The Dawn Of Metaverse Technology
Increasingly, companies are seeing the huge potential in the Metaverse, the gamified version of the web where people (or, for now, their avatars) socialise and indulge in various activities. It is predicted that the Metaverse will cause the greatest disruption to humanity ever witnessed. Meta announced its intention to spend $10 billion to build core components of the Metaverse on its own, including augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and AI elements.
Many employers are looking into the potential of metaverse technology to interview candidates and give them the opportunity to meet people within the organisation, improving the approach and knowledge about the culture, values , and opportunities they can obtain via a virtual reality experience.
Virtuality makes it possible to appeal to a wider audience, turning recruitment into a more accessible and easier way to find talent from different places. When it comes to employee onboarding, however, many companies have already successfully implemented metaverse experiences. A few examples are MGM which uses virtual reality to facilitate immersive onboarding processes for job seekers, and Globant, which is embarking on onboarding with virtual reality to welcome new hires.
Although the basic elements behind the Metaverse are still at an early stage, virtual worlds are touted to become a big positive for hiring, interviewing, and onboarding.
Virtual Reality
Companies that make use of virtual reality as part of the onboarding process might impress some workers who want to join tech-savvy organisations. But the downsides of VR, including price and accessibility issues, could cause some organisations to steer clear of them.
Virtual reality technology could help improve an employee’s first days in a new job when the new employee makes a crucial first impression of the company. Potential uses of virtual reality in onboarding include office tours and training. Some companies are already using virtual reality in an attempt to deliver a memorable onboarding experience, while other organisations will likely follow in the coming years. Virtual reality could also help employers learn more about a new hire when participating in activities that assess employee characteristics, such as decision-making. Highlighted below are some of the biggest positives of using VR for employee onboarding.
- Forging Strong Employer-Employee Bonds
Introducing a new employee to co-workers is a key part of onboarding, especially if the new employee is working remotely. Although it may seem counterintuitive, virtual reality can help foster human relationships much better than traditional onboarding means.
- Offering A Chance At Enhanced Productivity
Virtual reality could potentially save businesses money when their human resources personnel use it for onboarding. Live training takes a lot of time. By comparison, virtual reality can be more effective for onboarding experiences than the individuals who provide it live over and over again – leading to higher productivity rates amongst new hires.
- Relating Business Goals, Objectives, & Values Clearly
Virtual reality platforms can offer new employees a much better sense of a company’s culture. VR integration can include tours, role-playing, games, and real-life simulations that teach new employees about the office environment and company culture.
- Appealing To Millennial Employees Better
A company’s use of virtual reality during onboarding could potentially impress a new employee. Many workers, especially digital natives, are looking for forward-thinking digital organisations. Companies that use virtual reality for onboarding or training demonstrate their commitment to this.
- Making Room For Better & More Accurate Skill Evaluations
Virtual reality could give an employer a deeper insight into their new employee’s personality and skills. HR departments can utilise virtual reality to evaluate candidates and new hires for certain qualities, such as their –
- risk tolerance, or
- decision-making capacities,
- using games and scenarios that assess their reactions.
- Improving Employee Retention Rates
Recruitment is an expensive process, so companies should do everything possible to prevent their new hires from leaving owing to boring or strenuous onboarding processes. When new hires first come to work, companies should look to appeal to their emotions so that their investments are prepared to stay for the long haul.
Immersive Learning & The Future Of Employee Onboarding
Immersive learning transforms employee onboarding, training, and L&D (learning and development). Over a million employees of some of the biggest companies in the world, like Verizon, JetBlue and Walmart, and more, are being onboarded with immersive technology today, and it –
- improves performance,
- improves learning outcomes, and
- enhances the employee experience for organisations of all kinds.
Immersive technology such as virtual reality (VR) offers a fundamentally better way to properly equip employees to excel in their roles and prepare for high-stakes situations. Realistic VR simulation creates real behaviour change in the workplace
in the areas of –
- integration,
- training,
- development, and
- retention.
And with that comes the promise of virtual reality grants to unlock unprecedented insights based on learner performance data for stronger business impact.
It’s long been a conundrum for organisations -employees can’t become good at something without practice. Books, courses, lectures, quizzes, and assignments can never adequately prepare workers to know how to react face to face with a customer or make decisions in a real scenario. But practice in the workplace can be expensive, complex, and sometimes risky. Placing unqualified trainees on the floor or making them work with real customers from the get-go runs the risk of having a negative impact on the brand.
HR professionals, therefore, are faced with the challenge of creating impactful moments for employees from the moment of onboarding to skill-building and development opportunities over time. But with the status quo of today, training rarely involves doing, but rather stuffing information down employees’ throats and hoping all of it sticks – a training scenario no one is crazy about, let alone the employees. After all, in all other areas of their lives, they expect high experiences – in their ways of shopping, travelling, and having fun, for example.
With their increasingly higher expectations for highly engaging experiences, why would they get excited about old-fashioned onboarding methods? Immersive learning, especially in virtual reality, proves that there is a new path – a training model that does not force employers to choose between adaptive learning and effective learning.
With virtual reality, recruiters can give candidates a way to visualise themselves working for a company. Virtual reality can accelerate onboarding by allowing employees to instantly familiarise themselves with their new work environment and culture. Virtual reality is also very effective on-the-job training – not just new training, but skill enhancement or reskilling an ageing workforce that simply learns differently than those just entering the workforce market.
Across multiple industries, from power supply to food production to retail, companies have already started using immersive technology to better onboard, train and retain employees. End-to-end immersive learning solutions like metaverse-based employee onboarding experiences are ruling the roost.
Even before entering a new work environment, immersive learning allows learners to first-person experience work environments. By placing them in scenarios that will quickly become familiar with their role, they begin to acclimatise to their new positions and absorb the company values. Immersive learning experiences can be used to accelerate employee familiarisation with their new surroundings before they are thrown into the mix, allowing them to make mistakes during training without putting themselves at risk, wasting materials, or jeopardising costly equipment.
It is also a tool for continuous learning within the workforce. One leading engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor that provides building solutions for the energy distribution industry makes use of virtual reality to train new employees on topics of safety, quality, and manufacturing. Learners attend safety meetings, visit construction sites and experiment with a plan review with a crew. Subsequently, they are tested on what they have learned before they’re allowed to perform tasks without any supervision. The overriding message of VR training is to instil a business philosophy that supports a culture of learning and teaching without ever compromising safety and brand reputability.
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