The United Parcel Service is turning to videogames as a method of training new driver candidates.
UPS selected interactive training in a bid to cut down on a failure rate of 30.0 percent among potential hires under traditional training methods, reports the Wall Street Journal. The training is conducted in a facility outside of Washington D.C. where attendees are taught to shave precious seconds off of a variety of daily routines related to delivering packages.
Interactive training ranges from a videogame that “places them in the driver's seat and has them identify obstacles,” to a PC-based simulation called “Clarksville,” which features “a village of miniature houses and faux businesses on the property where they [trainees] drive a real truck and must successfully execute five deliveries in 19 minutes.”
Trainees are also taught to “wear keys on their ring fingers to avoid wasting time searching for them.”
The new methods, designed by UPS and researchers from Virginia Tech, have apparently worked, as the number of those flunking the training has dropped by two-thirds, to 10.0 percent.
The training area which teaches UPS employees how to thoroughly destroy a package was not mentioned in the article.
