VdA Academia organized the 6th Meeting of Corporate Academies, this year dedicated to “Building a Learning Mindset - The (Trans) Formation of TALENT”, which took place on November 26, 2019.

The event took place at the Carcavelos Campus of NOVA School of Business and Economics (NOVA SBE) between 3pm and 7pm. NOVA SBE and the Portuguese Association of Psychologists were the partners of this edition.

The Annual Meeting of Corporate Academies, launched by VdA Academia in 2014, it’s a discussion forum on the challenges inherent to Professional Development, Training and Talent as strategic factors for the success of organizations, in an environment of sharing and exchange of experiences.

Throughout the various editions, VdA Academia together with its Partners, has sought to identify innovative and pioneering themes that encourage the brainstorming of ideas that generate new ways of thinking and acting on the creation and development of skills in a professional and personal context.

“Building a Learning Mindset - The (Trans) Formation of TALENT” focused on the importance of creating and implementing a culture of learning progress in organizations, as a means for a strategic management of people's potential and talent. In this context, three indispensable variables for this transformation were analyzed, which comprise Content, Teaching Styles and Motivation. Understanding the criticality of these variables involves answering questions such as: What training content is critical for a given target audience? What methods and approaches are used for successful training? What motivates a potential trainee to invest in their training?

In view of this context and the challenges that organizations face, it is essential that the strategy of organizations passes, with greater emphasis, by incorporating in their management ways to recognize, validate and activate the potential of their employees, developing and creating optimal conditions for learning to be an integral part of the strategy. Alongside this aspect, and because companies are made up of people, it is important to understand what individuals want for their individual growth, what motivates them to develop their skills and how they can contribute to this new mindset.

The 6th Meeting of Corporate Academies was aimed at all those responsible and employees of Corporate Academies, Human Resources Managers, Managers, Economists, Trainers, Teachers, Consultants and Jurists and other professionals who deal with these issues every day and needed answers to issues that are of such concern to those working in this area.

Guest speakers for this edition were Nadim Habib, Professor at NOVA SBE and Francisco Miranda Rodrigues, President of the Portuguese Psychologists Association.

This year, the event had a new dynamic, in addition to the inspiring communications from the invited speakers, a groupwork challenge - “Building a Learning Mindset - Strategic Challenges” was carried out, in which the participants were challenged to think, discuss and present their ideas from an organizational and individual perspective. The intention was, once again, to continue the innovative character, similar to what happened in the last Meetings, which has already earned VdA Academia recognition with the third place in the ranking of the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers 2017, in the category of Innovation in managing and developing talent.

For Sandra Pedro Serrano, CEO of VdA Academia, "it is essential to understand the state of maturity of organizations and their assets regarding the development of competencies and find effective measures to enhance such organizational and individual growth".

What cognitive and behavioral principles will underlie the corporate training that actually works? Will the knowledge provided by these trainings be durable, flexible and useful? The answers to these questions were one of the objectives of the 5th Meeting of Corporate Academies, under the theme “Training + Evaluation = Retaining of Knowledge? - Evidence of the learning curve theory and new training models”.

In partnership with CLOO Behavioral Insights Unit, Colégio Doutoral Mente-Cebra and Porto Business School at the University of Porto, Diana Orghian (CLOO) addressed in her talk "Learning to retain: what difficulties are beneficial in the learning process?" the perspective of Cognitive Sciences applied to learning and the transfer of knowledge from familiar contexts to unexpected and new contexts and Paula Marques addressed the theme "How do Humans Learn".

The 5th Meeting also counted on the interventions of Susana Almeida Lopes with the talk "The Neurosciences applied to Organizations" and Pedro Cunha who made known the "Gulbenkian Knowledge Program". A panel-debate followed with moderation by Mafalda Anjos, journalist and director of Visão magazine.

During the event Vasco Vieira de Almeida was present and presented the prize to the winning team of the 1st Edition of the Case Challenge, Margarida Couto and Rodrigo Esteves de Oliveira welcomed the team and Sandra Pedro Serrano proceeded with the closing of the Meeting.

Training is a competitive factor with a significant impact on organizations. When successful, training should lead to behavioral changes that bring added value to organizations. However, training is often not effective: employees adhere and seem to learn the content, but do not effectively change their behavior. How to increase the behavioral effectiveness of training, capitalizing the investment of organizations in this area? The knowledge developed at the level of psychology and behavioral economics provides some explanations about the factors that influence the results of a training such as errors, biases, stereotypes and heuristics. The 4th Meeting of Corporate Academies organized by VdA Academia, planned to address all these issues and offer strategies for their resolution, therefore allowing the optimization of training results. The event had speakers from the CLOO - Behavioral Insights Unit and the Doctoral College Mind-Brain at the University of Lisbon and intended to answer questions that are of such concern to those working in this area: “How to increase the behavioral effectiveness of training, capitalizing on the investment that is done by organizations? ”, “ What are the main obstacles to behavioral change? ”, “ What concrete actions can we implement to make the intended changes happen? ”.

In this 4th Meeting of the Corporate Academies, which took place on the 11th of October at the Hotel Altis Belém, VdA Academia International Award was also delivered, an award aimed at all law students in Portugal, in Portuguese-speaking countries and OHADA members.

At the 3rd Meeting of Corporate Academies joint in the 2nd Meeting of the Doctoral College Mente-Cebra, we tried to answer this question and had a well-known panel of speakers which included Professors from the College Mente-Cebra, from the Center of Neuroimaging from King's College, from the Institute of Health Sciences of the Portuguese Catholic University and from the Neurofeedback area. Manuel Protásio, VdA partner and member of the board of VdAcademia, moderated the debate. The program also included the intervention of Margarida Couto (President of VdAcademia) Rodrigo Esteves de Oliveira and Paulo Olavo Cunha (members of the Scientific Council of VdAcademia). During the Meeting, the VdAcademia International Award 2016 was also presented by Vasco Vieira de Almeida, founding partner of VdA. The 3rd Meeting of Corporate Academies took place on November 24 at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

In 2016, the 3rd Meeting of Corporate Academies was dedicated to the theme “The advances of neurosciences applied to training” and took the 3rd place in the ranking of the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards, in the category of “Innovation in Managing and Developing Talent”.

Is training a fashion trend, a necessity or a mere convenience? Should training focus on filling gaps or boosting talent? What is the return on investment in training? What are the main difficulties that a training center faces within its own company? The answer to these and other questions was the topic of debate at the event promoted by VdAcademia, the corporate academy of Vieira de Almeida & Associados (VdA) on September 24, 2015. At Centro Cultural de Belém were present speakers representing companies such as Deloitte, Grupo Mello, McDonald's and Sonae. The Meeting intended to address some difficulties that training centers face within their own companies.

It was the second time that training centers from different companies came together to debate and share experiences. The topic of debate focused on the difficulties faced by these centers, in a dialog that, like the previous year, enriched the speakers and the audience.

What is the weight of continuous training of a company's employees for its competitiveness? Do corporate academies play an active role in fulfilling organizations' strategic designs? The answer to these and other questions was the topic of debate at the event promoted by VdAcademia, the corporate academy of Vieira de Almeida & Associados (VdA), on June 24, 2014, and took place at Centro Cultural de Belém, within the scope of the celebration of VdA Academia's five years of activity. The debate was moderated by Professor Doctor Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and included representatives from the academies of some of the main national and international companies, such as Galp, BES, Novartis, PT, Deloitte, among others.