How UPS Trains Its Employees

Q1. What training tools and techniques were highlighted in the broadcast?

Like many organizations, UPS boasts a wide variety of different kinds of employees, spanning from truck drivers to middle managers. Increasingly, the high-tech aspects of the office are infiltrating the training of ordinary employees. In 2017, the company issued a press release stating it was adopting the use of virtual reality technology to train employees. “Students using the modules must verbally identify potential road hazards such as pedestrians, parked cars and oncoming traffic. The 360-degree view inside the headset is realistic down to the finest details” (“UPS Enhances Driver Safety with Virtual Reality,” 2017, par.3). The intention, according to UPS, is to create a hyper-reality to underline the need for split-second reactions, even when drivers are tired and have been awake for many hours. This is not simply true of actual driving but also of negotiating icy sidewalks, pedestrians, and other hazards.
Q2. What do you think are the objectives of this training program?
The objectives are to create a fleet of drivers ready, willing, and capable of navigating the hazards of driving under difficult conditions. These conditions are very difficult to simulate otherwise. It also prevents drivers incapable of doing so from driving around in a UPS truck and getting into potential accidents that could be costly to the organization and damage its reputation. Even for otherwise competent drivers, virtual reality training can potentially increase their efficiency.
Q3. How could you apply similar training techniques to other businesses in different industries?
Any industry which makes frequent use of driving could benefit from virtual reality technology. But even industries without such hazards can make use of role playing and simulation, such as customer support hotline staff or retail employees. For more sophisticated tasks such as surgery for aspiring physicians or even interacting with patients, although a single training program cannot, of course, replace medical school, it can be an enhancement to the type of training future and even current professionals receive.
Q4. What are the apparent advantages and disadvantages of the training program employed? Issue your verdict.
The greatest advantage is that it enables drivers to experience conditions on the road in a manner that they cannot merely listening to a lecture or reading a book. The training is also far more engaging than a long, tedious session sitting in a hotel conference room (as is frequently the case when people are receiving work-based training). It is likely to be more memorable, interesting, and involving. It further enables people to determine if they are not suited for the task of being a UPS driver and for the company to screen out obviously unsafe or unsuitable drivers. Particularly around the holiday season when it hires many temporary drivers, this quick and intensive training boot camp has great value to keep the company at its necessary level of staffing but with required skills.
The most obvious objection to the training is that no simulation is a perfect replication of real life driving conditions. This may give some drivers a false sense of confidence that they know far more than they actually do about driving a UPS truck and could cause them to take unnecessary risks when they are just starting out. Still, the company could counteract this by stressing that the simulation was only that—a simulation—and should not be regarded as a perfect replica of the real thing. Another possible objection is the training’s expense, but this was presumably analyzed by UPS on a cost-benefit breakdown to the potential for accidents and damage to its reputation as a result of unsafe drivers, as well as attrition by drivers who disliked driving but only discovered this after completing a conventional training program.


Q5. What do YOU think about what you watched?
Overall, the program appears to be a sound investment on the part of the company, particularly given the nature of the employment.
References
UPS enhances driver safety with virtual reality. (2017). UPS. Retrieved from:
https://www.pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/ContentDetailsViewer.page?ConceptType=P ressReleases&id=1502741874802-243