The advantages of learning technologies and e-learning

For the oil and gas and safety critical industries the pressures on learning and development are immense.

Legislative and regulatory regimes require you to meet stringent national and international health, safety and environmental standards to reduce risk to employees and the environment. Ensuring that every employee has the knowledge and skills they need to minimise hazards is a challenge, especially across a global and multi-national workforce.
In a safety-critical environment you need to demonstrate compliance with your HSE policies and contractual obligations often specify detailed competence levels. The logistical and administrative challenge of measuring and monitoring employee competences on a global scale is huge.
New markets are emerging fast, and technology and processes advance quickly. With the nationalisation of workforces and threat of skills shortages comes the need to up skill diverse groups of employees, across many languages, with different roles, skills, levels of awareness and literacy. Effective learning strategies have to be implemented rapidly – and on a large scale.
The cost of training represents a significant proportion of operational budgets (typically 3 to 4.5%). For traditional training, much of this can be wasted on travel just moving employees to the right location to attend courses.
While every learning opportunity must be optimised, employees often need to be motivated to learn. The logistical challenges of engaging employees on a global scale and on remote sites can’t be under-estimated.

Traditional classroom training on its own thus presents challenges. Learning technologies can accelerate learning and overcome the barriers of cost, time, geography and culture. Compelling interactive learning experiences that increase retention and performance can be created using today’s courseware and technology innovations.

More importantly, learning technologies create:

new ways of managing and enhancing corporate knowledge
media-rich online resources that deliver knowledge just in time
informal learning, signposting self-directed learners to access the knowledge they need at their own pace
rigorous compliance tracking and recording at the individual level, delivered to our customers Learning Management Systems

At the same time e-learning is often part of a blended learning programme, augmenting traditional learning methods – because of the critical interactions between the computer, the learner and the real world.

Along with the rest of business, learning and development is being revolutionised through technology. But learning technologies need to be introduced effectively in a safety-critical environment. Real innovation has been needed to exploit these learning technologies safely and on a global scale. And new possibilities evolve. That’s why Atlas invests significantly in research and development – to ensure we stay innovative and at the leading edge on behalf of our clients.

We’re pioneering emerging technologies, like 3D simulation, virtual immersive environments, informal learning, skills screening and games-based learning. And we’re working with clients to exploit them specifically for their operational environments.

Business benefits of learning technologies

The learning methods and technologies we develop continually deliver measurable benefits to our clients. While our solutions are sustainable for many years, the return on investment is compelling.

Learning is cost-efficient

We deliver scalable solutions – for a single employee in one place, or to thousands across multiple countries and in different languages.

Productivity increases because downtime for training is compressed and targeted by using e-learning. For example, our MIST training solution reduced 14 hours of classroom-based content to three hours of tightly focused media-rich interactive e-learning.
It’s straightforward and economical to translate any of our solutions into other languages, and to incorporate your corporate branding.
Costs of travel, subsistence, distribution of materials are all saved.

Learning is assured

Availability is on demand, anytime, anywhere – on site, at a learning centre, offshore, in the office or at home.

Learning and assessment can be done at a time and pace that suit you, your company and your learners.
Learners meet the required levels of competence – regardless of their level of IT literacy, skill sets, environment or internet connectivity.
Content offers constant progress and performance tracking, with feedback to both learners and managers.
You have peace of mind that all our courses are supported by an experienced customer service team, available 24/7.

Learning is accelerated

Our solutions accelerate learning and increase retention because we make sure they’re engaging and relevant.

We communicate complex or technical information in a meaningful and accessible way.
Innovative techniques in visualisation and simulation enhance the learning experience, especially where learners have no physical access to the plant or equipment.

Learning is managed

Comprehensive employee data, training statistics, and performance and assessment data can be tracked, stored, searched and managed.

You have control of consistent, accurate and comprehensive data on your courses and learners.
You have efficient ways to demonstrate that your compliance and corporate regulatory goals are met and recorded.

“Corporations save between 50-70% when replacing instructor-led training with electronic content delivery. Options for e-training also mean that courses can be pared into shorter sessions and spread out over several days or weeks so that the business would not lose an employee for entire days at a time." Training magazine 2010.

E-Learning has thus rapidly become an attractive and cost effective option for safety critical industries. It both augments traditional training methods, whilst also providing a viable stand alone alternative and has become the preferred mode of learning and teaching by many organisations.