The death of Ben & Jerry's

What's inside:

• Job training with VR

• EU Single Permit Changes

• Benefits of being divorced in France

The Markets

Job training with VR

On Monday March 19, 2024, Cornerstone OnDemand, announced the acquisition of Talespin, an immersive learning platform built to bring corporate L&D to life.

Founded in 1999, Cornerstone is an all-in-one HR management platform featuring HR products including recruiting, core HR, performance management, and learning management. With its acquisition of Talespin, Cornerstone adds extended reality (XR) learning to its product suite.

Simply put, Talespin brought XR (think virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality) to the corporate L&D world. Users of Talespin are able to throw on a headset (or just use their laptop screen) and go through job specific trainings assigned to them by their company. This technology can help simulate real world scenarios in a multitude of industries and it seems like Talespin was only scratching the surface of what their can actually be used for.

All of Talespin’s current content is available to all Cornerstone customers. Cornerstone customers can also start to create new content using this technology.

Although the acquisition details were not fully disclosed, industry analyst, Josh Bersin said “the immersive learning market is already estimated at $4 billion and is expected to grow at 31% CAGR over the next five years”.

Around the World

EU Single Permit Changes

Since 2011, non-EU nationals have enjoyed a simplified application procedure in which they only need to secure one single permit for both the right to work and stay in the EU.

Recently, the European Parliament approved changes to the ‘single permit directive’ that helps holders of this permit. Here’s what changed:

• Permit holders will now be able to change employers with a simple notification of change made to the authorities

• 6 months of unemployment is now permitted without having the permit withdrawn

• If you’re already legally in the EU and need to make any changes to your status, you do not need to travel back to your home country to make those changes

These changes enhance the rights of single permit holders and makes job changing a much easier process whether the change is of the holder’s own accord or not.

It is also interesting to note that the changes do not apply in Denmark or Ireland since both countries have opted out from EU policies in the area of freedom, security and justice, which include external migration.

4 Day Work Week

Benefits of being divorced in France

Divorced parents with shared custody of their children in France now may have the opportunity to work only 4 days per week starting in the 2024-2025 school year.

According to the Daily Beast, the Prime Minister of France, Gabriel Attal first rolled out this plan to the finance ministry in 2022 (at the time, he was France’s budget minister) and is now trying to implement this policy across a wider range of government agencies.

It’s reported that around 12% of all French children switch between their parents on a weekly basis. Because of this, Attal is trying to give civil servants who are divorced the opportunity to spend more time with their kids by only working 4 days per week.

It’s still unclear if the missing working day will be made up with additional hours on the 4 days at work or if the employees that this new policy applies to will ultimately work fewer hours during the week.

Strategic quick hits

• Indian construction workers go to Israel (Jerusalem Post)

• Unilever cuts Ben & Jerry’s and 7,500 jobs (AP)

• Indian employers seek employees with AI skills (Times of India)