Awarded
Best Collaborative Partnership
Best eLearning Design (Game or Simulation)
Training. It’s vitally important for Westpac. It underpins the operations of Australia’s first bank and is critical to exceeding customers’ expectations. But it’s rarely undertaken with relish. FIRST’s Spider@Westpac e-learning solution changes that.
Possibly the biggest challenge was to create training with the wow factor in an area that is complex and not, in itself, very exciting!
We set ourselves the ambitious goal of creating a fun learning experience that was highly focussed on the learning goal – to complete all the modules and practice what you’ve learned in the safe, simulated Sandpit environment.
We looked to the world of gaming and free-play environments that use layers of interaction that can be turned on or off by the user. This gave us a base simulator with layers of guided learning and feedback.
If the user wanted to simply practice using the software, they could do so without any intervention from the learning system. They could also choose to step through the standard guided learning modules, or practice using the software via two modes of guided learning with step by step guidance, or intervention only if mistakes were made.
We “virtualised” real world transactions alongside the simulated software and the guided (avatar) learning layer to give the user the feeling of real world processes. Customer imagery and animations for cash counting, printing and paperwork, along with outputs mimicking real paperwork, lent a sense of authenticity to the application.
The result?
Staff and management love it. It’s fun to use; it improves training and provides a foundation for future training requirements. With impressive results including 7256 staff trained in 18 weeks, the implementation was one of Westpac’s largest training roll out ever.