Frisky Mongoose

Over the next 5 years, United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) estimates that it will need to hire 25,000 new drivers to replace retiring employees. All of these will be trained using UPS Integrad, a 3 to 6 week multi-media training “boot camp” located outside of Washington, D.C. The training facility uses videogames, 3D simulations, webcasts, and a replica outdoor city to instruct recruits in the company’s “340 methods”. One of the videogames tests the user’s ability to find sales leads for UPS by identifying competitors’ packages in a virtual environment.

Since the majority of driver recruits are in their twenties, UPS collaborated with MIT, Virginia Tech, and the Institute of the Future to study how young people in the smart phone and videogame generation learn best. The experiment began in 2007, and according to Yahoo Finance only 10% of the trainees who have completed Integrad since then have failed training. Integrad is identified by UPS as a “high-tech, next-generation training facility”.

So the next time you encounter your local UPS driver, you have one more thing to connect with him or her on: videogames.

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