One of the biggest trends in VR training is employee onboarding. In this article, I share some of the various ways VR can be applied to your onboarding strategy and the impact it can have on your company. Could VR training improve your current employee onboarding? Read this article now to find out.
The Application Of Top VR Training Trends To Employee Onboarding
There are many trends in VR training that will enhance HR and L&D processes for both the company and employees. A few of these include:
Interviews
VR is revolutionizing the interview process. Placing the right people in the right roles is one of the most important decisions a company makes. Companies were once limited to candidates within a close physical distance to them. Virtual interviews can allow for live interviews to take place with candidates across the globe, opening the pool to harness talent worldwide.
Another vital use of VR in the interview process is the ability to place candidates in a virtual environment and watch them perform tasks relevant to the position. Seeing the candidate in action leads to better hiring decisions.
Facility Tours
VR provides benefits to not only the company but also to the candidates. Companies have begun offering virtual tours of their facilities. This allows companies the opportunity to showcase state-of-the-art facilities or appealing office culture, and allows candidates the opportunity to see their work environment from anywhere in the world, without the time and expense of traveling.
Training
VR training is exceptionally suited to tackle learning and development needs, particularly for tasks that have dangerous or costly implications to replicate in live training. Simulated environments can provide a safe and engaging place for employees to learn and master procedures in virtually any industry.
One of the biggest trends in VR training is employee onboarding. Here are some reasons why you should consider implementing this learning approach into your onboarding strategy.
Onboarding
The process of being initiated through orientation and evaluation in a company is called employee onboarding. This process may vary from one company to another, but the main goal is to make sure that the new employee can learn and grasp as much information as possible.
In any case, there’s so much to learn during the employee onboarding process. It includes getting to meet your colleagues, seeing your workstation, and understanding what your supervisor expects from you. At the end of the day, the process should ensure that the new employee leaves the office knowing the basics of the job.
However, companies have been shifting from traditional to VR employee onboarding. Using VR for onboarding is a perfect way to introduce new employees to the company culture as it utilizes virtual simulations to take the new employee through orientation. This also eliminates disrupting the rest of the workers in the office during the process.
To understand why your company should consider this technology for your strategy, here are some of the ways VR training benefits employee onboarding:
1. A Faster Way To Teach Company Culture
As mentioned earlier, the employee onboarding process can be tedious for first-time employees. However, with using VR for onboarding, you can now make sure that newcomers are able to view every important aspect of the company ranging from the policies to the office work without moving around and exhausting themselves. This is a grand opportunity for the new employee to view the various offices, become familiar with different locations, and learn how they should conduct themselves around the office.
Additionally, this is one intricate process that will make you stand out from your competitors. VR employee onboarding gives new hires a first-hand chance to sit down with the board of the company, and even discuss the mission and vision of the company and what the management expects from them. This makes it easier for them to single out interesting topics that they can look into and ask further questions where they may feel the need to. It also puts you in a position to deeply exercise your leadership by giving them a bigger insight into the company.
2. Team Connection
Employees that get to dig deeper into the company’s goals and culture through simulated employee onboarding are in a more comfortable position to perform their work. When an employee understands why everyone does what they do, they feel as if they know the company better. There is a greater sense of purpose because they now know that they belong to a team.
On the other hand, if your company is well-established outside the state borders, even the long-serving employees may never get the chance to connect with the new members of the firm. Using VR for onboarding is a useful way to connect various departments across the company’s establishments and boost teamwork.
3. Safety Improvement
Using VR for onboarding offers the opportunity for your new hires to undergo training programs and emergency drills without compromising on safety. For example, Deutsche Bahn, who is responsible for Germany’s national intercity express train system, relies heavily on VR training to prepare over 4,000 employees. Utilizing the HTC Vive, the company offers custom training scenarios to replicate important equipment, controls, and tools. Martin Repondek of Deutsch Bahn stated, “VR is a great, economical way to provide hands-on training that is almost impossible to replicate in the real world”.
In addition, it can also be used to teach employees about high-risk work environments. Repondek also commented that VR is “particularly good for big, physical simulations of new equipment and operations”. VR employee onboarding improves safety through the application of interactive 360º and VR content that allows you to create similar situations to real-life hazardous scenarios. When the workers experience this, they become better prepared for a potential disaster.
4. Establishing Consistency
No matter how hard we try, humans are always going to have some errors. Mistakes can cost your company, sometimes even millions, because they disrupt workflow consistency and productivity. It can go as far as hindering your company’s consistent image and brand. Most of the time, mistakes happen because employees were not taught about certain processes. For example, during orientation, the person familiarizing the new employees with the work environment may have skipped some items because they were tired or got distracted during the training.
With VR employee onboarding, such mistakes are less likely to happen. The system takes the employees through all possible work scenarios and familiarizes them with smart, effective ways to handle emergencies. This makes it easier to bring future employees closer to the company’s culture and expectations through a well-developed employee onboarding program.
5. Evaluation Of Results
Employee onboarding is a process that also needs to be measured to improve efficiency and deliverance. By using VR for onboarding, you can track your employee experiences to make sure that the lessons taught are in accordance with your requirements and producing the expected results.
Typically, VR employee onboarding is meant to bring the employees closer to the company and not to drift them further away. Using VR for onboarding also creates a perfect opportunity for you to interact and learn what exactly your employees care about in relation to the company’s prospects, regardless of where they are located at the time.
Conclusion
Technology has vastly improved the learning process and now allows for much better and efficient methods that can be applied in the office setting. VR training has also grown and is a great way to improve your employee onboarding and training efforts, and should not be overlooked as a part of your business strategy.
Quelle:
https://elearningindustry.com/ultimate-trends-in-vr-training-application-employee-onboarding
