“Virtual reality — long touted as the next big thing in tech — hasn't taken off as a consumer product, but employers are embracing it as a more efficient and effective tool for on-the-job training,” writes Yuki Noguchi in their recent NPR article entitled “Virtual Reality Goes To Work, Helping Train Employees.”
According to Noguchi, “This year, Walmart is training more than 1 million employees using virtual reality. And moving companies, airlines, food processing and financial firms are all using VR in different ways. In the virtual world, cashiers are taught to show greater empathy, mechanics learn to repair planes and retail workers experience how to deal with armed robbery.”
“The sensory immersion is key to its effectiveness. Because things look and sound as if they were real, the brain processes virtual reality as though it were a real experience, says Stanford communication professor Jeremy Bailenson, who also founded the school's Virtual Human Interaction Lab,” the article explains.
"People learn by doing ... getting feedback on mistakes, and then repeating and iterating," Bailenson says in the NPR piece.
Noguchi shares, “Not every workplace situation is conducive to virtual reality training. Some tactile skills, for example, are better experienced in real life. But the technology is especially useful for training people for novel or emergency situations.”
This statement resonated with us.
We’re not pushing VR as your next medium for training.
Although it might work, we’re still advocates of life environment training and tabletop exercises that help you get the closest you can to the real experience – safely.
It also gives you the hands-on practice with your operations management software.
Keep reading; we’re sharing the benefits in this article, especially when it comes to improving performance.
TABLETOP EXERCISES: TRAIN EMPLOYEES & MAXIMIZE PERFORMANCE
Now, it’s essential to understand the ways constant and consistent practice will empower your employees and improve your operation.
Consider how implementing this technique will change the way your organization and boss see you as a leader.
How you and your employees perform can change for the better – starting now.
Creates Accountability Among Employees
Running through scenarios with your team focuses them.
Everyone learns the fundamentals of ensuring effective and efficient management.
During this time, assess their abilities effectively, coach them, and then hold them accountable for future scenarios.
Give them the tools and then hold them accountable.
That’s easy enough, right?
Your Team Feels Valued
Taking time to train your employees shows them you care about everyone’s success.
All that effort you’re putting into your legendary events, share it with your employees.
Role-playing exercises allow you to find the root of the problem.
Whether it’s a problem in your process or personnel, you can take a closer look at the details.
Recognizing your employees and their roles validates their importance to the greater good.
It Challenges Employees to Improve
Rather than dictating processes to your employees, let them iron out ideas for improving your operation.
While walking through various scenarios, they might find specific details in the process to improve – ones you never thought of.
Remember, they’re the forefront of your efforts.
They see everything first.
Tabletop exercises give you and your team the freedom to practice without consequence and test theories that could work.
It’s essential to make your mistakes now, not when your center stage.
Builds Your Team’s Confidence to Perform
Successful people are confident. So are successful teams.
Develop your employees into experts.
Role-playing exercises increase self-awareness.
Training allows them to enhance their know-how, with all the advantages of the scenarios not being real life.
Trying it out during an exercise builds the muscle memory for when it will really count.
Then, when you give them feedback, they know they’re performing to your standards.
Foster an environment of confidence to reap the benefits.
Produces More Solutions to Complex Scenarios
So much can go wrong or right when employees are documenting incidents, analyzing them, and communicating them.
Would you agree?
There might be several steps in the process that you can improve or change completely.
You can improve your process to help your team become better aware of all incidents occurring throughout your property.
Acting out common incidents and how to respond can surface a collection of solutions for your arsenal.
This will strengthen your team’s effectiveness.
Enhances Awareness of What’s Occurring at Your Property
More solutions lead to a heightened awareness of any and all incidents occurring at your venue or facility.
Train your employees to understand the impact of their role.
Role-playing exercises that lead to a more aware workforce results in faster response times and happier, safer guests.
It’s a ripple effect that leads to a memorable experience for your guests.
Drastically Increases Productivity
Your training efforts will produce a high performing team.
What does a high-performing team do?
They produce.
Now you’ll have:
- Accurate documentation
- Useful analytics
- Increased communication
- Enhanced awareness
Role-playing exercises give you and your team the ability to be highly effective and efficient so you can achieve maximum performance.
Builds Your Authority as a Professional Leader
Proving yourself as an effective leader includes employing Proactive Operations, always preparing, learning, and achieving, alongside your team.
OVER TO YOU
Is VR the employee training medium of the future – or the present? We don’t know. However, we will always advocate for the value of tabletop exercises and getting into the field with life environment training.
Proactive Operations understand the importance of this. Getting a real-life experience of various scenarios in a safe environment can lead to competent employees and maximum performance.
Do you agree?
