VR Technology in Onboarding: Benefits and Real Examples

Surgeons, astronauts, pilots, and soldiers have all been using virtual reality for decades. But working in a digitally generated environment is no longer the exclusive domain of high-risk professions. After all, we learn best when we perform a task and get fast feedback on it. That's exactly why VR technology can be a powerful ally in employee onboarding.

The picture superiority effect

Virtual reality tools are finding ever-wider use in the world of work. We're no longer talking only about training pilots with flight simulators or other highly specialized fields. Today this technology can be an HR ally in many common processes — recruitment, onboarding, employer branding, and training. Especially now, when in remote or hybrid work any solution that shrinks the distance between employer and employee is especially valuable.

One example is a virtual office tour. No online video watched on a computer screen delivers the same experience as a walk through company headquarters via a VR simulator. The employee literally immerses themselves in virtual reality and, through a digital pair of eyes, views their workstation, the office, and even exchanges a few words with a virtual CEO. That kind of experience can be a big advantage in recruitment and employer-branding efforts. It brings candidates' potential workplace to life in a highly engaging way.

VR in onboarding

According to the picture superiority effect, we remember images more effectively than words. Our memory finds it easier to encode a photo of a tree than the written word "tree." Applied directly to onboarding, we can assume that absorbing knowledge about a company through visual content will be more effective than doing the same with written text, such as a handbook. VR technology — which strongly engages not only sight but other senses too — can bring an entirely new quality to the onboarding process.

Let's look at exactly which onboarding processes virtual reality can support.

Onboarding into company culture

The virtual office tour and the chat with the CEO mentioned earlier are examples of how VR technology can address the Culture area of onboarding described by Talya N. Bauer in the 4C model. As early as the preboarding stage, you can start onboarding an employee into the company culture in an engaging way. A meeting with the company's founder, who tells the story of the organization, its mission, and its vision in virtual reality, is a completely different experience from reading about it in a handbook.

Role-specific training for frontline workers

Virtual reality makes it possible to learn by doing — literally. A new employee can simply practice performing tasks in a work environment recreated through VR. Practicing hands-on skills in transportation or construction is just one example of what this technology makes possible. Eutaw Construction, a U.S. construction company, trained new workers using simulators equipped with pedals, throttles, and levers, just like in real construction machinery. This let them practice many scenarios they might encounter on a job site in a realistic environment, rehearse how to react in emergencies, and build new, practical skills.

VR technology can bring a new quality to training for frontline workers. Practicing hard skills in an environment that engages multiple senses at once makes knowledge adoption faster and more effective.

Role-specific training for skilled professionals

As a PwC study showed, virtual reality can also support soft-skills training for leadership. The study involved newly hired managers from 12 U.S. locations. They were split into three groups that went through leadership training focused on an inclusive approach. The only difference was the training method. One group learned in the traditional offline format, in a training room. Another used e-learning. The third group built skills with VR technology. The data shows this last form of training was the most effective:

• VR training was 4x faster than traditional offline training;
• managers trained with virtual reality were up to 275% more confident in their skills than their peers in the other two groups;
• employees were nearly 4x more (an average of 3.75) emotionally engaged with the training content than with offline training;
• managers using VR technology were 4x more focused than those in the e-learning session.

The benefits of VR in onboarding

• High training effectiveness — virtual reality is an immersive environment in which you absorb knowledge and practice skills in a highly engaging way. Knowledge retention is considerably higher, so new employees starting a new role gain greater comfort and confidence in their abilities.

• Less stressful onboarding — VR allows you to practice and refine competencies in a neutral environment. If a bus driver, pilot, or salesperson makes mistakes in virtual reality, there are no serious consequences. That makes training less stressful, which clearly eases learning and encourages people to keep trying. We make mistakes in virtual reality to minimize the risk of making them in the daily rhythm of work.

• Consistent introduction to the organization — VR technology is easy to scale. Global organizations can equip their people with identical VR tools, giving them consistent onboarding into company culture and role-specific training, regardless of where new hires are located.

VR onboarding: a far-off tune, or already reality?

We now know the benefits and new possibilities that virtual reality can bring to onboarding. But, as is often the case with adopting new solutions, this is a process that moves at different speeds depending on the environment. As of today, VR technology is not the dominant solution for building onboarding programs. It is, however, gaining popularity, especially in large, global organizations whose recruitment needs must be measured in at least thousands of candidates a year. Sales of headsets for commercial use are growing on their own — according to International Data Corp., they reached 11.2 million in 2021, and a rise to more than 50 million is projected for 2026.

Demographic trends will also shape the growth of virtual training. – "We're facing a labor shortage. Every day, 10,000 baby boomers retire, and millennials need training. How do we speed up the education of new employees and give them the right tools?" asks Vishal Shah, General Manager of XR & Metaverse at the Lenovo Group.

Barriers and solutions

One barrier to rolling out VR solutions is the availability and price of the technology. Many companies are holding off on the investment, waiting for costs to become more affordable (which is already happening). Some also point to security factors — adding VR onboarding to company resources is another opening for cybercriminals to obtain sensitive information, including training recordings.

The health context matters too. In 2020, the industry company VR Heaven conducted research showing that more than half (57%) of people feel some form of discomfort during a virtual reality experience. Regular unpleasantness with VR headsets affects 13.7% of those surveyed.

When considering expanding onboarding with virtual reality, you also have to account for the local social and cultural context. If, as an organization — or even an entire market — you've only just begun developing digital forms of onboarding, it's worth asking whether putting VR headsets on candidates' heads isn't jumping in at the deep end. All the more so because building an effective program requires precisely recreating individual elements, writing a script and storyboard, designing a 360-degree space, and then going through editing and post-production. You have to consider whether you already have the digital competencies for such an undertaking, or how readily you can source them externally.

How does it work in practice? Selected case studies

We already know that using virtual reality in onboarding is, for some, a tune of the future, and for others, the opposite — a thoroughly familiar part of the present. Let's look at organizations that already have some experience with VR.

Virtual space at Accenture

One company that boldly reached for virtual space to improve the onboarding experience is Accenture. The global consulting giant employs more than 700,000 people worldwide. In 2021 alone, the firm recruited as many as 120,000 new people — a community comparable to the population of a mid-sized city. After the pandemic broke out, the way of communicating across such a huge group had to change, and VR turned out to be a bullseye.

Accenture's innovative solution is a virtual campus called One Accenture Park. There you'll find, among other things, digital recreations of physical office spaces and the "Nth Floor," a "place" for less formal employee gatherings. Microsoft provided the technological support for this project, delivered through the AltspaceVR platform, which enabled central management of access and virtual spaces.

The 3D environment let the company engage employees far more strongly than a series of presentations or meetings on Zoom or Teams. In its onboarding model, the firm bet on human relationships. New hires play educational games with more experienced colleagues, learning the company culture, its history, and its goals together. The VR-based onboarding covered not only hard-skills training but also the development of soft skills, where recreating natural human interactions is crucial. The process also includes building cybersecurity skills and educational programs focused on inclusion and diversity.

Meetings within One Accenture Park gave distributed teams a deeper and more consistent experience, and also cut them off from distracting stimuli. To communicate, employees use spatial audio, which strengthens the sense of being in the same room.

The result? Accenture reported higher employee retention rates and boosted the effectiveness of its training programs by 33%. But that's only the beginning, because the company is constantly developing its program, emphasizing that the future of onboarding will hinge on the right blend of traditional and digital experiences.

VR technology at Mondelez — a digital tour of the chocolate factory

On a smaller scale, food powerhouse Mondelez began using virtual and augmented reality in onboarding. This approach focused primarily on the digital recreation of the company's key facilities — from the chocolate factory to research-and-development centers and innovation hubs, all the way to the organization's headquarters.

Mondelez launched a pilot program in May of that year at its branch in India. Some new employees in a wide range of roles received Meta Oculus Virtual Reality kits, allowing them to get to know the company's most important facilities and people without leaving home. The VR experience is meant to compensate for the lack of physical visits to these places, limited because of COVID-19.

– "We felt that in the so-called new normal, onboarding experiences weren't as attractive for new employees. With VR, we designed a new, more immersive program so that our new hires could better understand the organization's purpose, cultural nuances, and feel a greater sense of community," explained Shilpa Vaid, who leads HR at Mondelez India, in The Hindu Business Line.

The VR onboarding process was divided into segments and defined by the specifics of each role. Headquarters employees get a chance to meet with leadership, while frontline staff can see the main office and learn the company's goals directly from leaders. – "Working in specific roles, it's sometimes hard to see the bigger picture and the shared goal," Shilpa Vaid emphasized.

The program was received positively, and the company hopes the new approach will not only onboard new employees more effectively but also attract younger candidates who are open to technology and naturally immersed in the digital world.

The virtual customer who makes a scene

Walmart uses VR in onboarding in yet another way. The retail chain has been developing virtual reality solutions since 2016, doing so through a partnership with technology provider Strivr. With each passing year, the organization expands its VR programs. Today they cover recruitment, onboarding, training, and development programs for managers.

During onboarding, Walmart uses virtual reality to develop employees' soft skills through simulations of situations that can happen in everyday work. New employees in the digital world thus encounter very real problems, such as a customer making a scene, locating products left in the wrong place, or working during the most intense moments, like a Black Friday sale. With VR, all these circumstances can be staged realistically in a single room and without involving a large group of people.

– "Our stores are open 24 hours, so we can't run training 'after hours.' Virtual reality lets us create sales-floor scenarios under conditions that are safe for employees," says Andy Trainor, Vice President of Walmart's training center.

One example is "The Pickup Tower" module, used to fulfill online orders. Before VR, new employees received instructions explaining step by step how to operate the machine, with instant feedback if they made a mistake. That training, combined with e-learning, took about eight hours. Applying VR technology cut that time to... 15 minutes — with no drop in effectiveness.

Virtual training prepares a new hire for various non-standard situations and improves their comfort at work. In Walmart's case, we're talking about a 10–15% increase in self-confidence. What's more, simulations like these give the employer better insight into employees' competencies. An example? An employee from Pennsylvania earned a promotion and a raise thanks to a VR test. In one simulation, he assisted a store associate and a customer looking for mascara. Based on his behavior in that specific situation, managers spotted leadership skills in him and offered a promotion.

VR technology is making its way veeery slowly into the global and local HR market, including onboarding processes. Meanwhile, organizations in Poland and abroad continue to develop digital onboarding built on automation. That kind of rollout will be the default in the coming years, and it's already the backbone of Gamfi Onboarding — our app for automated onboarding. If you'd like to test this approach in your organization, let us know! We'll show you how it works!