A major international Oil and Gas company approached us to deliver a training course to their staff to help develop their structure for preparing and responding to emergencies.

The training aimed to reinforce the role of the logistics section of the Global Emergency Management Team and how it would integrate with affiliates during an incident. The company wanted to get the team out of their comfort zone, and we decided we thought it would benefit them to see how well they would respond in a foreign country and a different time zone and see how they would work together under those circumstances. They were a relatively newly assembled team that had undergone several personnel changes, so they needed to assess the knowledge gaps that needed filling and ensure the training met their needs.

The company requested our help based on previous training they had completed with us, our reputation for providing high-impact delivery, and our knowledge of the logistics chain in response.

We invited the team to our UK base in Southampton to deliver scenario-based training using a number of different scenarios (oil spill and non-oil spill) based on the client’s global operations and risks during the week-long course. Our previous training and extent of knowledge and experience was part of the attraction of coming over to our UK base from their site in the US.

In Southampton, the delegates on our training course had access to more experts across the five-day training program than any other of our bases worldwide. Our trainers were able to delve deeper into how this team managed, mobilised and de-mobilised under a response scenario.

Alongside the scenario-based training, we taught a mental skills toolkit to help delegates perform more effectively in high pressure situations. The personnel participating in this training were not responders in their day-to-day roles; therefore, this extra training would also add value to their jobs when they went back to their company offices.

We incorporate adult learning principles into all training design and execution. Our training is highly interactive, experiential, and enjoyable, creating the optimum learning and engaging environment.

The five-day logistics training covered different topics and elements of emergency management; this is how the week was broken down:

• Monday – Participant and trainer introductions, OSRL context, and company we were working with. A look at the core principles of Incident Management System and the Logistics Team.
• Tuesday – Oil Spill Response fundamentals, surface response equipment familiarisation, a look at the mobilisation timeline using a scenario bespoke to the company.
• Wednesday – An in-depth look at shoreline response and a session on other non-oil spill scenarios, staging areas included a warehouse show and tell and classroom sessions, a show and tell on wildlife response equipment, and an overview of how oiled wildlife response would be managed and a look at vessel requirements.
• Thursday – Dispersants – key issues relating to dispersants mobilisation and maintaining supply chain, familiarisation with subsea equipment with detailed explanation of mobilisation options.
• Friday – Integrating with partners/vendors with an overview of key organisations involved in mobilisation and response supply chain, readiness essentials from experience, overview of potential response scenarios bespoke to the company – including non-oil-spill events and summary session to consolidate key learnings.

Throughout the week, we facilitated the group's formation as a team, and the development of forming as a team and coming up with their own action plan. The team enjoyed the week, and getting to know the individuals and recognise their roles, allowed us to understand better the company we were working with and develop relationships with the team for future response and training needs.

The training was a great way of demonstrating the flexibility and depth of our courses. We offer high-impact, bespoke training using our experts and display versatility and proficiency around logistics in particular; we are the only organisation to give that level of expertise and quality in a training scenario of this standard.