Keywords

1 Company Overview

This case study involves the work of three companies:

1.1 Lanes Utilities

Lanes Group plc is the UK’s largest independent drainage and utilities specialist.

One of its most prestigious contracts is a wastewater network service (WNS) maintenance agreement for Thames Water. Lanes Utilities, set up to deliver the contract, unblocks, cleans and repairs drains and sewers on behalf of 15 million Thames Water customers. It also delivers other specialist services, including wet well cleaning, tankering, and sewer rehabilitation. To keep the wastewater flowing across the 68,000-mile network, 880 field engineers and 220 support staff handle 1400 maintenance jobs a day.

1.2 Igloo Vision

Based in the UK, with offices in America and Australasia, Igloo Vision designs, develops and delivers immersive 360° projection domes, projection cylinders, and all of the enabling technologies. Describing itself a Shared VR company, Igloo Vision takes any VR or 360° content, puts it in a space that anyone can use, and makes it shareable among team members, stakeholders and clients. This means it becomes possible to work collaboratively (because everyone can see what each other is looking at), gauge reactions (because you can make eye contact and read facial expressions), and brief team members (because you can easily talk them through the VR content).

1.3 Myriad Global Media

Myriad Global Media is a digital communications agency specialising in innovative technology and content solutions. One of the company’s specialisms is in designing and creating VR training programmes. The aim is to use immersive technology to make training more engaging, more effective, and less costly. And a particular focus is multi-user training solutions, especially for emergency response scenarios and health and safety initiatives.

2 Project Summary

An Igloo Shared VR cylinder was introduced by Lanes Group in 2017 as part of a wider programme of learning and development (L&D) and health and safety (H&S) initiatives. Overall, the aim was to reinforce the company’s commitment to H&S, fast-track the induction of new recruits, and improve employee retention.

In combination, the initiatives led to:

  • 57% reduction in employee attrition

  • 9% reduction in employee feelings of unhappiness

  • £1 million reduction in recruitment and training costs

Also, the company’s training facilities have achieved a net promoter score (NPS) of 89%.

3 Project Details

3.1 The Situation

Lanes Utilities operates across the buoyant economy of South East of England, where the employment market can be fiercely competitive, especially for the type of roles that are vital to the company’s Thames Water WNS contract:

  • Field engineers—who can troubleshoot wastewater issues effectively and safely, apply the necessary remedies, and deal confidently and courteously with Thames Water customers and the general public.

  • Scheduling and planning representatives—who can provide a top-quality response to Thames Water customers, many of whom may be facing a stressful situation (like sewer flooding to their property or sewerage leaks).

At the same time, the nature of the work had always presented some particular challenges to the company’s learning and development team:

  • A strong emphasis on health, safety and employee wellbeing—these are mission critical considerations, which need to be deeply embedded in the company’s training programmes as well as its everyday working practices.

  • A tricky employee induction dilemma—before they are allowed to enter potentially hazardous situations, newly-recruited field engineers need extensive training. Yet, until they have direct experience of such situations, it is almost impossible for them to appreciate the true nature of their new role. So, the induction programmes need to resolve this paradox.

The company was therefore looking for ways to improve and accelerate its induction programme, and bring more engagement to its health and safety initiatives—whilst reducing the overall cost of its recruitment and training programmes.

3.2 The Solution

In 2017, the company embarked on a full programme of inter-linked initiatives, including:

  • A revamped approach to training—with an early emphasis on health and safety, plenty of re-fresher opportunities, a determination to invest in the latest technologies, and an aim to transfer the ethos of on-the-job training to a classroom environment.

  • An innovative wellbeing programme—which emphasises the ‘health’ in health and safety, and includes a new mobile app, that requires operational staff to log how they are feeling before the start of their respective shifts.

  • A new professional development programme—called Pathway to Success, to provide a fair and transparent pay structure, with full job checklists for every role, which enables employees to take more control of their own career progression.

As part of this wider programme of initiatives, Lanes convinced Thames Water to co-invest in an Igloo Shared VR system, in the form of a custom-built 7-metre Igloo Vision projection cylinder. Installed in its Customer Solutions Centre in Slough, this was to play a central role in the revamped approach to training.

3.3 Details of the Igloo Shared VR System

An Igloo Shared VR system is an all-in-one immersive technology solution, comprising of the 360° structure, the screens, the projectors, the servers, and the media player.

Systems come in various shapes and sizes, and range in capacity from teams of two-or-three people, right up to audiences of several hundred. The common denominator across all Igloo systems is the Igloo Media Player, the software that powers the system by:

  • Ingesting any immersive VR or 360° content

  • Distributing it via a series of ultra-high-definition channels

  • Re-combining them into one seamless 360° edge-blended projection

Lanes wanted to accommodate groups of up to 15 people, so specified a 7-metre cylinder.

3.4 Why Lanes Was Attracted by Shared VR

Lanes had considered the use of immersive technology in its revamped approach to training, but was put off by the solitary nature of VR headsets. By contrast, a Shared VR approach presented several potential benefits:

  • Sharing the experience

    Lanes wanted to retain the ethos of on-the-job training, but without the attendant risks and inefficiencies. In particular, the company wanted a way to combine immersive technology with more traditional instructor-led training, enabling instructors to adapt sessions as necessary, and draw on the team dynamic, including:

    • Facilitating group discussions

    • Pointing-out potential hazards

    • Making eye contact

    • Reading body language

    • Seeing what everyone else is looking at

    • Arriving at a consensus opinion

    Lanes believed that, with Shared VR, it would be possible to immerse trainees in true-to-life scenarios, whilst still retaining the group dynamic.

  • Incorporating field equipment

    As part of the induction process, Lanes needed to introduce new recruits to the type of equipment they would be using in the field, such as protective clothing, specialist tools, and safety monitoring equipment (such as hazardous gas detection units).

    Using Shared VR it would still be possible for participants to see, carry, and use the same equipment they would have with them in the field.

  • Working with several types of immersive content

    Lanes could see an opportunity to work with a wide variety of immersive content, starting with basic films and, over time, incorporating more sophisticated content. For example:

    • Display standard 360° videos

    • Develop its own interactive 360° training content

    • Incorporate conventional presentation tools (like PowerPoint)

    • Explore the potential for the gamification of training

The content-agnostic nature of the Igloo system, and its ability to integrate with game engine-based content, made all of this possible.

3.5 How Shared VR Was Integrated into the Training Programmes

Lanes established a long-term content strategy for Shared VR. The intention was to start out with simple 360° video (to get the team accustomed to the system), then begin to explore the wider potential of the technology and introduce more opportunities for interaction.

This has included:

  • The “wow” video

    Lanes started by commissioning a high-impact 360° video, complete with spatial-surround sound, to introduce people to the scale and nature of the Thames Water wastewater operations, and some of the typical maintenance tasks. Intended primarily for prospective field engineers, this is also a useful resource for scheduling and planning representatives (so they better understand the work of their colleagues), and other stakeholders (such as Thames Water representatives, and other visitors to the Lanes offices).

  • The permutations

    Lanes invested in its own 360° camera and editing software. And its inhouse team has created around 40 different training scenarios. These are used for specific training modules, to give new recruits an in-depth introduction to the type of environments they will work in, the challenges they may face, and the remedies they will need to apply.

    These scenarios are also used for refresher training among more established employees. This helps Lanes to continually emphasise reinforce its commitment to Health and Safety, and to provide a mechanism for transferring skills and knowledge from highly experienced engineers to younger counterparts.

    With so many scenarios available to them, training leaders are able to assemble bespoke programmes, and also to link them together using conventional presentation tools (like PowerPoint).

  • The gamification

    Most recently, Lanes has worked with Myriad Global Media to develop a fully-interactive mixed reality training application.

    Again, the aim is for an instructor-led session, and for a group of employees to participate. VR gameplay is introduced by using VR controllers. The application takes employees through a complete call-out scenario, and enables them to interact at each stage, including:

    • Initial customer call into contact centre agents

    • Assigning jobs to field operations employees

    • Carrying out vehicle and equipment safety checks

    • Complete tasks safely and successfully to solve a sewer flooding issue

    • Report back to a technical specialist to close the job

The system requires each user to log in, entering their employee identification number, so all actions can be tracked via background analytics. This enables Lanes to track the progress of individual employees and highlight any areas of training that people struggle with.

3.6 Evaluating the Impact

The programme of initiatives enjoyed considerable success. And the Lanes team believes that the approach to training, with the Shared VR component as its centre-piece, made a strong contribution.

Highlights include:

  • 57% reduction in employee attrition—a key consideration given the competitive employment market, which makes a significant contribution to the company’s overall operational efficiency and effectiveness.

  • 9% reduction in employee feelings of unhappiness—employees are actively encouraged to seek support that may improve their feelings of wellbeing, including the option of further training.

  • £1 million reduction in overall recruitment and training costs—a significant bottom-line saving that more than compensates for the relatively modest costs of the Shared VR system and content

Also, on each visit to the training centre, employees are asked to evaluate their experience, leading to a net promoter score (NPS) of 89%.

With the introduction of the gamification initiatives, Lanes is also considering how best to formally evaluate the respective modules and calculate the return on investment—in order to provide a strong business rationale for the creation of further modules.

4 Feedback from End Users

The Shared VR system is deemed a definite success for Lanes. It is thought to have contributed to the improvement in employee retention, and the reduction in overall training and recruitment costs. And, as the centre-piece of the company’s training centre, it has a strong impact on its net promoter score (of 89%).

To help evaluate the attitude of users and plan for future content, focus group research was also conducted. The response was very positive, as per the indicative comments below:

Table 1
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Meanwhile, feedback from leaders includes:

The Igloo acts like a giant virtual reality headset. Up to 15 people can receive sewer maintenance training that’s as life-like as possible, without them getting their feet wet.

Andy Brierly, Director, Lanes Utilities.

Traditionally, staff induction and training involved recruits doing a lot of sitting and being presented to. The Igloo breaks that mould. It brings wastewater training into the twenty-first Century, and is perfect for the millennial generation, brought up on gaming and digital TV.

Mark Grimshaw, Head of Wastewater Networks North London, Thames Water.

5 Future Outlook/Roadmap

For the future, the aim is to continue to supplement the existing content, especially the new gamification content, by progressively adding in more scenarios and responding to emerging priorities (such as a new initiative to minimise the risks of pollution in watercourses, emergency response training, and new guidance from the Health & Safety Executive regarding the reduction of risk in temporary traffic management operations).

The long-term aim is to produce some 10–15 gamified training modules, and for them to be introduced at the rate of two-to-three a year. Also, the use of the system will be extended from awareness-building in the induction of new employees to competency-based assessments for more established employees.

The key point is that Shared VR will be deeply integrated into the way the company trains its employees, and that the content is continually added to and refreshed. This means that employees stay engaged, the team dynamic is always drawn-upon, and training managers are able to specify new content and address any learning gaps.

6 Conclusion

Although part of a wider programme of initiatives, it is thought that the use of Shared VR made a significant contribution to the overall success—and, particularly, the high Net Promoter Score (NPS) of the training centre.

From the Igloo Vision perspective there were five key factors that contributed to the success of the Shared VR deployment:

  1. 1.1.

    Success Factor #1: A solution to an existing problem

    • Delivering the right type of training to new recruits had always presented a dilemma to Lanes. Before they are allowed to enter potentially hazardous situations, team members need extensive training. Yet, until they have direct experience of such situations, it is almost impossible to appreciate the true nature of their new role. So, to get past this catch-22, Lanes wanted a way to immerse people in life-like scenarios as part of their induction.

    • By solving this dilemma, Shared VR delivered tangible value, and Lanes has benefitted from more effective training and improved retention of new recruits.

  2. 1.2.

    Success Factor #2: A commitment to training

    • When it first took delivery of its Shared VR system, Lanes put its key Igloo operators through an extensive training programme. So, from day-one, they understood the capabilities of the system and how to get the best out of it.

    • With a cadre of power users, Lanes has an on-site team of Shared VR experts, who act as rainmakers and trouble-shooters for the wider team.

  3. 1.3.

    Success Factor #3: A senior-level evangelist

    • From the outset, a member of the Lanes executive team (the Technical Director) was a strong advocate of Shared VR. In particular, he was keen to talk publicly and passionately about the business rationale for Shared VR and the benefits it could bring.

    • Senior-level support secured plenty of visibility for the Shared VR system via social media, traditional media, and internal communications channels.

  4. 1.4.

    Success Factor #4: Tight integration into wider processes and workflows

    • The Shared VR system is used as the centre-piece of the Lanes induction programme, which is mandatory for all new recruits. It is woven into the fabric of this programme, so is used on an everyday basis. And it has subsequently been used for on-going training requirements.

    • Shared VR is not an add-on. It is an intrinsic part of the way the company trains its people.

  5. 1.5.

    Success Factor #5: A long-term content strategy

    • At the outset, the company commissioned a basic yet high-impact 360° training film, to give new recruits a sense of what it is like to work within the wastewater network. From here, it plotted-out around 40 different interactive training programmes. It went on to develop complete VR training ‘games’. And has a full roadmap of future enhancements.

    • The company has a disciplined approach to content creation. Starting with a basic film, and moving on incrementally, it has been able to apply its learnings. And, with a steady-stream of new content coming online, there is plenty to keep the teams interested and engaged.