Virtual reality technology can be used to enhance safety training for employees in many industries. A growing number of companies, such as UPS, are using virtual reality safety training. Austin Visuals is a 3D animation studio offering animated employee training videos.
Training is conducted to help employees feel confident that they can perform job duties in a safe manner. Virtual reality allows employees to visualize a wide variety of possible scenarios and practice their response in a given situation. This technology is being used in business, industry, medicine, law enforcement, and military training programs.
Virtual reality training provides a safe environment to put people in situations that may be encountered at work and provides the opportunity to discover how their actions may affect the outcome of a situation. The simulations allow employees to become familiar with safety procedures and learn in a way that is both realistic and safe.
Safety simulations are used in employee training for a variety of purposes. Certain situations may be too dangerous or distracting to use in live training exercises and virtual reality is a perfect substitute. For example, hazard identification enables people to identify hazards in the workplace and determine how best to handle difficult situations, without being placed in harm’s way.
Animation companies produce employee training materials, including images, video, and audio to create a realistic environment for training situations. Participants are able to learn and apply new knowledge and skills gained from employee training programs in a safe environment. Mistakes in the real world can be deadly, but in the virtual reality world, the participants are completely safe.
In some cases, training in real life situations is impossible. For example, the U.S. Federal Emergency Response Agency uses virtual reality to train disaster managers about techniques to use in major flood disasters. Law enforcement officers use virtual reality with active shooter scenarios to practice how they will respond in life threatening situations.
This method is effective because people find virtual reality engaging and relevant, which means they are more likely to pay attention, absorb, and retain the information presented in the training sessions. They become immersed and involved in the process, which improves learning and recall of the information presented in the safety training.
Research in the area of using virtual reality for training purposes is very encouraging. A study conducted at Miami Children’s Health System showed that virtual reality training sessions can result in 80% retention rates even one year after employees participated in the training. This is much higher than the average retention rates of participants in traditional training classes. Since the ultimate goal for any training program is for workers to remember the information, VR can prove extremely effective.
Virtual reality can be effective for employee safety training in commercial, manufacturing, industrial workplaces, law enforcement, driving simulation, and many other situations. When implementing virtual reality into your training program, work with an experienced and established animation studio to create content that meets your specific training requirements.
