Manpower Expands its e-Learning Solution

New Version of Global Learning Center Adds Business Skills Courses, Community Center, Live Events

With an array of new courses and the addition of chat rooms and interactive live seminars, Manpower Inc. (NYSE: MAN), the world's leading provider of staffing and workforce management solutions, has expanded the curriculum and services offered through its on-line university — the Global Learning Center (GLC). The company today introduced a new version of its Global Learning Center Web site (www.manpowernet.com), which delivers free training, skills assessment and career management services to its more than two million employees worldwide.

In addition to more than 1,000 software and information technology training modules, the GLC now offers more than 100 business skills courses that cover topics including finance, marketing, business law, human resource management and accounting.

"For the past year, e-learning has been an integral component of Manpower's employee career development services," said Jeffrey Joerres, president and chief executive officer of Manpower. "Close to 20,000 Manpower employees, and counting, utilize the GLC to learn new skills, qualify for higher-level job opportunities and advance their careers. The GLC's new features reflect Manpower's continuous commitment to provide our employees with the best career management tool available in the industry, and to support our customers' staffing needs with the most highly skilled workers."

The new version of the GLC enables Manpower's employees to connect with mentors and fellow students through a virtual Community Center. "Our employees can use chat rooms to network with each other and obtain curriculum guidance from on-line mentors," said Joerres. "They can also personalize the Community Center desktop so that it will automatically retrieve and update information that matches their career interests and objectives."

In addition, the GLC's Community Center offers a series of live, expert-led seminars on information technology and business-related topics. The seminars are presented in video format, and enable students to pose questions in real time to the presenters. Students also have access to archived presentations, which they can retrieve and view in their original format.

To make it easy for students to access other course-related information, some GLC courses now provide Web links to additional resources.

The company registers hundreds of Manpower and Manpower Professional employees for e-learning on the GLC each week. "The GLC empowers our employees to take control of their learning – anytime and anywhere – via the Internet, which is the most efficient training vehicle for our worldwide workforce today," said Joerres.

Manpower is currently piloting the GLC's Skillware training to some of its 400,000 customers worldwide. The GLC is one aspect of Manpower's overall strategy to utilize e-commerce to expand the scope of services it provides to its employees and customers.