The first VR moment each learner encounters should be nothing short of magical. And every training module they experience should be just that: an experience in itself.
Strivr has enabled over 1.5 million sessions on our Immersive Learning platform, from grocery store staff to factory workers, bank tellers to customer service associates. Our customers are the only enterprises that have been successful with Virtual Reality at scale.
That’s because our customers have subscribed to a change management approach that made the transition to VR both smooth and successful.
In this blog, we’ll share the four pillars of that change management approach, plus share ways that Strivr enables and partners with you to roll out VR training at scale.
The 4 pillars of successful VR change management
One of the first things we do during the solutioning phase is create a VR content strategy. This is where we identify your business objectives and map them to the right learning objectives. You can learn more about that process in this blog.
Once the content has been created and deployed on Strivr’s platform, it’s time for another strategy to be put in place: rollout and adoption.
Every rollout strategy will incorporate elements of these four pillars, which have helped companies like Walmart and Verizon bring the immersive power of VR training to hundreds and thousands of employees.
01
Find the changemakers
In our experience, the single most important factor to the success of any Immersive Learning rollout is to identify the right champions within your organization and empower those people to model this new way of learning.
While executive leadership may have made the preliminary decision on Immersive Learning, you can’t truly influence change downstream without champions on the ground. It is critical, as you’ll see, to generate excitement around what could ultimately be one of the most profound and positive changes to the way your people learn.
Many Strivr customers turn to their local managers at the store, branch, or plant-level.
Expert tip: Ideal champions are both technologically astute and socially able to influence change within an organization. As you think about the changemakers in your org, look for people who can take the technical lead on activating and troubleshooting equipment, as well as facilitate an amazing training session.
02
Empower, engage, and excite
What’s the biggest challenge when you lean on local managers to drive major initiatives? They’re really busy. But give them something innovative, powerful, and truly meaningful to champion and they’ll jump at the chance.
Immersive Learning has to be more than just another checkbox on the to-do list. So engaging them with the larger Immersive Learning strategy and process is a great way to drive excitement and adoption. Being explicit about their role as changemaker empowers them to be incredible stewards of the solution. We’ve seen it happen again and again.
One of the ways Strivr partners with you in this process is by providing templates and materials you can customize and use to drive this empowerment. In fact, Strivr supplies you with an implementation lead to help develop your specific rollout strategy, including these materials.
The implementation lead will work with you to host an Immersive Learning kickoff session for your champions, where we teach and enable them to be experts in how to launch VR and maintain adoption. With this knowledge, they’ll be able to provide a best-in-class Immersive Learning session to their own cohort of employees.
Depending on your overall training ecosystem and strategy, Strivr will work with you on developing and providing the right materials to engage your champions and excite them about their responsibilities.
03
Trickle down knowledge to learners
Now, it’s the champions’ turn to empower, engage, and excite the larger learner population. The more expertise we can build in your base of champions, the faster and more effectively they’ll impart that knowledge and enthusiasm to the workforce.
To do this, champions need to excel in two key activities: distributing VR headsets and getting people excited.
Our rollout plan will include details about how and where headsets need to be distributed. Most organizations will have 3-4 headsets per location – some customers have up to 15 – in a designated area where employees can train. Other companies may choose to send a headset to the home of each employee or new hire.
Once the headsets are accounted for, champions now serve as the in-house VR experts for your workforce. The ultimate goal is getting every learner to the moment of magic in the headset: when they feel presence in the situation and truly practice new skills in a safe environment.
What an opportunity to influence real change and make learning powerful and memorable for the entire workforce.
We’ve heard nothing but great things from associates who use this.
Heather Durtschi, Senior Director of Content Design and Development, Walmart
04
Incentivize your team
We always encourage customers to use gamification to get the workforce engaged in the rollout process.
While the incentivization will look different across companies and industries, we often see that friendly competition between locations is really successful in meeting adoption goals. Teams will compare training performance or which team trains their target employees the fastest, all of which can be accessed through the Strivr platform.
Some companies have even used Slack, internal newsletters, or other forms of competition to get learners excited and incentivized to complete their immersive training. There’s room for creativity here, and your implementation lead will work closely with you to understand the learner population, company culture, and adoption goals so they can make the best recommendations for rollout.
Beyond the technology
Strivr doesn’t just supply the technology expertise to create an Immersive Learning program for your company. Along with the champions you identify to spearhead the rollout of Immersive Learning within your organization, Strivr provides an expert team and the flexible resources to make the transition to VR training as smooth, simple, and successful as possible.
For more detailed information about rolling out Immersive Learning within your organization, explore the free Ultimate Guide to Immersive Learning. Or request a consultation with one of Strivr’s team members to learn more about our platform and services.
