BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#learning--IHRDC recently delivered two major virtual learning programs for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) – a two-week program for 400 Management Graduate Trainees and an eight-week program for 650 Technical Graduate Trainees.

The need was stated by Fatima Suraj Yakubu, NNPC’s General Manager Talent, “We have 1,050 recent graduates, isolated at home because of Covid.19, who need to develop strong backgrounds in job-related oil and gas industry topics. We asked IHRDC, with its broad learning resources and strong background in virtual learning, to join us in the challenge and, together, we satisfied every aspect of our needs and translated NNPC’s vision for Young Graduate Development to reality.”

All 1,050 attended the first two-week program together. It was devoted to the commercial and technical fundamentals of the oil and gas value chain, both upstream and downstream, and an NNPC-selected set of soft skills.

Blended forms of learning were used to maintain a high level of interest during the six-hour daily sessions. They included lectures and discussion sessions by experienced specialists, team-based assignments in the Sandland Petroleum Simulation and the development of a Petroleum Industry Board Game for Nigeria. All content was delivered through the IHRDC Learning Portal.

The IHRDC team of faculty and mentors presented the content along with NNPC HR and IT specialists who maintained flawless communications with all Trainees using Microsoft Teams collaboration platform for individual and the team sessions. The 105 teams were divided into five groups each with their own dedicated mentors to answer questions and support the teams as they analyzed and solved their Petroleum Project Simulation and Board Game assignments.

The participants were highly impressed with design and delivery of the program using statements like “Impactful and insightful journey”, “thrilling”, “superb”, “excellent”, and “essential” in the post-program survey. One of the hundreds of comments included “This training was an eye opener from the board games to the simulation to the lectures. Simply excellent!”

The initial two-week program was followed by a six-week, virtual program for the 650 NNPC Technical Graduate Trainees. It was designed around an extensive list of topics identified by NNPC devoted to in-depth technical fundamentals and applications along the oil and gas value chain.

The blended learning format for these sessions was designed to be engaging and incorporate individual and team activities and presentations. It included two lecture and discussion sessions per day, case studies, e-Learning, on-point readings, and, of greatest value, unique team-based assignments that IHRDC specialists developed for each topic and for which the teams prepared and delivered presentations.

Participant responses to this program were also very strong. The first response received and shown below was typical:

“This program is the perfect springboard for a successful career in the oil and gas industry. The lectures, team assignments and discussion were perfectly tailored to stimulate the creative thinking of participants. Quality of lectures as well as tutors is nothing short of outstanding.”

On the last day of the program, Dr. David Donohue, President of IHRDC, was heard to say “There are days when you simply want to shout as loud as you can for joy! That happened to me today. This program, in all its aspects, has been revolutionary in scope, format, delivery and effectiveness. It was innovative and engaging with so many people working together to learn as much as they could to prepare themselves for challenging careers ahead!”

About IHRDC:

International Human Resources Development Corporation (www.ihrdc.com) has been a global leader in training and competency management for the oil and gas industry for more than 50 years. It offers the best Instructional Programs, e-Learning and Knowledge Solutions, and Competency Management products and services available to the industry today. The company is headquartered in Boston, USA with offices in Houston, London, Amsterdam, Abu Dhabi, Kuala Lumpur, and Lagos.

Kathleen McDonnell, IHRDC This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.