The ongoing generational transition of the workforce that is occurring in the oil, gas and petrochemical industries has leaders scrambling to fill positions being vacated by retirees. Currently, 46 percent of the U.S. petroleum refining industry workforce is under 40 years old.
"We've got a new generation coming into the workforce that's been taught differently and they learn differently," said Daniel Forest, senior manager of safety programs for AFPM. "They're what we call 'digital natives.' They grew up with a computer or a tablet in front of them."
As a result, these new employees must be trained in a way their predecessors couldn't have imagined when they first joined the industry. It is incumbent upon the industry to embrace immersive technologies in order to reach and properly train this new workforce.
The upside is that these new technologies allow younger employees to enter a workplace that's safer than ever.
"Thankfully, we no longer see an incident every week, or maybe even every month, quarter or year. We couldn't say that 30 or 40 years ago. Our incident rate was significantly higher," Forest said in a recent presentation titled "AFPM Immersive Learning: Developing Tools for the Next Generation." The presentation was offered by the Texas Chemical Council as part of its EHS Webinar Safety Series.
"We're proud of that [current] safety record, but we can't learn on the job or understand the consequences the way we have in the past," he said.
That's where immersive learning comes into play. Immersive learning shortens the timeline to achieve competency and helps trainees understand the consequence of their actions.
"It's a unique opportunity for us to explore some of these digital technologies we didn't have access to 15 years ago to bridge that technology gap and help build knowledge retention," Forest said. "It's essential for managers and leaders to recognize that different people learn differently.
"Not everyone can read a book and digest it at the same rate as their counterparts. Some people need visual aids, and some people need audio to help with retention. The diversification of some of these training tools and resources enables us to reach all of the operators, engineers and management."
Immersive learning, Forest said, goes beyond virtual reality and training videos.
"It's more than where you're put into an environment and you can control that environment and control your actions, and then you experience the consequence of those actions," Forest said. "Maybe that's a positive force, or maybe it's a negative -- maybe it's catastrophic. But you fail safely."
Forest also recommended applying simulators and augmented reality as well as emerging technologies and animation to training.
"And maybe you can add humor into the animation. That helps retention of some of the learning objectives," he said.
Operator-approved simulations
AFPM's fired-heater training simulations, Forest explained, employ a three-step approach to learning. The classroom module orients the trainee to the virtual reality environment, and a guided training familiarizes the trainee with procedure and the orientation of each critical step. Finally, in an unguided simulation, the trainee goes through the practice of lighting the fired heater and learns the potential catastrophic consequences and importance of each action.
More than 250 operators tested these simulations, and the program has received global industry support. Forest said operators particularly commended how the simulations capture their attention.
"We've all been in other trainings where we're thinking, 'I have so many other things to do,' and we have other things on our minds, so just getting your audience's attention is a challenge," Forest said. "So having something like this -- a simulation that you can try out -- is exciting."
The positive response is cross-generational, Forest said.
"A lot of operators near the end of their careers have said, 'I wish I had this when I was younger,' and a lot of the younger operators have said, 'This is great. I'm excited about the future of training. If this is what training looks like, I'll gladly go,'" he concluded.