Engaging Youth With VR Training

As the old axiom indicates, youth are the future of industry. But what will the world look like in years to come if today’s companies cannot engage the decision-makers of the future?

According to statistics published by gallup.com, only 29% of millennials are engaged at work. What’s more, the other 71% do not plan to stay with their current employer for very long.

One of the issues companies ignore when engaging young people is their upbringing. It is important to remember that millennials and generation-Zers were born in an era where technology was common place in the home.

Subsequently, these so-called ‘digital natives’ grew up around computers and are hard-wired for consuming video and gamification. Today’s youth are motivated by technology and enjoy learning through digital applications.

To engage young people, schools and companies have to move away from traditional text books and educational videos. Younger generations are stimulated by interactive and virtual reality (VR) experiences.

In an effort to increase retention and engagement, schools and colleges are introducing virtual reality into classrooms. VR and augmented reality applications are also becoming increasingly significant in the workplace. And with good reason.

Credit image: https://edtech4beginners.com/2017/11/09/can-virtual-reality-improve-education/

VR Creates Real-Life Scenarios

When a company first hires an employee, you only get to see the qualifications they have on a piece of paper and a brief glimpse of what they are like as a person.

Once the training process begins you also get the opportunity to assess whether they have the necessary skills to execute the job you hired them them to do.

But that’s about it. After you release them from boot camp, only time will tell whether they have the nerve, inclination or motivation to perform to a high standard. And it would appear that most employees below 34 are not motivated.

VR applications take employee assessment to another level. More than that, VR is a powerful tool that increases the prospects of keeping users engaged.

In a virtual environment, employees experience what the job is actually like. What’s more, they want to learn.

Traditional training methods, on the other hand, invariably fail. Old school education techniques are not engaging, trainees forget most of what they learn, employees are not motivated enough to learn more and trainers do not follow up.

Virtual reality applications can recreate actual scenarios employees will be faced with in their job. Not only does this prepare them for future eventualities, they have a real-life opportunity to test their ability – but without the consequences.

Likewise, employers are afforded insights you just don’t get from traditional training methods – the temperament and emotional response of your new recruits.

Employee Assessment

Employees that are motivated want to perform well in their job. Young employees rank engagement on a par with money and recognition.

Furthermore, the younger generations are inclined to develop quickly through mistake-driven learning. When they are in a situation in which an error of judgement has no consequences, they are more inclined to experiment. And most people learn more from actions than theoretical learning.

Creating real-life scenarios with VR and AR gives new recruits the opportunity to assess their skill levels. Trainers can communicate complex messages with insightful precision and trainees understand because they see a visual.

Experiential learning has the biggest impact for employees yet is very difficult to deliver using traditional training methods. VR is highly versatile and can be used to recreate any scenario – and it retains the users attention at the same time.

New recruits can also get a feel for how they respond to stressful situations. Jobs that place people in critical, highly stressful situations such as the spectrum of emergency services, can help trainees identify gaps in their performance that can be improved.

Uses for VR Training

Most jobs do not have the high-octane excitement of the emergency services in which you can create exciting virtual reality training applications. However, every enterprise is required to provide staff training to some degree.

That means that every business, will at some stage, be confronted with engaging young employees. Regardless of the actual content, VR training programs can be programmed to include gamified and interactive elements Millennials and Gen-Zers respond to.

For example, we have designed a fire training program using VR. We’ve even designed a teachers toolkit that has been used across 42,000 schools and a CET platform that sets the standards for training optometrists.

Because VR and AR videos deliver an immersive experience, they are a vital tool for engaging young people. And with VR poised to be the next breakthrough technology for training purposes, businesses risk losing the countries brightest young employees to rivals that are using VR.

If you would like to discuss how you can integrate VR into your training  contact us here.