Enhance Your Onboarding Process with Virtual Reality

Due to the pandemic, companies have been forced to rethink their onboarding procedure. Immersive technologies like virtual reality (VR) have grown in popularity as a way to better engage new employees and increase staff retention. To get the most out of your new hires, it’s important that they get to meet their coworkers and get a sense of your company's culture during onboarding. However, because of social distance and travel restrictions, there are a lot of limitations in terms of team communication and collaboration. 

To replicate the pleasant ambience of the real workplace while maintaining the flexibility and safety of remote working, Walmart, Ericsson, and Accenture have already adopted VR technology. If you're having trouble engaging and educating new employees, this article will definitely help. 

VR: the ideal onboarding tool

According to a recent Gartner study, 32% of the global workforce will be remote by the end of this year. In fact, remote workers would make up 53% of the US workforce and 52% of the UK workforce by 2022. 

Moving to a remote office can be tough for many firms, especially when hiring new employees. But VR can protect your staff from Zoom burnout and provide engaging learning experiences. Some of the main benefits of using VR for onboarding are: 

Individualized immersive interactions

Including a VR headset in your onboarding kit for new remote employees is a terrific way to greet them. Once hired, they can take a virtual tour of their new office, meet the management team, participate in VR training sessions, or simply hang out with their coworkers online. Also, office game nights will never be the same. 

Enhanced knowledge retention

VR helps new employees adjust to their new job and duties by immersing them in real-world surroundings through captivating visual and aural input. Despite personal distractions, employees can focus better on learning with virtual reality. 

Real-time progress tracking

Managers and HR professionals can use virtual reality to assess how quickly staff complete tasks. This technology may help you understand what your employees enjoy the most, making it easier to improve overall performance. 

Cost-effective implementation

You don't need to have on-site trainers or new hires at your office for virtual reality training. Your new hires can now learn everything they need to know from their own homes. Less expensive VR equipment and lower-cost VR video content development make VR easy to include in your onboarding process. 

How VR improves onboarding experiences

A successful work atmosphere is based on the connections between people, no matter where they are. With a VR employee onboarding, you can avoid alienating or disengaging remote workers by creating a digital workplace where knowledge sharing and informal interactions can happen easily. 

Virtual workspaces like Spatial, AltspaceVR, and Horizon Workrooms can help businesses hire new staff more easily and affordably. Real-time interactions outperform Zoom videoconferences. A sense of belonging also encourages new employees to stay for the long haul. 

Interactive training

While e-learning and hands-on training have their benefits, virtual reality training outperforms them because of its unparalleled presence and scalability. A VR training environment allows your new employees to safely apply their knowledge and master new skills faster than traditional methods. 

Virtual reality is a great tool for onboarding new staff since it allows you to customize training. From teaching salespeople how to deal with different types of clients to training new engineers how to operate heavy equipment and perform maintenance, virtual reality may be utilized for many different purposes. 

Virtual tours of the office

In a pre-pandemic world, you'd show new hires around, introduce them to the staff, and explain business operations. Traditional routines are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain as more organizations adopt hybrid or remote models. Virtual reality tours are preferable to digital onboarding because they allow employees to personally immerse themselves in the new environment. 

Improve employee retention

Hiring the right individuals in work from home conditions is challenging. VR onboarding allows you to make a lasting first impression on remote employees before they ever start working. With engaging technology like VR, new employees (especially millennials) are more likely to stay with your organisation beyond onboarding. It's no surprise that engaged workers are more motivated and productive than disengaged ones. 

Track your new hires' success

Without a defined onboarding process, it's difficult to identify what works and what doesn't. Virtual reality allows you to collect a lot of data about your onboarding campaign's performance. Using VR technology, you may assess new hires' ability levels and determine what has to be improved to make their learning process more efficient. 

Conclusion

Virtual reality can help you onboard new employees faster and more affordably. For those considering virtual reality onboarding, our experts are ready to guide you through the process.