The Benefits of Virtual Reality Training

Have you considered Virtual Reality (VR) training for your workplace? There are considerable benefits to this kind of training, and despite what you might think, you don’t need to be tech-oriented to undertake VR training — it's more accessible than you might realise!

Let’s dive straight in and explore the benefits of remote training that you might not know about (or even have considered!).

Faster, better learning

Participants in VR training tend to pick up the concepts of the training faster, and retain knowledge at a much improved rate than with traditional training methods. So why is this?

It’s all to do with engagement. The nature of VR training means it’s an immersive experience, which allows your employees to feel more connected to the training and thus more engaged with it.

Research figures estimate course content can be learned up to 4 times faster using VR training, with trainees reporting that they feel they not only have a better grasp of the concepts taught, but also feel more confident about using the skills and knowledge gained from the course in real-life situations.

Furthermore, because there are no distractions, VR training makes it easier to focus. It also removes the awkwardness many course attendees feel when doing in-person team exercises, such as group tasks or roleplays, allowing employees to partake in collaborative activities in a comfortable, ‘safe’ environment.

Enhances both ‘hard skills’ and ‘soft skills’

Soft skills are becoming as important as technical skills and qualifications in the workplace — and this trend doesn’t look like it will be going anywhere soon.

This is another huge benefit that VR training offers — it helps enhance skills such as communication, leadership, and team management. Employees feel more emotionally connected to the immersive experience that VR provides, and can gain skills in relating to a diverse range of ‘real-world’ scenarios that address issues such as bias and exclusion.

VR is just as useful for teaching hands-on, technical skills. Now that the technology has evolved to the stage where highly detailed and realistic environments can be replicated, complex tasks and training can be carried out in a risk-free environment. This has applications across a huge range of industries, from medicine and healthcare, to aviation, energy, and more.

Cost-effective and convenient

This leads nicely on to the cost-effectiveness of VR training, and one of the main aspects of this is saving organisations the expense and resources needed to replicate physical training for technical skills — not to mention the expense if something goes wrong and an expensive piece of equipment is damaged.

There are no limits to how many employees can attend as the training can be carried out remotely — no need to cover travel and accommodation costs (the sustainability benefits here are worth a mention also!). It’s convenient and ties in with our accepted ‘new normal’ of working, with remote, flexible and hybrid workplaces being the future.

Finally, because of the increased learning speed and engagement that we have already discussed, less of an organisation's valuable time is spent on training overall; translating into even more cost optimisation.

Ready to begin your organisation’s virtual reality training journey? Get started here!