E-B O O K

Building soft skills

in the workplace
with Immersive Learning
Table of
contents

3 The power of VR to train soft skills

4 Enterprise soft skills training in VR

8 Valuable and actionable insights with VR data

9 Conclusion

9 About Strivr

2
Nearly every role in the workplace is rapidly changing, and so are the people filling those
roles. Today’s employees are putting pressure on their employers, demanding more and better
opportunities for growth. No company today is exempt from the challenge to equip employees
with better training tools and technologies. And no skillset is in greater need of development
than soft skills, which is why they have become such a paramount focus for companies across
every industry.

Soft skills are required for positive social interactions and they are foundational to career
success. But historically, teaching skills like communication, leadership, listening and empathy
has never quite met expectations. Moreover, companies have not been able to measure these
skills - who has them now, who has aptitude to learn them and how they translate to on-the-job
performance.

Today, there’s a new way for people to learn. Using Virtual Reality (VR) and advanced learning
theory, this new method is known as Immersive Learning. Ample research has demonstrated
the heightened ability of Immersive Learning to facilitate behavioral change when it comes to
soft skills in the workplace.

The power of VR to train soft skills

Virtual Reality provides a transformative training experience because it immerses learners into
real-world situations and allows them to practice soft skills in a safe environment. Let’s explore
how, starting with immersion.

In VR, learners experience a phenomenon called “presence,” in which the brain treats the
VR experience the same way it would treat real life. This is due to complete immersion into
virtual environments reflective of the ones they will experience on the job. Sometimes, these
virtual environments are captured with 360-degree cameras; other times, they are computer-
generated. Regardless, environmental features of the real world are replicated in the VR
environment, meaning the soft skills lessons learned in VR are more memorable and authentic.
Learners walk away from Immersive Learning feeling like they’ve already experienced the
situations. It replicates hands-on training.

But VR goes a step further, and can also generate a feeling of embodiment that is highly
effective for practicing soft skills like empathy. Learners get to experience situations from
another’s perspective to understand the real-world outcomes of their decisions. They get to
walk in the shoes of people they interact with - both customers and colleagues. Embodiment
tends to evoke more emotion because learners are experiencing the struggles of another, not
just watching them happen in a video.

Building soft skills in the workplace with Immersive Learning 3

And lastly, learners get this experiential training on-demand. They can practice their soft skills
in a natural and realistic way over and over again and, as the saying goes, practice makes
perfect. While presence and embodiment are powerful advantages to make the training stick,
VR is most effective for teaching soft skills because of the ability to practice in such a realistic
environment.

L&D leaders have found that, with Immersive Learning, they are gaining both traditional data
like soft skills proficiency, and deeper insights like attention and engagement.

Enterprise soft skills training in VR

With Immersive Learning, organizations can now deliver true training experiences that impact
the learner’s needs, instead of putting them through yet another ineffective check-boxing
experience.

Handling difficult conversations

People are faced with difficult conversations almost every day at work with both coworkers and
customers. How they handle these conversations is critical to a successful business. L&D can
help by giving managers and front-line associates practice with Immersive Learning.

Walmart store managers use VR to practice having conversations with team members on a
variety of uncomfortable subjects, from habitual tardiness to poor customer service. These
discussions often require a careful balance of compassion and firmness. Immersive Learning
offers repetitions in a safe environment for learners to make mistakes and try again. In the
headset, learners experience a computer-generated simulation that closely mimics the office
most store managers have, and the conversations are designed to teach as well as prepare
for the most common scenarios. This helps drive home learning objectives while minimizing
distractions.

For employees on the front lines, interfacing with customers can involve plenty of tough
conversations. With Immersive Learning, associates get to experience some of the most
common or challenging situations while being guided through the communication required to
properly handle them. Many of the training situations closely resemble actual interactions that
have occurred for the most realistic experience. These reps in VR occur before associates are
even on the job, so they are highly prepared for day one.

Building soft skills in the workplace with Immersive Learning 4

Coaching and giving feedback

An important and growing need for L&D leaders is proper coaching, which involves giving
consistent feedback to team members. But many people - from executives down to the front
line - do not know the proper techniques for giving feedback effectively. Immersive Learning
helps not only through its complete immersion and realistic practice, but also by capturing
audio and head and hand movement for learners to review after the experience.

DDI is an award-winning leadership consultancy that offers Immersive Learning as part of

its leadership training.1 One of the modules puts learners in an office, sitting across from a
disgruntled employee who reports to them. Using expert curriculum design, learners are guided
through how to give her feedback about her working relationship with a colleague who is
younger and less experienced.

After concluding the coaching session, learners take the perspective of the other employee
to watch the conversation from her perspective: listening to themselves speak and watching
their recorded movement. They can self-analyze how well they handled each exchange in the
dialogue, which increases overall retention of the learning.

1 DDI partners with Strivr to provide Immersive Learning to DDI customers.

Building soft skills in the workplace with Immersive Learning 5

Empathy

One of the best applications in the world for Virtual Reality is this
ability to get out of your body and to experience the world in a new
way.”
Je re my Ba i l e ns on , F ou nd i ng D i re c to r o f Stanfo rd ’s Vi r tu al Human Interac ti o n L ab

Scientific research about VR and empathy has proven that VR is more effective for teaching
empathy than traditional methods like watching a video or role-playing. In fact, using VR to
take another’s perspective causes people to fundamentally change the way they think and
behave towards others. With Immersive Learning, employees learn and practice empathy, a
skill that influences on-the-job performance in customer service, management and many other
capacities.

A powerful example comes from a utilities call center: in the headset, associates are
transported from the call center, where they receive a call, to inside the home of the caller.
Learners experience the sights and sounds of being the caretaker for an elderly father with
emphysema, or the challenge of resetting breakers in 100-degree heat while on the phone with
the company. Learners are experiencing the lives of their customers in VR, rather than simply
reading or watching videos about them. This helps associates relate more sincerely and offer
better service on the job.

Building soft skills in the workplace with Immersive Learning 6

Another example comes from retail, where learners are immersed in an experience in the store.
A customer struggles to find the right soup for his son, who is sick at home. Then, the module
goes a step further: learners are actually transported to his home, where they can hear the
child coughing and witness a conversation with his wife as they cope with the difficulty of a
sick child. Associates truly walk in this customer’s shoes to learn empathy in a more engaging
and impactful way. In addition, Immersive Learning also layers in important information about
where items are and how to help customers in need. Because the learner is fully engaged, they
retain the tactical information and develop empathy. All in all, associates are more confident
working with customers in the store.

Diversity & inclusion

Diversity training is a major priority for enterprises today. It incorporates aspects of empathy
and handling difficult conversations, as well as situational awareness and interpersonal
relationships - all of which make it a great opportunity for Immersive Learning. With D&I
training such a critical element of employee experience, both L&D and HR have a responsibility
to deliver it in the most effective way possible.

That’s one reason why Walmart uses Immersive Learning for diversity & inclusion training.
Managers who go through the training move between the break room and the store floor as
they experience colleagues displaying non-inclusive behavior. Then, they participate in an
interactive, face-to-face conversation with that colleague to discuss why non-inclusive behavior
is not in line with Walmart’s core values. Learners discover how to stand up to and counter
biases they may come across in their role. The mixture of real-world experience with authentic
practice gives managers the tools to foster an inclusive work environment for every associate in
their store.

Building soft skills in the workplace with Immersive Learning 7

Valuable and actionable insights
with VR data

Using Immersive Learning to train for soft skills isn’t more effective simply because it’s more
realistic. Immersive Learning also grants insights into the behavior of users by collecting
detailed data about performance, attention and engagement. Through data analysis and
reporting, L&D can begin to understand the quality of the social interactions that learners are
having in VR. They can also review and evaluate the factors that contribute to improving soft
skills across the workforce, which gives insight into the best learning path going forward.

For example, in modules for giving feedback or handling difficult conversations, learners’
speaking and movement are being recorded, then evaluated by training leaders. Trainers can
rate the conversation based on a number of quantitative and qualitative points, like using the
right type of and amount of words, following the steps correctly and overall tone. The rating
drives a more focused and directed follow-up training with that learner on the specific areas
that were rated poorly. Ultimately, employees are building the soft skills required to perform
well in their roles.

These insights from Immersive Learning are valuable for a number of reasons. First, they
help trainers to refine the training over time for more effective learning of soft skills. They
also enable L&D to demonstrate the value of soft skills training to executives and the rest of
the organization, since performance exhibited in VR is a close representation of on-the-job
behavior.

Building soft skills in the workplace with Immersive Learning 8

 Conclusion
Every L&D leader knows the importance of creating a social work environment where employees
are empowered to perform at their best. Using Immersive Learning for soft skills training isn’t
just more effective on an individual basis, it’s also means to standardization at scale. With its
combination of effective learning techniques and relevant feedback, Immersive Learning has
become the most effective and engaging way that enterprise organizations are teaching soft skills.

About Strivr
Incubated in the Stanford University Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Strivr transforms the way
organizations train and develop their workforce through immersive experiences. Co-founders
Derek Belch and Jeremy Bailenson, one of the world’s leading VR researchers, first teamed
up in 2014 to assess Immersive Learning as an effective tool for training football players. With
sports as a proving ground, they quickly expanded their focus from the athlete to the enterprise.
Today, Strivr is the only end-to-end provider of Immersive Learning solutions.

Built on 20 years of research

from the Stanford University
Virtual Human Interaction
Lab, Strivr is using immersive
technology to transform the
way we learn.”

Jeremy Bailenson,
Strivr Co-founder and Managing
Director of the Stanford Virtual
Human Interaction Lab

Strivr delivers a proven software platform enabled by professional services, content production,
and hardware management. Both elite sports organizations and Fortune 500 companies are
using Strivr’s software platform to train millions of employees, seeing a measurable impact
in reduced employee training time, increased customer satisfaction and greater overall
confidence of employees feeling more engaged and prepared at work. To learn more about
elevating performance through immersive experience, visit www.strivr.com.

Building soft skills in the workplace with Immersive Learning 9

For more information please contact
info@strivr.com

©2019 Strivr Labs, Inc.