How VR Enhances Connectivity, Retention, and More

A genuine sense of connection is key to healthy relationships. Interpersonal relationships thrive on connection and this holds true of the relationship employees have with their colleagues, their managers, as well as their employer organization as a whole. Connection can be measured through engagement, and numerous studies have shown a strong correlation between employee engagement and retention. Engaged employees tend to be more committed to their work and the organization, leading to an increased likelihood of staying with the company over time.?

Virtual reality (VR) brings people together and fosters a true sense of connection. We work in a world that often feels disconnected due to divergent time zones, hybrid or remote work schedules.

A surplus of project management and tracking tools intended to bring us together just adds tedium to the workload. And software designed to bring us virtually face-to-face falls short of the mark. If you’ve ever tried to make eye contact in Zoom or other web-conferencing services, then you will relate.?

VR Makes Collaboration Easy?

VR immerses employees from anywhere in the world into one space that feels real. Your senses are engaged in a visceral way, fostering the sense of presence and a connection to the environment and to those around you.?

Spatial audio in VR mimics the real world. You will hear someone on your left side louder in your left ear. When, say, a facilitator is approaching you, you’ll be able to hear more clearly, and conversely, as she walks away, her voice will begin to recede.?

Spatial audio makes VR conducive to small group collaboration. Team members can split off and interact without hearing the conversations of other groups across the environment.?

In terms of mobility, true VR allows for six degrees of freedom. This means that you can move freely in the space and are not tethered to one position. This does not mean, however, that you need to walk around your physical space (and risk bumping into things). You can choose to be stationary in the physical world, but move around the digital environment using intuitive hand controls. This ease of movement allows employees to connect in a way that feels natural.?

New Employees Can Virtually Meet In Person?

There are so many reasons and occasions to bring employees together. You may decide to bring new employees into VR on a rolling quarterly basis in order to connect them to senior management who welcome them to the organization.?

Afterward, new employees can network and get to know each other through conversation or enhanced icebreaker activities. Perhaps an outdoor patio overlooking the ocean is appropriate for this type of social event. Any environment is possible in VR.?

On their own, new employees can visit corporate headquarters using 360 degree video in VR. These 360 degree video experiences can help employees forge a deeper connection by acculturating them to the organization.??

Team Building In VR is Cost-Efficient?

A traditional way to foster connection and unity is through team building, and we know that in today’s environment, gathering employees from dispersed geographic locations is costly and time-consuming. In VR, whole teams can congregate instantaneously in a fun environment. Edstutia, for example, allows you to visit a Karaoke bar!?

Maybe charades or a game of PictionaryTM is more your team’s style (Edstutia has a 3D drawing tool for that). VR allows for creativity in a low-risk environment. Even the process of choosing avatars is conducive to connection. A leader joining the activity in a silly costume can help to flatten the hierarchy and allow employees to relax and more freely connect.?

VR Coaching Can Increase Employee Retention?

Employee retention is highly correlated with the employee-manager relationship. It’s for this reason that companies spend a lot of dollars investing in their managers’ communication skills. VR creates a unique environment for management training.?

Participants can customize avatars and use voice modulation to more easily get into the assigned role of the given role-play scenario. This can make role-play more effective as, presumably, participants are familiar with one another and may find role-play awkward or unrealistic in real life.?

Edstutia’s platform includes a record and play-back feature that allows managers to observe how they interacted during the role-play. They can see whether they maintained eye contact and if their tone was appropriately assertive in a conflict resolution scenario, for example. They can apply this learning to the next round until they’re confident enough to have these important conversations in real life.?

VR provides a low-risk environment to practice high-stakes situations. A manager’s ability to communicate effectively with employees will have a positive effect on employee retention and VR provides the ideal environment for this type of training.?

Learning Retention is Increased In VR?

We’ve discussed increasing employee retention through boosting connection and engagement in VR, but there’s another type of retention that VR enhances: learning retention. The immersive nature of VR experiences can enhance memory retention by involving multiple senses and creating a lasting impact on the user.?

In comparison to traditional 2D e-learning, VR is true experiential learning, a proven superior learning method. According to a recent PwC study, VR learners had four times the level of focus vs their e-learning counterparts. They also learned the material four times as fast as their classroom counterparts. It is clear that companies that invest in VR will see higher returns on their learning outcomes.?

Wrap-Up

Engagement and connection are vital to employee retention. Virtual reality engages employees in realistic and collaborative environments – something that web-conferencing software cannot do. It helps employees forge deep relationships that can improve team performance. VR is also ideal for learning engagement and retention. Encouraging research outcomes on the efficacy of VR as a learning tool is prompting companies to incorporate VR – and it is transforming training programs across industries for the better.

If you’re curious about VR but perhaps your company hasn’t taken the plunge, Edstutia offers a wide variety of products and services for organizations looking to dip their toes into the VR water, such as our Instructor Certification in XR, Teambuilding in VR Six-Pack, Library of Simulations, Sandbox, and more. Visit our website to learn more about the immersive training experiences we offer and how your team can get started leveraging the benefits of VR for employee training and development.