shape your reputation. In Switzerland, candidates verify promises quickly, and so do employees.
So the question isn’t whether your company has an employer brand. It already has one: built or endured, visible or blurred, coherent or contradictory. Ultimately, the real question is more demanding: is it clear, credible, and kept? And if it isn’t yet, where do you start? In the end, employer branding in Switzerland comes down to one simple thing: keeping the promise.
Is your employer brand clear, credible, and kept? If you’re not sure, that’s exactly where we can help. Swissnova helps Swiss companies turn EVP promises into daily practice, through management training and communication strategy. Contact us to see where to start.
________________________________________________
by Content Manager | 7 Jul 2025 | business strategy, Corporate Training, Digital Transformation, Human resources, Leadership
Recruitment, training, generational shifts, soft skills, digitalization… The challenges are many, but Human Resources today have the opportunity to reinvent their strategic role. In Switzerland, this transformation is already underway — and it often begins with constructive self-reflection. A better-equipped, more conscious HR function can become a decisive lever for organizational growth.
An HR Role in Full Redefinition
For a long time, HR was seen as a support service — ensuring administrative processes and compliance with labor laws. Today, that model is reaching its limits. Current challenges go far beyond compliance: it’s about building a culture, supporting transformation, and bringing a vision to life through talent.
In Switzerland, faced with a shortage of qualified labor, digital transformation, and evolving social expectations, HR must become strategic partners. This requires a new posture: more proactive, more influential, and more connected to human realities.
Recruiting in the Era of Invisible Skills
Recruiting today means navigating uncertainty. Career paths are no longer linear, experiences go beyond resumes, and behavioral competencies often outweigh technical skills.
But how do you detect emotional intelligence, adaptability, or resilience in an interview? How do you avoid confirmation bias? Many recruiters feel alone facing these issues.
A structured approach — based on observation, role plays, and the right questions — helps secure hires while respecting each candidate’s uniqueness. This expertise doesn’t come by chance: it’s developed through practical, directly applicable training.
Teaching Is No Longer Improvised
Technical knowledge alone is no longer enough. In a constantly changing world, effective knowledge transfer is a strategic challenge — to quickly onboard new employees, retain critical know-how, and support internal change.
Yet many experts are suddenly made trainers without pedagogical tools or guidance. The result: uninspiring training sessions where attention drops quickly and real impact is hard to measure.
Learning to become a trainer means acquiring concrete methods to structure a session, engage an audience, and assess learning outcomes. It also requires a mindset shift: more learner-focused, more impact-oriented. In a learning culture, this is a powerful lever for Swiss HR teams.
Generations Y and Z: Challenge or Opportunity?
Intergenerational dialogue can be tricky in the workplace. Younger employees expect flexibility, feedback, autonomy, and purpose. Older colleagues value stability, expertise, and long-term loyalty. Each often thinks the other “doesn’t understand the world of work.”
Rather than oppose these views, we can build an inclusive culture that values complementarities. But this requires deep insight into generational behaviors, needs, and motivational drivers.
Targeted training can help decode these differences, adapt management styles, and foster trust. After all, every generation seeks recognition and usefulness — just in different ways.
Can Digital Tools Support the Human?
HR automation is progressing rapidly: AI-powered sourcing, digital onboarding, performance platforms, LMS for training… These tools are not neutral. Poorly used, they dehumanize; properly integrated, they free time for what really matters.
Yet many HR professionals are still poorly supported in adopting these solutions — or they experience them top-down, through a technocratic lens.
Learning about HR digitalization doesn’t mean becoming a technician. It means understanding the stakes behind the tools, choosing the right ones, and integrating them into a people-centered strategic vision. In Switzerland, where management culture still values human connection, this hybridization is crucial.
Equipping HR Is Equipping the Business
HR training is not an end in itself — it’s a lever for transformation. It gives professionals the tools to navigate uncertainty, better understand the people they support, and contribute actively to business strategy.
In Switzerland, companies that invest in upskilling their HR teams also invest in the sustainability of their culture, the quality of their recruitment, and the smoothness of their internal transitions.
