Virtual Reality has come a long way in the last couple of years. We see VR being used for marketing campaigns, VR presentations, VR events, but also for VR onboarding and training. There are several reasons why companies are looking to incorporate VR in their businesses, especially for training. In this post we will explain the benefits of VR training, we will give examples and we will explain how you can train multiple employees in sync in VR.

Start training in VR

All companies train their workforce and most spend a significant amount of time, effort, and money doing so. Some boast about how effective their training program is and even though this may be true, nothing can beat on-the-job experience. Polishing one’s skills on real-life problems in day to day situations is ultimately what makes a professional valuation. This is where VR training truly shines out.

Real-life experience

VR based training put the user in a 3D environment relevant to the subject matter where anything can be (re)created. VR training has been used by companies, academia, and military for a long time and can be relevant for any party looking to train or educate. With VR you can place your trainee in any real-life situation where they will begin to respond as if they are in that situation. This allows trainees to acquire information relevant to the job, but they can also start practicing their skills right from day one.

Walmart is a great example of a company which already trains with VR. Andy Trainor, Senior Director of Walmart U.S. Academies says the following about their VR training: “We can create scenarios that may never happen (like severe weather training) or situations that happen all the time, but we don’t want to disrupt our stores to give associates firsthand experience. VR lets them explore these sorts of scenarios in a firsthand way.”

The benefits of VR training

VR training can recreate real-life scenarios with immersive video and audio. Trainees can train in high-risk work environments without the actual risk. Therefore you can use VR to train employees both safely and efficiently.

Furthermore, research shows that memory retention after a VR experience is 2x higher than after video- or text-based learning materials. It also creates consistency within a company. With VR trainings you don’t have bad days where you forget to cover several points or where you don’t have the right tone or message. You can create the best version of the training just once and use it to deliver consistent training.

 

Read the best examples of VR training

For the people who are not yet convinced of the strength of VR for training (even after reading the above-mentioned benefits), we have collected a few examples of companies that have successfully used VR for training.

A Modular Interactive Virtual Surgical Training Environment
Summarized: Surgeons who had VR training for 2 hours improved their time on task by 83% and were more than 70% “more efficient” in movement and measurements.

Virtual memory palaces: immersion aids recall
Summarized: Participants of the study that were trained with VR demonstrated a 9% better information recall and made 41% fewer errors than those trained via non-VR.

Measuring Virtual Simulation Value in Training Exercises
Summarized: Study includes data from 29 different training events that featured both live and VR training components. The training value assessment results show that VR training provides the same value as live training, but for reduced costs.

These are not only great examples of VR training, but they also clearly state the benefits: improved memory recall, performance, and even reduced procedural errors.

 

CraneMorley is hosting an X-Reality event to provide information about Demystifying XR and how to apply it into your training and development today.  For more information, please use follow the link here.