PRESS RELEASE
Xpan Interactive and Energy Safety Canada Win Gold for Best Custom Content at Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards
Xpan Interactive Ltd. (Xpan) and Energy Safety Canada are proud to announce they have been awarded a 2025 Brandon Hall Group Human Capital Management (HCM) Gold award for excellence in the Best Advance in Custom Content category. This prestigious recognition celebrates their collaborative effort on the “Wood Buffalo Wildlife Intermediate” course for Energy Workers. The winners are listed at https://excellenceawards.brandonhall.com/winners/
The Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards are a highly respected international competition, recognizing outstanding achievements in corporate, government, and not-for-profit organizations across the globe. Entries are rigorously evaluated by a panel of independent senior industry experts, Brandon Hall Group analysts, and executives.
“Xpan’s long term partnership with Energy Safety Canada is based on a collaborative commitment to keep energy workers safe,” says Ron Thiele, CEO and Founder of Xpan. “We are proud to continually deliver engaging, effective, and truly impactful custom learning experiences, especially in vital areas like environmental safety for energy workers. I am so proud of the passionate and dedicated team that worked tirelessly to produce this course.”
This Gold-winning entry features an innovative eLearning course that provides essential groundwork for wildlife encounters and incidents for field workers in the Energy/Extraction sector. This foundational learning is complemented by a 3D simulation that allows learners to safely apply and practice these critical skills in a realistic digital environment.
The resource extraction industry in Canada often operates in remote locations, leading to numerous wildlife encounters each year, with bear encounters being among the most dangerous. While field employees received general training on wildlife, a more practical, simulated experience for bear encounters was required, one that was more cost-efficient than in-person training, and more readily accessible.
The solution developed teaches proper bear spray handling and deployment within a realistic online environment, incorporating associated stressors and environmental conditions.
The eLearning Course: Wood Buffalo Wildlife Intermediate helps learners:
This course utilizes realistic imagery of wildlife in their natural habitat, detailed text descriptions of physical characteristics, and information on endangered species. Throughout the course, a variety of question types, including “challenge questions” that prompt judgment rather than simple recall, are used to correct misconceptions, provide actionable advice, and ensure retention without the need for a formal final quiz.
Leveraging cues from the gaming world, the exercise presents a series of escalating challenges. For instance, learners must consider timing, deploying bear spray only when the bear is within effective range, with an on-screen indicator showing distance. Challenges are increased by incorporating realistic conditions, such as aiming bear spray when wind is blowing crossways.
The practice exercise is designed to be a deliberately stressful experience, using a realistic environment, auditory cues, and repeated scenarios to provide valuable mental preparation. This allows learners to safely practice and experience consequences, offering a variety of bear encounters that are not possible to reproduce outside of a virtual environment. The program stands as proof that gamification elements do not require a full game to be engaging, challenging, and ultimately, useful.
The program has been exceptionally well received by its audience. Here are some reactions:
“The simulated scenario using bear spray was really cool! I’ve never done that in an online course, so that is something that I know I’ll remember. Thanks for the great work!!”
“The bear spray scenarios were challenging and fun and gave me a chance to practice what we learned in the course.”
Energy Safety Canada is the national safety association for the energy industry in Canada. For over 75 years, Energy Safety Canada has been the national safety association for Canada’s energy industry. Created by industry, for industry, we are dedicated to keeping energy workers safe and driving safety performance.
Find out more at www.energysafetycanada.com.
Since 2001, Xpan has helped organizations around the world create training environments where people thrive. The team of learning experts continually produce seamless custom learning solutions that make it easy for organizations to transfer knowledge, empowering learners to develop both the competency to perform and the capacity to grow. From eLearning course design to instructor-led training, mixed reality, immersive and custom applications, Gen AI and LMS course delivery, our deep expertise ensures learners have the tools to continue evolving.
Find out more at www.xpan.ca.
