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Producing Confidence
EP 9: Develop U - How Danos is Revolutionizing Employee Training
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Ever wondered what it takes to transform from a deck hand chipping paint into a skilled production operator on an offshore platform? The journey might be shorter than you think.
Meet Billy Bedsole, the first graduate of Danos' Develop U program. Billy shares his firsthand experience navigating the program, from initial competency assessments to mastering complex technical skills through cutting-edge virtual reality simulations.
Are you a Danos employee looking to advance your career? Reach out to your account manager or project manager to learn how you can take ownership of your professional development journey.
Hello everyone . I'm Samantha McGee , your host for today's episode , and today we are going to talk about the Danos Develop U program . We have a few guests joining me today . First in studio with me is account manager Rocky Keefe Keefe Do I say that right , keefe ? And online we're joined by training manager Mark Theriault , along with production operator Billy Bedsoul . And thanks for joining me today . Gentlemen , billy , you're the program's first graduate , correct ?
Introducing Danos Develop U Program
Speaker 2Yes , ma'am , that's what I've been told .
Speaker 1Congrats , that's really great . So first I guess , Mark , can you tell us what is the Develop U program ?
Speaker 3So the Develop ? U program is an employee development initiative that is centered around three core objectives One , we want to support individual growth by promoting and providing educational resources that build competencies and promote employee career progression . Two , we want to provide evidence-based development to support career advancement opportunities within Danos and with our customers as well . And then , lastly , we'd like to enhance customer service , which is part of our values , by developing highly competent and adaptable employees . We designed DevelopU to equip employees with knowledge , skills and abilities needed to perform job functions safely , efficiently and at a high standard of excellence .
Speaker 1Got it so ? Essentially , it's a program that employees can go through to develop themselves and learn a little bit more about their trade . Is that right ?
Speaker 3That's correct , either their trade or something else that they may be interested in advancing to you know another career opportunity or another craft . Advancing to you know another career opportunity or another craft .
Speaker 1Got it , and when did the program start ?
Speaker 3So the program started . I'll go all the way back to 10 to 11 years ago . You know we started noticing that our customers , as well as our employees , were asking for new opportunities to learn and grow , and so we started developing things a long time ago , years ago . And you know we've gotten better over the years and our program has advanced in ways that , with technology , you know at that . So you know , in short , you know we started a long time ago trying to
Origins and Evolution of Develop U
Speaker 3satisfy the needs of our customers and our employees , and today it all came together when we started an initiative called Project 42 . And I think Rocky may be able to add a little bit more about Project 42 .
Speaker 4Right . So I was initially brought on into the fold about February of 24 . And I was tasked with , they said , we have this competency program . It's something that we've tried to take off the ground in the past and it just it never made it to fruition . So they asked me to put together a group and see what we could do about fully developing the program . You know , using Mark's expertise and getting together and sort of ironing out all the ways that we could get this delivered , make it attractive to the employee . Who we would involve ? Who would it be available to ? Michael Higgs and a few others . And we started ironing out details . How would we start ? Who would it be available to ?
Speaker 1And who is it available to ?
Speaker 4So as of right now I guess we can call it sort of in the pilot stage Right now it's available to production operators in the Gulf of America . We're hoping that we'll be able to expand that to other crafts and maybe other areas . But I think we're taking it slowly to where we want to see how employees are engaging , if they're completing the program . What do they feel about it , if there's anything we could make better before we rule it out completely , but so far it's been a great success and we're very happy with it . That's awesome .
Speaker 1So when did the I guess you know pilot program , when did it officially roll out ?
Speaker 4So that would have been March 1st of this year . Okay , great so we worked quite a while perfecting it to make sure that it was attractive to the employee because , in all honesty , it's a proactive approach . Right , the employee has to volunteer to essentially do more . Right , they're doing this outside of their normal work scope , their normal work training , so it's something that is for the proactive approach , the person who's looking to take that step in advance right , and gain more knowledge in advance , rather than just what's required of them .
Speaker 3Yeah , I would add that you know , like 10 or 11 years ago , you know , over the last 10 or 11 years I should say we built all of the pieces and parts for this program . But in the last six to eight months or so I would say that we put all of these parts together and started building an actual machine . Right , employees would be proud to be a part of something that they would be interested in , something that can give them some real educational resources to help advance their careers . And , like Rocky said , a lot of the program's intention is for the employee to have the initiative to do this on their own . This is done in an employee's spare time . It's voluntary . This is done in employees' spare time . It's voluntary . It's something that they want to or they have to do when they want to do it . It's not something that we are trying to push on them or anything like that . It's just something that they have to have the want to and the initiative to be intentional about growing and progressing their career .
Speaker 1Got it . And , billy , how did you hear about the program ?
Speaker 2I believe it was around like February . In February , I received an email from my project manager , blake Westerman , detailing some of the things that it would require of me and I myself I'm just . I like learning things . I'm very curious person and I thought it was very interesting , but I received an email , for it's the way I saw anything about it .
Speaker 1Got it and so it just attracted you , because you know you like learning and you wanted to further your knowledge . Is that right ?
Billy's Experience as First Graduate
Speaker 2Yes , ma'am , that is correct .
Speaker 1So can you tell us about your experience ? What happened next ?
Speaker 2Well , obviously I reached out to my project manager and expressed how I was interested in it and he got me in touch with me too for starting the program . And once I got into it they sent me to one of the Danos HQs to go through an in-person basically just competency scoring to see what I do when I don't know , based on my position as a C operator and anything that I happened to be lacking in or didn't understand at all . They gave me some extra learning tools through YALSA's Stelma website , an ICANN training and once going through all that and learning some more , I had a secondary competency training just to make sure I actually understood the material that I was at first missing and passing through that .
Speaker 1Got it . So did you do like besides the in-person stuff , is it all ? You did some online courses , is that right ?
Speaker 2Yes , ma'am , anything that I happened to not score a three on it , they rank it between one and three . Anything that did not happen to score a three on , they had specialized training modules for it through ICANN .
Speaker 1Got it , and so Rocky . Other than being a production operator in the Gulf , are there any other specific requirements that employees need to meet ?
Speaker 4Yes , so you'll have to have completed your short service employee section of your employment with Danos . So anybody within the first six months of employment with Danos is considered a short service employee . So once that program is completed and you're a production operator , anybody is available able to enter into this program . Who has the proactive initiative ?
Speaker 1Got it . And so , Billy , you started out as a C operator , is that right ?
Speaker 2Well , I started out my career offshore as a roustabout , actually chipping and painting on our platform .
Speaker 1Very good , and so now you're a C operator and the idea is that you're working towards that next step .
Speaker 2Yes , ma'am , I'm doing my best as I can .
Speaker 1And what's the next step for those of us who are not as versed in the progression ?
Speaker 2Preferably being promoted up to a B operator and making my way even further up to an A , and from there there's different opportunities from what I've heard . I'm not the most knowledgeable on where to go from there exactly , but from my position , going up to a B operator would be my next step exactly , but from my position , going up to a B operator would be my next step .
Speaker 1That's awesome , and so do you feel like this . The program has really kind of equipped you or given the tools or skills that you might need to work your way there , I believe .
Speaker 2so , at minimum , I did learn some things that I did need to know , specifically about my platform that I happen to not know . So I feel like , if anything , it has at least aided me in getting there .
Speaker 1Very good , and I guess either Rocky or Mark . Are there incentives other than you know the personal and professional development ? Are there any other incentives for employees to participate in the program ? Are there ?
Speaker 4any other incentives for employees to participate in the program . Well , from my end and Mark might have something in addition but for the value , it shows the customer that the employee has taken the initiative . While it doesn't guarantee promotion , it shows it and we do share this information with the customer on the back end or during the process , and they can request information because we track different KPIs and different parts of the progress to where , if the customer is involved , we're able to let them know hey , this employee is doing this to better themselves and I think in the long run it shows the initiative , it shows the quality of employee , it shows the improvement and we're hoping it's just an early step to where the customer sees the value , to where it'll maybe fast track promotion .
Speaker 1And speaking of values , how does the program tie into Danos' values ?
Speaker 4Well , obviously , one value being improvement , one value being service . So I mean we're here to service a customer , also with our purpose right to develop great people . And how better to develop great people than a program called Develop you right and with improvement ? We're constantly trying to be better every day , and this
Program Requirements and Incentives
Speaker 4is just yet another way an employee could do that . I've spoken with another employee who's currently about to finish the program under one of my accounts and he was talking to me about how some of the knowledge he obtained from it . He was thinking that it would be a little bit more mundane , it wouldn't be as in-depth , that this would be just sort of going with the motions , and he was very impressed with the intricacies of the modules that he was given . So I think these trainings while training might not always be the fun thing to do . I think there's a lot of good knowledge and information in Mark's programs and I think that , um , it's constantly getting better .
Speaker 1Mark , what do you have to say about that ? It's not the most fun thing , yeah , no that that Rocky's absolutely right .
Speaker 3I mean , you know anybody will tell you that that training is is , for the most part , is a snooze fest , right , but you know , as we're , you know , developing these programs , we're trying to find new ways to make it better , to make it funner , to make it more attractive to people .
Speaker 3So we're bringing in new , you know , technologies that people are used to and love .
Speaker 3You know , like virtual reality , you know we bring people in and we put a VR headset on them and we'll walk through where we've developed a platform within a VR space and we can walk through and talk through all of the equipment and they can actually do simulations where they're opening and closing valves and starting compressors and launching and receiving pigs , those kinds of things , and so it makes learning more fun .
Speaker 3We're also looking at adaptive type CBTs , in which you know you're not sitting there feeling like you're wasting your life away watching a video online to learn something . It actually asks you some questions and it adapts to your knowledge . So , as you're going through one of these CBTs , it'll ask these questions and , based on your answers , it'll throw you either forwards or backwards within the CBT so that you don't have to sit there and go through things that you already know or have already learned . You're learning something new all the time , so you know that's what the future of this program looks like . It's just something that we want to make more attractive to people . We want people to want to learn , not sit there and have to learn .
Speaker 1That's great . I love that . You said it's adaptive , so it really is , you know , almost personalized to the needs of each employee , right ?
Speaker 3That's correct .
Speaker 1And Billy . I know Rocky had mentioned that his colleague talked about some of the things he was surprised with the program . Was there anything that you were surprised or something that stood out to you ?
Speaker 2He had spoken about the interactive learning thing . I was really surprised about that . I thought that was very awesome to see , like getting to experience that . I , you know , tinker with some VR here and there , but seeing that , I thought that was like a really interesting part of it getting to see that and then being able to go over it . The training modules themselves there was a lot of the learning was like very I don't know the best way to put this but just really interactive and easy to pick up for the most part . There were a couple parts that kind of confused me at times , but I thought that was just the tiredness setting in trying to learn , but all in all I really enjoyed it .
Speaker 2I was surprised how much I did enjoy it and how easy it was to pick up some of these sometimes very hard to pick up topics coming from trying to learn from another person . But through that training it was actually very easy , for me at least , and I was kind of surprised by that and I did quite enjoy it .
Speaker 1That's great . And do you have any ? What would
Interactive Learning and VR Technology
Speaker 1you say to an employee who's considering entering the program ?
Speaker 2I give them the highest recommendation for at least giving it a shot . I mean , no matter what , it's always good to know anything you can , especially about a job like ours . You know it can never hurt to know too much about it . There's no bad thing about learning it . I mean , either you figure out something new or you find out you already know everything in your ballpark and it's time to move on to the next thing you know . Learn even more at a higher up level . Just overall , I just recommend at least doing it just to see where you're at and possibly learn something new .
Speaker 1That's fantastic . Thank you , and Rocky or Mark , what's the program look like going forward ?
Speaker 4What's the program look like going forward ? Well , in my thought , rolling it out to a wider range of crafts , definitely want to get it available to others , because we've already been asked about that and hopefully soon we'll be able to do that . And then , who knows , who knows , maybe an outsourcing of sorts , you know ? But with a program like this I think we're on the cutting edge , so to speak . I've been in customer meetings since we've started rolling this out to where competitors were quite impressed with what we were speaking about . I think that eventually we'll be very good at this , to where it'll be a model of , to where copy , and you know , it's a form of flattery . So I think , just getting really , really good gold standard at this type of program and rolling it out to more people Setting the standard .
Speaker 4Setting the standard Sounds familiar . What about you , Mark ?
Speaker 3Yeah , no , I think you really hit the nail on the head . You know , as we , as we move forward , we want to definitely want to expand it out to more crafts and more people , you know , and the other thing , like I mentioned before , is finding new ways to introduce training to people you know with , with adaptive , adaptive learning , whatever technology , the latest technologies that are out there . You know , we talked about gaming , we talked about social media type or micro learning , video type training . You know all of those things . We want to incorporate all of that just to keep things interesting for people and to keep people motivated in wanting to learn .
Speaker 1Great , and if someone wants to learn more about the program , where do they go to ?
Speaker 4learn Great , and if someone wants to learn more about the program , where do they go so they could reach out to their account managers , project managers and find out some more information ? Each of us are pretty knowledgeable . We went through programs of training to get more knowledge on the process and just reach out to supervisors .
Speaker 1Any more closing thoughts anyone .
Speaker 4No , billy , I appreciate you , you coming on , man , it was really exciting to to see the first success story come through Um . All everybody in the , everybody in the group that uh that helped develop this um was informed on and it was sort of like hey , we , it was almost like uh , for you know , reach first , like reach first , oil on a platform , right , it was the
Future Plans and Expansion Goals
Speaker 4first one across the finish line and now , since we've scheduled this more and more nearly every week , so we've gained some really good momentum and , billy , I appreciate you coming on and Mark appreciate the brainchild behind this .
Speaker 2Thank you , I appreciate that and I appreciate the opportunity to come and do this yeah .
Speaker 1Well , thank you all for joining us today . Really appreciate you being here , taking the time and thank you , more importantly , for living the Danos purpose to develop great people . Everyone have a good one . Thanks again .
Speaker 2Thank you .
