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How Businesses Are Cutting Employee Training Costs With VR

VR is the future of employee training and businesses are taking notice. 

It’s no secret an increasing number of businesses are turning to virtual and augmented reality for employee training. One of the main reasons companies have doubled-down on their use of this immersive technology is its cost-effectiveness.

According to a 2014 report from the Association for Talent Development (ADP), businesses with at least 100 employees spent roughly $1,200 on training per employee. The Society for Human Research Management also identifies “hidden costs” during the course of training, including supervisor and employee time, as well as instruction materials and equipment.

VR lowers, or in some cases even outright erases, these hidden expenses by allowing employees to practice in 3D without spending money on physical equipment or instructional supervisors. 

STRIVR is one leading US-based startup developing VR training apps and has worked with companies such as Walmart, Chipotle and Tyson. Now in its third year, the company has attracted roughly 50 clients who have trained more than 200,000 employees in VR. 

Danny Belch, VP of marketing at STRIVR, told VRScout that businesses can use VR to “completely eliminate some of the hidden costs of employee training.”

Walmart started using STRIVR to train more than 140,000 employees last year, which included preparing them for the chaos of Black Friday. The app put workers in a virtual Walmart store where they squared off with demanding shoppers and emergency situations. 

Another STRIVR client, United Rentals, instructs its outside sales reps how to rent construction equipment by placing them in virtual construction sites. STRIVR claims United Rentals “increased in effectiveness while reducing time spent in that training by 40 percent.”

“Gone are the days of lectures, PowerPoints, manuals,” Belch said. “Now we have the ability to put you in the exact situation in which you will be performing, and you can practice.”

It isn’t just US companies embracing VR. Volkswagen Group became one of the first major multinationals to announce they would train more than 10,000 employees in VR this year, including at Audi, SEAT, ŠKODA and VW. Workers at the German automaker are wearing VR headsets to learn everything from logistics and transport to packaging and vehicle production.

Dennis Abmeier, IT Lead at VW’s Digital Reality Hub, told VRScout that VR reduces costs around travel, facilities and time spent for training.

“After introducing VR technology in production and logistics one year ago, more than 100 people are currently already using VR applications regularly,” Abmeier said. “That means the virtual reality applications are so far well accepted by the colleagues.”

Abmeier said VW sees “big potential” for VR and is building future systems that train employees in a “short timeframe.”

“Instead of complex and expensive training centers, all this training and preparation can take place in virtual reality,” Abmeier said.

But Microsoft remains the biggest name developing VR and AR, or “mixed reality,” software and hardware for training. The Redmond-based company has convinced dozens of major corporations to adopt its HoloLens headset, which projects illusory 3D images over real-life objects.

Greg Sullivan, director of communications at Microsoft Mixed Reality, said the HoloLens can erase “the often-considerable production cost of physical training materials to eliminating travel expenditure by connecting trainees to remote experts within a shared mixed-reality space.”

Airbus and JAL are two airlines taking advantage of this fact in order to train their teams of engineers and cabin crews. The headset allows trainees to work with life-sized virtual representations of aircraft engines and equipment from anywhere in the world.

“The benefits are demonstrable today across a multitude of industries and scenarios,” Sullivan said, “and we’re seeing increasing interest from the commercial space on that basis.”

Sullivan said Microsoft’s goal is to bring its holographic mixed reality technology into all aspects of the computing world, but the technology is gaining its footing in industry.

“It’s not uncommon for transformative technologies to show early traction in the commercial and enterprise space before seeing widespread, mainstream adoption as technology improves and prices decrease,” he said. “We’ve seen this before with the very first computers, the internet and mobile phones.”

Image Credit: VW / STRIVR / Microsoft

About the Scout

Dieter Holger

Dieter is a technology journalist reporting for VRScout out of London. Send tips to dieter@vrscout.com and follow him on Twitter @dieterholger.

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