In today’s world, health and safety at work have become ubiquitous across many organizational structures. In the midst of emerging best technologies and important business processes, it can be obvious that EHS practices might get overlooked. In this blog, we will look into What is EHS? And how we can use cutting edge technologies like XR for enhancing EHS Training.

What is EHS?

EHS or HSE or ESH is an abbreviation for Environmental, Health and Safety. In other words, ESH is a directive deployed by the organizations to ensure the overall safety of the workers and their surroundings. Each acronym in ESH has its own significance in the workplace.

Environmental over here means scrutinizing the physical surrounding in which an employee works to achieve the desired result expected by the management. For example, identifying and taking necessary actions in case of unexpected chemical spills and leaks.

The World Health Organization defined health “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity.” Health in an organization means advocating and setting standard operating procedures for the workers to mitigate or eliminate the injuries that workers might experience while working.

Safety in an organization means good working conditions and a protected atmosphere where workers can work without any fear of getting injured.

Let’s understand a bit about how it started and how emerging tools like XR can address challenges in EHS Training.

How it all started?

The shift from agriculture to industrialization marked the reorganization of the economy and the need for heavy equipment and labour-intensive work to produce goods and services. Over and above, the negligence of safety measures and precautions led to some of the most disastrous industrial events like Bhopal Gas Tragedy and Chernobyl Accident 1986 which led to the establishment of private and government industrial safety and health standards like OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and Environment Protection Act (1986).

How new-age technologies like XR can be beneficial in EHS Training?

XR or Extended Reality refers to the amalgamation of all real and virtual worlds combined. It comprises Desktop Simulation, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality and 360-degree videos.

It is inevitable that employees are the most important asset to the company, and more than their professional and personal growth, the company should be investing in their overall well-being and safety. The rapid growth of industrialization and urbanization brought attention to the workplace and workers safety along with industry based occupational safety training. However, the traditional safety training method is still solely based on manuals, textbooks, videos which aren’t sufficient to make workers lifelong learners. Over here, XR technology can play an important role in imparting EHS training to employees on the shop floor.

Immersive technologies like VR provide immersive experiences that can lead to better memory retention, according to the results of a 2018 study published in the journal Virtual Reality. Researchers from the University of Maryland asked participants to remember the locations of famous faces in two virtual locations: a room in a palace and a medieval town. The participants used a desktop computer and a VR head-mounted display while going through the exercises. When using the VR headset, the participants had a nearly 9% higher overall recall accuracy compared with using the computer.

The XR based EHS training module developed by Simulanis are generic learning modules of equipment and practices across industries like Pharmaceutical, Oil and Gas, Automotive, and Automation. It consists of realistic, interactive, and engaging Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Desktop Simulations. The XR content libraries play a pivotal role in skilling, re-skilling, and up-skilling employees and fostering industrial value chain, including training, maintenance, and operations.

The benefits of Simulanis XR based EHS Training modules

Training the learners on the basics of Environment, Health and Safety and how they could safeguard themselves when faced with unsafe and dangerous situations at work such as fire and other hazards.

Workers can make mistakes virtually and it doesn’t cost money or life-threatening risks. Through our applications, users get a ‘simulated’ experience of different situations and circumstances, along with the know-how of preventing accidents and learning how to respond to dangerous situations.

The technology is proven to give higher retention since workers learn things by doing themselves. According to Dale’s cone, people generally remember 90% of what they do which gives higher retention.