Case Study: Laing O'Rourke Australia builds out training library with AI assistance

Laing O'Rourke Australia is using artificial intelligence tools to reformat existing content into videos that it can use on a centralised learning and development portal it stood up last year.

The construction firm set up the central portal, LOR Learn, to give all of its 700 employees access to personalised, role-based learning modules to aid their career growth.

The portal has broadened access to training resources and learning programs, with the company spending a fraction of its previous learning budget but reaching more people.

Director of people Helen Fraser told Digital Nation that the company is increasingly using AI tools to help script video training content, rather than having a person write it.

This is helping the company to take content in different formats and repurpose it into videos that can be used on LOR Learn.

“We've got three different AI tools that we use to develop both learning programs to take current content and put them into a video," Fraser said.

AI as a topic itself is also a popular recent addition to LOR Learn.

“We launched learning pathways on artificial intelligence, telling people about different artificial intelligence tools and about our Laing O'Rourke strategy," Fraser said.

"It was helping people understand how they can use these tools better and how it can help them in their job.

“It's been the most popular learning pathway."

Fraser said that future work will be focused on more closely aligning learning pathways on LOR Learn to common career pathways.

“We want to really connect it with people's jobs," Fraser said.

“We want to digitise our career toolkits. If you're an engineer within the organisation, there'll be a pathway from site engineer to a project engineer into a project manager, and we want to help people with that journey and digitise their learning needs and have LOR Learn push learning to them.

“It's how can we bring that whole employee life cycle together. LOR Learn can take more information from different aspects and enhance the whole employee experience at Laing O'Rourke.”