Industries Using VR for Employee Training

by Pia Behmuaras

December 28, 2022

Learning in VR

The ability to embody a role in learning experiences has proven to speed learning. Virtual Reality (VR) technology allows for completely immersive and engaging training experiences where learners are not just observers or note-takers, but become active participants in their training. At the same time, VR has a unique ability to surround the learner with content, guidance, and feedback that offers a different way of learning than any other technology or toolkit (Adept XR).

Training Solutions

Training is shown to be one of the factors that influence new employee happiness and retention (Lauhman, 2020). In fact, organizations with a strong onboarding and training process improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70% (Gayatri, 2020). In contrast to in-person and online training, new employee training in VR can be done at any given time or location, without any external distractions. With remote jobs rising in number, VR is in a unique position to help thousands of employers and employees worldwide.

In manufacturing companies, employees who received training in VR or AR produced 30% more goods that met quality standards, made nearly 40% fewer errors than traditionally trained employees, and completed tasks 3.25x faster than traditionally trained employees. (Zawadski, 2020). Plus, by investing in VR headsets for employee onboarding, technology services company Accenture reduced their onboarding costs by an estimated 96.4%. This goes to show that VR can revolutionize not only training programs and their satisfaction but also the future performance of a company.

Just a few other commercial companies that use VR training for their employees are Goodway, Walmart, Porsche, KFC, Lufthansa, and H&R Block. The returns that they are seeing are incredible: After implementing VR training to improve the customer experience, H&R Block employees reported learning essential skills to manage difficult conversations. As a result, the company saw a 50% decrease in dissatisfied customers, a 9.9% decrease in customer handling times, and significantly faster issue resolution times among the representatives who completed the program.

The best part is that VR training can be adapted to any company and need. Without the need for extra personnel, gathering everyone together in a physical space, or programming activities for each new cohort, VR training solutions create a fun and effective learning experience that can be tailored to any company and training. The sky is the limit in terms of physics, equipment, and environments that can be featured in an experience. Not only do you feel like you are meeting new people, but thanks to the practice you get, your confidence increases as well.

Summary

VR provides a fun and immersive way to start learning a new skill, a new job, or even an entirely new career. It has shown benefits across manufacturing, service, and healthcare companies, as well as the military. By taking away the pressure of failure, VR training eases the learning curve. Plus, it drastically reduces the time, effort, and capital required from companies, and increases employee satisfaction.

Foretell Reality

Foretell Reality offers customized training solutions for educational institutions, enterprises, and hospitals. The Foretell platform supports as many as 25 learners at once, so your teams can learn from each other, and get to know their coworkers. We provide detailed analytics and feedback based on body language and speech, as well as performance improvements over time. Please visit our website for more information or to schedule a demo.

Collaboration, Industry News, Other, Soft Skills, VR-Related

A Guide to Education in VR

by Pia Behmuaras

November 1, 2022

Introduction

Right after telelearning comes learning in virtual reality (VR). And before you say I have Zoom fatigue, we can assure you that this will be different. Rather than interacting with teachers and classmates through a screen, you will feel immersed and engaged in learning. You can have your next science class underwater and learn about the animals swimming around you– All while seeing and hearing your classmates through your headset. VR creates a sense of social presence that telelearning lacks, and a level of immersion that beat in-person classes.

Effectiveness

Experimental learning, simulations, and role-play all have a large place in VR. It is less about passive learning, like listening or reading, and more about active learning, like practice and discussion. With VR learning, your information recall and retention rates will be higher. The benefits of VR usage in classrooms also include raising students’ success and enabling collaboration across remote participants from different backgrounds. Finally, in areas like language learning, VR can help expose students to the language and culture repeatedly, increasing the depth and breadth of practice (VRScout).

Virtual reality promotes learning by doing. Researchers suggest that increased levels of immersive content stimulate multisensory engagement and can ultimately lead to more effective learning outcomes (Webster 2016). As an extension, an experiment conducted with over 1000 undergraduate STEM students found that VR education improved grades by a full letter grade (DeHart, 2018). The improvement is primarily related to increased engagement and motivation. In addition, VR was found to be more effective in improving knowledge compared to non-VR scenarios like simulations or traditional learning (Chen et al.).

A review found VR education to be particularly effective in STEM, architecture, and medicine, as well as more fundamental skills and knowledge like learning how to organize thoughts (Hamilton et al., 2020). “A relatively small VR device can even act as a whole science lab.” writes Adobe. Think about reduced safety concerns, increased lab capacity, and an end to those nighttime lab sessions. Students are not limited in what they can create, and teachers are not required to have long hours of preparation. And for those who get queasy dissecting a frog, there are simplified simulations.

Accessibility

One way that VR helps level the playing field is by making field trips accessible to all. This is especially relevant for k12 students whose parents often have to pay extra for more engaging learning opportunities (Maristute, 2020). For example, students can travel to recreations of Ellis Island in the 19th century, meet the Egyptians who built the pyramids or go to the moon in a spaceship. Furthermore, many prominent museums and galleries have their exhibitions available in VR for students to explore and interact with at their own pace.

In addition, VR can recreate physically impossible scenarios for students to experience. For example, students can learn history surrounded by the remains of the Acropolis in Athens while conversing with animated gods and goddesses. As a result, VR is spreading among virtual campuses like Edstutia, as well as in brick-and-mortar universities like Harvard University, Nova Southeastern University, and Fordham University. Some institutions, like Harvard University, have also started giving certifications in VR education to teachers.

Implementation

Just like remote work and therapy have not gone anywhere after the pandemic, remote learning is here to stay, taking education to the next level. In fact, a study published in 2018 that VR technologies are now mature enough to be integrated into education as much as any other computing technology (Elmqaddem, 2018). At Foretell Reality, we provide widespread education solutions, from virtual campuses to small discussion rooms and classrooms just like in a traditional school or university. On top of that, our users can customize their avatars, play games, collaborate on whiteboards, and explore 3D objects with their virtual bodies.

Collaboration

Virtual Reality (VR) Collaboration with More Expressive Avatars Enhances Productivity

by Jillian Renken

June 25, 2021

As social Virtual Reality (VR) continues to evolve, the ability to render more expressive avatars has become more of a focal point. But do more expressive avatars really enhance the sense of presence and connectedness?

To answer that question, researchers behind a recent study published by “Frontiers in Virtual Reality” compared a set of collaborative experiences in a consumer level VR headset and an ‘Highly Expressive Avatar Control System’ (HEACS) developed specifically for the study.

To render more expressive avatars, the HEACS used a set of rendering techniques to mimic facial expressions and synchronized lip movements and a set of external Kinnect cameras to track body and hand movements. The consumer level VR headset did not have these enhancements.

To analyze the effectiveness of avatars, participants played a game of charades with another participant through each of the two avatar systems.

The results showed “that participants interacting with highly expressive avatars felt more social presence and attraction and exhibited better task performance than those interacting with partners represented using low-expressive avatars.”

Additionally, the study found that “participants prefer using the highly expressive avatar control system, which improves the task performance.”

While avatars available today through consumer headsets are able to convey expression through head and hand movements, this study indicates that further improvements to avatar expressiveness will continue to enhance the sense of presence, empathy, and connectedness.

Foretell Reality is a social virtual reality platform that supports many different types of avatars with varying degrees of realism and expression for different use cases including VR group therapy and support, soft skills training, and business collaboration. To schedule a demo, click here.

Collaboration, Soft Skills

Virtual Reality (VR) Soft Skills Training More Effective Than In-Person – PWC Study

by Max Ross

May 19, 2021

A Harvard Business Review survey finds that “89% of executives reported difficulty recruiting candidates with the requisite soft skills, such as communication, teamwork, and leadership”. Traditionally, in-person programs helped employees develop these vital skills, but the increase in remote working, accelerated by the pandemic, has made in-person training difficult to impossible.

With remote work here to stay for many people, Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC) set out to determine whether the use of Virtual Reality (VR) could improve employee competence in two important soft skills areas – public speaking and collaboration. Through a pilot study, PWC sought to answer two specific questions:

1. Is VR soft skills training more effective than traditional training methods?

2. Is VR soft skills training more cost-effective to deploy than traditional training methods?

For the study, PWC developed a virtual reality (VR) training program for diversity and inclusion. The company’s original in-person class was used as a control variable. After implementing their VR program, PWC drew the following conclusions:

VR participants were up to 275% more confident to act on what they learned after VR soft skills training, which is a 40% improvement over traditional classroom training.
VR learners were up to four times more focused than classroom learners—VR learners also completed training four times faster than classroom learners.
VR participants were nearly four times more emotionally connected to the content they were learning.

VR-based learning can yield higher confidence and improved ability to apply the learning on the job because of the ability to practice in an immersive, low-stress environment. VR-based learning can also be more cost effective at scale, as the time required to complete a VR course is substantially lower than in-person courses.

Foretell Reality is a social VR enterprise platform that enables authentic human interactions in immersive environments designed for soft-skills development and other use cases. Click here to schedule a demo.

Collaboration, Soft Skills

How does collaboration in VR stack up to in person? A new study aims to find out.

by Max Ross

April 30, 2021

Zoom fatigue is real and face-to-face meetings are still rare. Can Virtual Reality (VR) offer a viable alternative to both?

A recent study set out to answer the question by comparing the effectiveness of group collaboration through multi-user immersive virtual reality (IVR), face-to-face (FTF) meetings, and video conferencing (VR).

The study included a final sample size of 174 participants from secondary schools, a vocational college, and a university. Groups of three participants were assigned the task of deciding on the most favorable candidate for a position out of four choices.

In the FtF condition, participants were seated together around a circular table and their discussion was captured by a webcam. For the VC condition, group members were displayed on a 19” screen and used headphones. For the IVR condition, participants sat at a virtual table, using avatars to mask their true identities. Group communication and collaboration was then recorded, along with observations in social pressure and cognitive load.

The following are some of the key findings of the study:

IVR provided comparable multisensory inputs that mimicked face-to-face interactions. Participants demonstrated similar communication patterns in both IVR and face-to-face environments

Higher degrees of virtuality and engagement led to pooling of otherwise unshared information. This pooling was most likely due to the degree of spatial interactivity and social presence provided through VR environments.

No evidence was found for differences in extraneous cognitive load in IVR. Participants were not overwhelmed with remembering discussed information in virtual reality environments.

The study concluded that “Multi-user IVR can help bridge the gap between the main advantages of IVR (simulation and manipulation of immersive three-dimensional objects) and the growing demand for effective collaboration of spatially distributed teams. This creates new opportunities for remote work that rely on spatial interactivity within a virtual environment.”

Even after the pandemic subsides, it is estimated that at least 16% of workers will continue to permanently work remotely and about 80% of employers plan to allow remote work at least some of the time after things return to normal.

Foretell Reality is a social Virtual Reality (VR) platform that enables authentic human interactions in immersive environments designed to promote communication, collaboration, and learning.

Collaboration

Zoom Fatigue is real. VR is here to help.

by Jonathan Collins

March 5, 2021

The term ‘Zoom Fatigue’ was coined over the past year to describe the general malaise associated with constantly being on video calls throughout the day.

Now researchers say that it is a real phenomenon and have identified four main causes including “excessive and intense eye contact, constantly watching video of yourself, the limited mobility of being stuck at your desk, and more energy spent identifying social cues you’d otherwise pick up on intuitively in person.”

Virtual Reality (VR) offers an alternative to video by addressing some of the root causes of Zoom Fatigue.

Excessive and intense eye contact – While eye contact is an important aspect of communication, staring at a panel of faces for prolonged periods of time on a flat screen is simply not natural. VR replaces the flat screen with a shared 3D environment in which participants are spaced naturally apart and conversations mimic those of the real world.

Constantly watching video of yourself – It is natural for humans to fixate on our own appearance and this can distract from natural conversation with others. In VR, everyone is represented as an expressive avatar. This lowers self-judgement and allows for less inhibited conversation.

Limited mobility of being stuck at your desk – Sitting in one place for long periods of time is not healthy mentally or physically. Current VR headsets are not tethered to a computer allowing you to take meetings from anywhere, standing or sitting.

More energy spent identifying social cues – Non-verbal communication can be equally important as speaking and listening. With video calls, those cues typically only happen from the shoulders up and within the confines of a 2D box. In VR, hand gestures, gaze direction, and overall body posture are observable in a 3D environment giving a more complete sense of how someone is reacting to and absorbing information and conversations.

Foretell Reality is a VR platform for remote communication that offers all of the benefits of 3D environments and avatars. We work with our clients to design experiences that fit their use cases in areas like group therapy and support, soft skills training, and business collaboration. Interested in a demo? Click here.

Collaboration, Soft Skills, Therapy and Support

Virtual Embodiment In VR Raises Questions

by Jonathan Collins

December 30, 2020

In its simplest form, Virtual embodiment is the perception of sensory feedback related to a person’s virtual, non-physical body, also known as an avatar, and the effect it has on the particular person behind the avatar. Virtual embodiment comes as an offshoot of the study of embodiment cognition, which is the idea that the mind and body are in unison, with the two working in harmony. Embodiment cognition research shows how the aspects of a person’s body seem to generate built-in tendencies in how that person views the world around them. Those aspects include motor functions, height, number of limbs, handedness, and the body’s interactions with the environment.

Given we cannot control many factors like our height or handedness, the most common way we seek to control our identity in the physical world is through clothing, accessories, make-up, tattoos, piercing, hair styles, hair coloring and now, masks. We display these attributes to show our personal style and to provide non-verbal clues about our personalities. If we want to be seen as diplomatic and professional, chances are we wear business attire and keep ourselves well groomed. If we want to be viewed as someone who is bold and anti-establishment, we may choose ripped clothing and cyan colored hair. We rely on these outward signals, whether consciously or not, to frame interactions with other people before any words are spoken.

As our bodies and minds become more integrated with virtual mediums, the same avenues of expression we have in the physical world are finding their way into the digital world. From the more basic Bitmojis on Snapchat to full-fledged 3-D avatars in a Virtual Reality simulation, we continue to seek ways to express and represent ourselves in order to provide non-verbal clues as to who we are underneath. The difference with virtual embodiment, however, is that the only limitations to creating an outward identity is the level of customization afforded by a particular platform. Skin color, gender, height, facial features, number of limbs – all potentially alterable within minutes. Staying within our own species is not even a requirement in some cases.

No where is virtual embodiment taking on more meaning than in Virtual Reality (VR) where interactions between avatars are convincingly lifelike and the range of customization options is broader than any other digital medium. Take entertainment-based social environments like Rec Room, AltSpace or Facebook’s Horizon. Many people in these worlds engage and interact purely through virtual identities without ever knowing what someone looks like in real life.

While this level of anonymity and freedom of identity is fine in that context, those same attributes do not necessarily lend themselves to a business or professional environment. With VR being used more and more for corporate collaboration, mental and physical healthcare, and training and education, the role of the avatar brings up more nuanced questions around virtual embodiment that need to be thought through.

For example, in the case of a pitch meeting held in VR, is there a responsibility for both parties to represent themselves as close to who they are in the real world as possible? Since pitching is partially about the person or people behind the product or service, an argument can be made that they should not appear younger, a different ethnicity, or a different gender than they are in real life. Or maybe that actually shouldn’t matter at all and non-realistic should be encouraged in order to weed out implicit bias in the process.

Therapy sessions also produce an interesting use case. It may be that the therapist should adhere closely to his or her real world identity whereas the patient may benefit from a virtual embodiment that they feel expresses themselves better. The very act of customizing one’s virtual appearance to better represent how one would like to be seen can be a part of the therapeutic process itself. Or maybe there is a benefit in the therapist playing a particular role or roles throughout the therapeutic process in order to elicit responses from the patient.

Foretell Reality recognizes the importance of virtual embodiment, particularly in professional settings. Through our work with partners like Yale School of Medicine, Fordham University, and XRHealth, we see firsthand the importance and promise of virtual embodiment in VR to redefine digital identity as a whole. Toward that end, we recently expanded our avatar selection tool to include many more customization options.

Collaboration, Soft Skills, Therapy and Support

Foretell Reality: Transforming Remote Interpersonal Experiences

by Jonathan Collins

November 25, 2020

We’re excited to share another quick video below that provides visuals of some of our use cases including therapy and support, soft skills, and corporate collaboration. We believe VR is the next evolution of remote human communication just as the telegraph evolved to the telephone which evolved into the computer we all have in our pockets today.

Collaboration

$4.5b VR Forecast Despite Challenges

by Jonathan Collins

October 13, 2020

Foretell Reality powers remote support groups for XRHealth, one of the innovative companies highlighted in this recent ABIresearch forecast of the 2020 Virtual Reality (#VR) market.

With the market expected to grow to $4.6b by the end of the year, declines in revenues from location-based VR due to COVID-19 are being made up for by in-home and enterprise solutions for training, learning, and physical and mental healthcare.

“companies such as XRHealth operating within the immersive healthcare sector have seen accelerated growth opportunities as patients seek alternatives to in-person meetings and sessions (e.g., physical and/or mental health therapy).”

Foretell Reality powers life-like experiences for XRHealth along with other companies and institutions for applications including therapy and support, soft skills development, and business collaboration.

#mentalhealth #virtualreality #digitalhealth

https://lnkd.in/gtYu429

Collaboration, Therapy and Support

Collaborative Data Analysis: Foretell Reality and D6

by Jonathan Collins

August 30, 2020

D6 develops tools to support multi-dimensional data visualization in Virtual Reality (VR). The platform allows analysts and others to visualize and manipulate complex data in 3D space, deriving insights that are faster, more powerful, and more memorable.

Through an integration with Foretell Reality, D6 was able to turn its single-user experience into one that allows shared data visualization workspaces in which clients and colleagues around the globe can present, discuss, and manipulate multidimensional graphs and charts as a group.

In addition to these shared data visualization spaces, D6’s “Hyperdesk” frees teams of remote analysts from the limits of a physical workspace. Colleagues can move between multiple customizable “Data Rooms,” with unlimited virtual monitor space, and integration of both traditional keyboard/mouse and hand gesture inputs.

As demonstrated by D6, collaboration in virtual reality not only overcomes geographic constraints, but even the limitations imposed by the physical world. Where else can remote team members collectively analyze three-dimensional data or view multiple screens at once while truly feeling like they are in the presence of their colleagues?

Foretell Reality is an enterprise VR solution for interpersonal communication and business collaboration. Learn more here

Virtual Reality (VR) Collaboration with More Expressive Avatars Enhances Productivity

Virtual Reality (VR) Soft Skills Training More Effective Than In-Person – PWC Study

How does collaboration in VR stack up to in person? A new study aims to find out.

Zoom Fatigue is real. VR is here to help.

Virtual Embodiment In VR Raises Questions

Foretell Reality: Transforming Remote Interpersonal Experiences

$4.5b VR Forecast Despite Challenges

Collaborative Data Analysis: Foretell Reality and D6

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