Virtual Reality is the new technology raving the training industry and disrupting all others before with its impact on time reduction and better absorption of training material by the trainees. Virtual reality used for soft skills training to help employees enhance their communication, leadership, empathy and problem solving skills. According to a study conducted by PWC, VR learners are proven to be 3.75 and 2.3 times more emotionally connected to their learning content than classroom and e-learning material respectively.

Now that you have invested in a VR training solution for your enterprise, you want to know the outcomes of this investment for your workplace and its employees. As an L&D leader, you want to be aware of the ‘returns’ on your ‘investments’ put into the expansive VR training simulation used to train your company employees for soft skills.

Soft skills are becoming increasingly important, even more so than hard skills, in the day and age of massive disruption and rise of new industries daily, yet they are equally hard to measure and evaluate.

But we will make this work, let’s take a look at various returns on investment on soft skills training through VR-

Time is Money

One of the biggest benefits of learning through Virtual Reality environments is its time saving qualities. According to PWC’ study on the effectiveness of VR training, VR takes one-fourth the time of classroom and two-thirds the time of E-learning. With being the fastest form of deploying training in the field, VR learning is also increasingly easy to grasp and retain. The most benefits of VR training can be reaped when it is applied in larger amounts to train bigger groups of employees, hence saving an immense amount of time for the company on a whole leading to better productivity and efficiency.

Relevancy of your training

As compared to E-learning and classroom learning modules, VR training is easier to amend and harder to disrupt. With having trainees experiencing relevant situations which impart soft skills, VR training has a long shelf life and greater ROI on its material for the course designer and training facilitator.

Speaking of facilitators

Classroom learnings take the biggest amounts of facilitation costs as the more the learners, the more facilitators the modules need. While E-learning on the other hand, does not necessarily require any facilitator and relies mostly on self-study. One of the biggest cost drivers for VR learning is the facilitator. As VR learning needs only part time facilitators, the cost of facilitating a classroom training of around 1300 people would be 8 times more than the cost of facilitating the same amount of people through VR training. This is due to the self-reliance and independence that comes with VR training modules along with the less amount of time required to train a learner.

Hardwares and softwares

With E-learning and VR learning, the hardware and software used are specific to the tasks and add to the cost overall, yet they can be used for other purposes around the office and training. The cost of these is ‘equivalent’ to the costs compared to classroom and E-learning.

Scale

In your company’s training program, VR training is a malleable and long lasting form of training. To expand the training on scale and making it relevant to different branches across different locations, cultures, skills and needs, VR training ROI is immense and worthy. Since VR training modules are easily transferable online, the best way to make use of the extensive learning lessons it has to offer is to expand the learning ground of your program and make it available to employees easily.

The benefits of soft skills training’s applications to different departments at all times is one of the many benefits VR training has to offer.

As most businesses want to see an evident return on their ROI, Intel is a good example to look at when it comes to that. Intel has seen a significant return on their investment on VR training to train their employees for an Electrical Safety Recertification program. According to their calculations the company will be getting 300% ROI through this training program in just a period of 5 years. Intel also conducted a 10 day testing phase after which they received feedback from employees with overwhelming desire to have more such courses available to them through VR training. 

When calculated among 28 cost variables which involves the likes of course design, research, assembly and facilitation of the course materials (numbers gathered from PWC study), E-learning stands at 16, classroom learning at 17, compared to its other learning counterparts the cost of investing in a V-Learning Course is as high as 25.  

In conclusion, to see valuable returns of VR training is in the increase of morale and increase in employees soft skills and personality. The long term benefits this reaps for a workplace are irreplaceable and evident of a brand identity and company culture.

The increase in value of hard and soft skills of employees through VR training is showcased in the ROI through a boost of good customer service and a flourishing workplace.

Written by Simran Singh

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