Key benefits
Digitised and centralised Leighton O’Brien’s global technician training assessment
Reduced time assessing technician qualifying exam by 50%
Overall average exam performance was 72%, with an average accuracy rate of 73%
Reduced technician requalification
Automated broadcast of safety and regulatory updates
Service stations can be dangerous work environments. Not only are they busy places with lots of traffic but sitting under the forecourt is around 80,000 litres of highly flammable fuel. Inhaling toxic fumes, fire, oil spills and leaks are all potential risks that keep Reed Leighton awake at night.
As CEO of Leighton O’Brien, a global provider of technologies that enables fuel retail networks to reduce their environmental risk of underground fuel leaks and contamination, his number one priority is ensuring his global partner workforce of 400 field technicians come home safely to their families each day.
In a highly regulated industry, Leighton O’Brien takes its safety and compliance responsibilities very seriously. It was logical that, as a business specialising in big data analytics to detect leaking tanks and other problems, it would take a similarly analytical approach to its own safety management practices.
Reed came across Quitch, a gamified mobile learning platform that helps organisations improve training outcomes by motivating employees in an engaging and accessible way.
LOB technicians (and its licensed partner technicians) must undertake stringent training to be able to test underground storage tanks using technology that is certified to US-EPA leak detection standards. The consequences of a fuel leak can be catastrophic, resulting in environmental damage and significant clean-up costs. Hence the test equipment is highly accurate and sensitive.
LOB’s training involves a theoretical and practical component which was then followed by a 10-page written exam, which, upon successful completion, techs were issued with a training certificate.
“Our Field Technology managers would spend hours marking up the exam paper,” Reed said.
“It was a laborious and fragmented method of assessment. It also lacked consistency in terms of revision control of the exam papers and assessment updates.
“Given our business is global, with Quitch we saw an opportunity to make technician assessment more scalable and achieve huge time, cost and resource efficiencies.”
ENGAGING, INTERACTIVE ASSESSMENT FORMAT
Quitch was initially rolled out to the Australian techs, followed by their global counterparts. Classes, sections and topics were created, and a series of multiple choice and true and false questions based on the training content was uploaded onto the educator portal. Supporting resources including procedural manuals and videos were also made available.
Technicians then registered an account and downloaded the app to complete the exam.
“While they’re not the easiest bunch of blokes to convert to a digital platform, they liked the fact they could complete the exam remotely and in their own time,” Reed said. “They also liked the way the content is broken down into bite-sized chunks, so it’s easier to digest and retain.”
Quitch’s analytics feature enables the company to access dashboard metrics including accuracy, performance and resources viewed at a group level or drill down to an individual level. It also features a leaderboard based on accuracy and points earned.
REAL-TIME ANALYTICS
Overall the performance of techs sitting the exam averaged 72% based on correct answers, with an average accuracy rate of 73%.
“The accuracy metric – where we can see whether techs got the answer right on the first, second or third attempt – is really useful as it helps us identify the areas of content that are especially difficult that we can hone in on during the training,” he said.
Reed said the time taken to assess exams has halved.
“It’s also saved considerable time and resources in not having to requalify some of the techs,” he said.
SCALABLE AND EFFICIENT
According to Reed, Quitch has saved the company thousands of dollars in training costs.
“It’s made our training program much more scalable and efficient in the way it’s delivered,” he said.
“The other great thing about Quitch is the push notification announcements feature, which virtually automates the way we can keep staff up to date on new and changing regulations. It’s great for knowledge sharing too. If there’s been a quality incident or a near miss we can instantaneously broadcast the actions and learnings to our techs all around the world,” he said.
DIGITISED, CENTRALISED RECORD-KEEPING
The Quitch platform also provides a centrally stored, digital record of LOB’s training assessment.
“If a compliance issue does arise, through Quitch our training records demonstrate that we’ve trained and tested employees about the required procedures and regulations, which reduces our company liability,” he said.
“If staff are more engaged with the content they’re far more likely to retain that information. It’s a key way to maintain a healthy workplace culture, enhance safety behaviour and ultimately reduce company and customer risk.”
ABOUT LEIGHTON O’BRIEN
Leighton O’Brien is a leading global fuel analytics technology provider that enables retail fuel networks to reduce environmental risk, prolong asset lifespan and optimise capital spend. We offer an integrated suite of software and field technologies to achieve the tightest fuel systems, lowest fuel losses and cleanest fuel. We operate in 24 countries through direct operations and partnerships with 60 licensed distributors.
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