Providing Petrobras with a flexible language training solution

“I live in another city and work at a refinery and also on location on oil platforms. Therefore, I regard this (training program) as one of the best resources available at my company in terms of personal development.”

Julio Field Engineer, Petrobras

Background

Petrobras is one of the fifteen largest oil companies in the world. The company employs more than 40,000 people at its 16 refineries, 115 oil tankers, 96 oil platforms and 40 administrative sites. With operational activities or offices in 23 countries, the global nature of the oil industry requires that nearly all Petrobras employees – from machine operators to geologists – speak English.

The company estimates that more than 60% of all work-related activities require English knowledge. Facing the challenge of delivering a training program that would encompass their worldwide operations, Petrobras needed a way to move successfully beyond geographic restrictions to provide employees necessary English skills.

Execution

Petrobras’ oil platform employees work on location for 14 days straight before returning home for 21 days. Petrobras found that for many employee groups, traditional English training programs were not flexible enough to fit this schedule. Since helicopters are the only way to reach 80 of the 96 platforms and only registered employees are allowed on site, it was decided that online training was the best solution. EF Corporate Language Training worked with Petrobras Corporate University to implement online training for oil platform workers. Employees are able to access online English courses whenever it’s convenient for them from both their workstations on the platforms, and their personal computers at home.

Benefit

EF Corporate Language Training succeeded at providing Petrobras a complete solution for their language training needs where traditional providers had previously failed. Petrobras employees – both on oil rigs and in offices – have given EF excellent ratings for service quality and value. Over 93% of the employees said that they had improved their English language skills with EF. In addition 96% of the employees said that online training was the type of learning most suited to them. Close teamwork with clients like Petrobras enable EF Corporate Language Training to identify unique needs and deliver the best possible solutions to our clients.

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