How Capgemini Builds a Culture of Continuous Learning

Image Source: https://www.capgemini.com/in-en/careers/why-join-capgemini/learning-and-development/

Most companies say they value learning. Few can point to a platform that moved 150,000 employees through a generative AI curriculum in ten weeks. The Capgemini learning culture can.

That single number is a useful entry point into a bigger question HR leaders keep asking: what does a culture of continuous learning actually look like when you strip away the buzzwords? Capgemini – a technology and consulting firm with roughly 340,000 employees across more than 50 countries – offers one of the clearer answers, because its learning system is public, documented, and built into how people actually work, not just what the employee handbook says.

Why Continuous Learning Stopped Being Optional

Skills in tech and consulting don’t have a long shelf life anymore. A cloud certification from three years ago, a data framework from last year, an AI tool from six months ago – all of it ages fast. For a company whose entire business is selling technology expertise to clients, an outdated workforce isn’t an HR problem. It’s a revenue problem.

That pressure is exactly why continuous learning has moved from a “nice to have” line in a careers page to a core operating requirement at large enterprises. It’s also why more organizations, across very different industries, are being written up for the same reason – companies like L’Oréal, which built structured career development pathways to keep talent growing internally rather than losing it externally.

Capgemini’s version of this answer centers on one thing: making learning a default part of the workweek, not an event people schedule around.

The Learning Infrastructure: NEXT, Powered by Degreed

Capgemini’s learning backbone is a platform called NEXT, built on Degreed’s technology. It isn’t a single course library – it’s structured as a set of interconnected systems:

• Digital Campuses covering GenAI, Data & AI, and Cloud, with pathways that run from foundational to expert level, including role-based tracks and certification prep.
• A central certification hub, pulling together credentials from Capgemini itself and partners including AWS, Google, and Microsoft.
• Industry Campuses spanning 10 core sectors, so learning content maps to the specific client context an employee actually works in.
• Professional Groups and Business Communities that offer curated, role-specific development plans rather than generic course lists.
• Udemy for All, integrated directly into the platform for broader, self-directed skill-building.

The design logic is worth noting: instead of one generic training catalog, Capgemini splits learning by role, industry, and career stage. An engineer working on a retail client’s cloud migration and a consultant advising a bank on AI adoption aren’t sent through the same content. That specificity is a big part of why the platform gets used rather than ignored.

From Day One to Deep Specialization

Capgemini treats learning as something that starts before an employee’s first day and continues through every stage of their career, not something bolted on after onboarding.

New hires are introduced to the company’s learning culture early through Exceller Academia, a program built for young professionals that leans on experiential, hands-on training rather than lecture-style sessions. Trainees work on real-world use cases early, which shortens the runway to actual project deployment.

From there, the system branches based on role and ambition:

• Connected Manager equips people stepping into leadership with the skills to actually manage teams, not just supervise them.
• Cloud Campus functions as a unified hub for cloud-specific learning, letting employees across geographies learn and share knowledge in one place.
• Internal “learning marathons” – events like Learn-a-thon, Cloud-a-thon, and Innov-a-thon – turn skill-building into a competitive, collaborative event rather than a solo obligation.

This lifecycle approach is echoed in how other companies build durable learning habits. Assiduus Global, for instance, built a scalable learning culture specifically to improve retention and internal mobility – a similar bet that learning infrastructure pays for itself through lower attrition.

The Numbers Behind the Culture

Culture claims are easy to make and hard to verify. Capgemini’s case holds up better than most because there’s a trail of third-party case studies and its own published data behind it.

Two things stand out here. First, the scale – this isn’t a pilot program running in one office. Second, the speed: building and deploying a full AI curriculum to 150,000 people in ten weeks required existing infrastructure that could flex fast, not a program built from scratch under pressure.

Leadership Owns It, Not Just HR

A learning platform is only as good as the mandate behind it. At Capgemini, that mandate sits with a named leader with a specific mission, not a diffuse “everyone’s responsible for their own growth” policy.

Bhavana Bhagat, Vice President and Head of Learning for Capgemini India, frames the goal in outcome terms rather than activity terms:

“We focus relentlessly on outcomes over activity, ensuring learning accelerates role readiness, sharpens execution, and drives continuous upskilling and reskilling in a fast-changing landscape.”

That distinction – outcomes over activity – shows up in how the company measures success. It isn’t tracking how many hours people logged in for the sake of a number. It’s tracking whether people can actually do the job the market now demands, which is a much harder thing to fake.

Employees describe the day-to-day experience in less formal but consistent terms: peer-to-peer formats that make learning collaborative rather than isolating, flexible scheduling that fits around live project work, and a workplace where, as one senior manager on Capgemini’s Insights & Data team put it, “learning never stops.”

What Other Organizations Can Take From This

Not every company has Capgemini’s headcount or budget. But the underlying moves are copyable at smaller scale:

Build role-specific pathways, not one generic catalog: A single training library that treats every employee the same gets ignored. Segmenting by role, industry context, and career stage is what makes content feel relevant enough to actually use.

Put a name and a mandate behind learning: A platform without ownership drifts. A named leader with a mission statement – and outcome-based goals – keeps the program from becoming a checkbox exercise.

Start before day one: Programs like Exceller Academia work because they introduce the learning culture before an employee has had time to absorb “how things are really done” from informal channels.

Make growth visible and social: Learning marathons, peer-to-peer formats, and internal recognition turn upskilling into something people want to be part of, not something assigned to them.

Tie learning targets to a measurable commitment: Capgemini’s ESG-linked goal – a 5% year-over-year increase in average learning hours per employee – gives the culture a number leadership is accountable to, not just a value statement on a careers page.

The Bottom Line

Capgemini’s continuous learning culture isn’t built on a single clever program. It’s built on infrastructure – a platform that adapts to role and industry, a leadership mandate with clear outcomes attached, and enough scale to move fast when a new skill (like generative AI) suddenly becomes non-negotiable. The 150,000-employees-in-10-weeks number gets attention because it’s dramatic, but the more durable lesson is the system underneath it: learning wired into daily work, not scheduled around it.

For HR leaders building their own version of this, the starting question isn’t “what course should we buy.” It’s “what will make this feel like part of the job, not an add-on to it.”

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Capgemini’s main learning platform called? 

Capgemini’s core digital learning platform is called NEXT, built on Degreed’s technology. It includes Digital Campuses, Industry Campuses, a certification hub, and integrated Udemy content.

How many employees has Capgemini trained on AI skills? 

Capgemini has trained more than 350,000 employees on AI-related skills overall, including over 150,000 through its dedicated Gen AI Campus, which was built and launched in just 10 weeks.

What program does Capgemini use to onboard new hires into its learning culture? 

Exceller Academia is Capgemini’s program for young professionals, focused on experiential, hands-on learning and real-world use cases from early in their tenure.

Does Capgemini track learning as a formal business goal? 

Yes. As part of its Environmental, Social and Governance commitments, Capgemini has set a target to increase average learning hours per employee by 5% every year.