Interplay Learning — Helping the Skilled Trades Rebuild a Bigger and Better Workforce
By Sam Decker, Board Member, Interplay Learning
Big Problems, Big Solutions
The last 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged businesses and organizations like never before.
While some companies have remained transfixed, allowing external events to shape and define them, others have stepped up to the plate — realizing that big problems require big solutions defined by creativity, ingenuity and a passionate belief that out of hardship comes opportunity.
One such company is Austin-based start-up Interplay Learning, the leading global provider of online and VR training for the essential skilled trades — covering technician training for HVAC, plumbing, facilities maintenance, electrical and solar.
Interplay’s online learning platform, SkillMill™, has been instrumental for hundreds of companies over the last year, recently earning the company three honorable mentions from Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards for its Command Center platform feature.
More than 4,000 companies worldwide applied for the awards, which are designed to honor those committed to solving some of the world’s biggest challenges, including health and climate crises, social injustice and economic inequality. Here’s Interplay’s story and the impact it has made.
Exposing a Fault Line
COVID-19, and the new reality of working from home, couldn’t have come at a worse time for the skilled trades. It exposed a fault in the cumbersome apprenticeship route to being job-ready — lasting between one and six years and requiring a lot of on-site training. This also came at a time of a growing skills gap with not enough skilled trades specialists to meet the huge demand, despite high unemployment levels due to the pandemic.
The skilled trades industry needed to do two things quickly — dramatically accelerate time from apprenticeship to being job-ready and increase the attractiveness of skilled trades careers. The industry and all the beneficiaries of it — any home or business with HVAC, plumbing and electrical needs — depended on these two changes being implemented rapidly, as did the wider economy and job market.
Quickly Growing a Scalable, Highly Skilled Workforce
Interplay Learning’s technology-based learning innovations, such as 3D simulations, virtual reality (VR) and gamification have been meaningful change agents for the skilled trades.
At the center of this technology is Command Center, as recognized by Fast Company — a customizable dashboard that provides a comprehensive, at-a-glance view into an HVAC, plumbing or electrical technician’s skill level, training progress and field-readiness, enabling companies to send the right tech on the right job, the first time.
Using Interplay’s solutions during the pandemic, workforce development organizations were able to collectively and quickly grow a highly skilled workforce at scale through an immersive learning experience that was fully remote.
Better Careers, Better Lives
Skilled trades specialists can be performing crucial, customer-facing roles within months through an attractive and accessible career pathway — leading the way to Interplay’s own ethos, “better careers, better lives.”
Interplay is already having a significant impact on businesses and organizations looking to emerge stronger from the pandemic.
Take local labor union UA 137 which represents workers in the HVAC, plumbing and pipefitting industries. Training Coordinator, Andy Fuchs said, “The first-rate instructional design of Interplay’s training has increased training commitment and engagement at every stage of learning. UA Local 137 is now able to funnel far more quality professionals into the industry, hugely benefiting contractor relationships.”
It’s a similar story at Campus Apartments, one of the U.S.’s largest providers of on- and off-campus student housing. According to Michael Lewis, Director of Facilities, “COVID took over and changed the way we deployed maintenance training across the entire organization. From regionals to HR to technology, our departments all came together to push out Interplay Learning’s program company-wide.”
Delivering Training to the Underserved
Delivering training to the right people, and in particular to underserved populations, is also a key part of Interplay’s mission. The company frequently works with non-profit organizations to provide safe, interactive training to community members looking to launch or advance their careers.
Interplay recently partnered with the Goodwill Construction Skills Training Center, an organization that helps people in the Charlotte, North Carolina community access high-potential, family-sustaining skilled trade careers at no cost to them.
They also work closely with the Home Builders Institute (HBI)’s nationwide workforce development program.
Ed Brady, President and CEO of the HBI said, “Our pilot program with Interplay was a huge success. As we move forward, we’re confident that we’re delivering the highest quality, blended-learning solution for our users, to prepare them for a successful new lifetime career in the skilled trades.”
Throughout history, crises have accelerated trends already underway. With the pandemic having been incredibly challenging on numerous levels for so many people nationwide and worldwide, Interplay Learning is humbled that it is playing a role in meeting the challenges of delivering the job-ready skilled trades workforce of the future, and ensuring that the industry and society as a whole rebuilds bigger and better.
