Teamwork training – an innovative use of flight simulators

Changes in the work environment – increased empowerment, process re‐engineering, greater competitiveness – have led to a more urgent need for effective teamworking within the workplace. Employers have introduced a variety of teamworking activities into their training programmes, with promising results, although residual suspicion on the part of employees and a significant level of adverse press coverage have tended to dilute their effectiveness. The problem has been to introduce a teamworking programme which has the requisite levels of risk, purpose and employee satisfaction. A promising solution has been proffered by a group of airline pilots, who place the use of an aircraft flight simulator at the heart of the latest innovation in teamwork training programmes. Results so far suggest that this initiative fulfils the essential criteria expected of good, effective and memorable teamwork training.