Virtual Reality Safety Training: Being Site Safe in VR

Virtual Reality's ability to simulate risky and dangerous situations is among one of its most lauded and leveraged advantages, especially when it comes to training. Surgeons regularly train in VR so they don't operate on real, living human beings. Pilots use flight simulators to eliminate the risk of making mistakes in a flying, moving aircraft.

Now, in partnership with Site Safe and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), construction workers in New Zealand and all over the world can undergo health and safety training in Virtual Reality - plus get the certifications they need to validate and demonstrate their competency!

Why use Virtual Reality for health and safety training?

There are three main reasons why industry looked to Virtual Reality technology as one of its many efforts to improve health and safety standards all over the country: (1) it eliminates training risks, (2) VR delivers consistent training content and high learning outcomes, and (3) it provides accurate and reliable verification of competency.

1. Eliminates training risks. Similar to the medical and aviary industries, Virtual Reality creates safe, simulated environments for providing health and safety training in construction. VR eliminates the need for organizations to take untrained staff onto the work site and prevents staff from using potentially dangerous equipment before they receive proper training.
2. Consistent training and high learning outcomes. Using VR as a training modality ensures consistency in training content. It minimises and/or eliminates training bias as well as external distractions common in traditional or even e-learning spaces, keeping learners engaged and laser focused on the content to ensure high learning outcomes.
3. Verifies competency. With the SkillsVR training platform, organisations can rest assured that learning outcomes are automatically logged through Learning Records. This automated competency log powers our ability to accurately verify competency and provide skills certification for the Site Safe Foundation Passport.

What does health and safety training look like in VR?

The SkillsVR Site Safe Foundation Passport module takes learners from both civil and building industries through basic health and safety concepts. This includes:

• the importance of health and safety,
• correct personal protective equipment (PPE),
• hazard identification and control, i.e. preparing the site to be safe for work, and
• mental health in the workplace, including stress, fatigue, and bullying.

SkillsVR and MSD recently launched the Site Safe VR module at the VR Job Expo in Blenheim, where a dozen job seekers earned their Site Safe Foundation Passport in VR on the day - a first for the country!

One industry leader shared how reassuring it felt to know that their staff understood the training and could apply their learnings: "The VR course assessment now gives us a competency rating before we put them out on site."

Improving the health and safety culture in construction

In the last 3 years, New Zealand recorded 31 work-related fatalities in the construction industry and over 1,800 cases of injury, illness, and serious harm in the same time period. In 2020, Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), spent $153 million to support the 48,650 injured construction workers that year, and construction sites became the deadliest workplaces after agriculture, forestry, and fishing.

In an industry that relies heavily on the human body's ability to work embedded in a "She'll be right" Kiwi culture, changing the way we view health and safety will be a huge shift - but one that's well worth the effort to ensure all workers can get home to their families safely.

To learn more about the SkillsVR Site Safe module or to schedule a demo, get in touch with our team today!