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November 9, 2021 by Chris Daily 1 Comment

5 VR Training Examples That Can Help Build Soft Skills

Research suggests the American skills gap is real. Before the pandemic, employers left 7 million jobs unfilled. Managers set the standard high for candidates. But then, they don’t find someone they like. So instead, they don’t hire. The pandemic has exasperated this issue.

Yet, data suggests companies should invest in training their employees rather than waiting for the perfect candidate. Today, many businesses use virtual reality (VR) technology to train new hires. If you’re wondering how to use VR in business training, this article is for you.

Let’s look at some VR training examples businesses use to build their employees’ soft skills.

What are Soft Skills?

Soft skills are personal attributes that relate to how you work. They are crucial to your success at any job. Some other terms that relate to soft skills are:

  • Interpersonal (people) skills
  • Communication skills
  • Non-technical skills
  • Non-cognitive skills
  • Transferable skills
  • Listening skills
  • Empathy

Employers desire soft skills because they aren’t related to a specific job. A candidate with soft skills makes them adaptable. Additionally, almost all jobs require employees to engage with others in some way.

Soft skills determine how well one can work with others. Common soft skills examples include:

  • Communication
  • Conflict resolution
  • Creative and critical thinking
  • Dependability
  • Motivation
  • Positivity
  • Problem-solving
  • Time management
  • Work ethic

Employers look for both soft and hard skills when hiring. But they stress soft skills because they are less defined and apply to all jobs. Plus, they are harder to learn. On the other hand, employers can teach hard skills through schooling or on-the-job training and measure them with specific tasks.

VR Training Examples

Businesses are starting to catch onto the idea of using VR technology for soft skills training. Companies already use VR to teach hard skills and job skills simulations. A typical example is using flight simulators to train pilots.

But there are plenty of VR training examples for soft skills too.

Coaching and Employee Evaluation

Employees can use VR technology to learn about coaching. In the activity, an employee observes their coworker handle a stressful activity. After, the employee calls the coworker into their office and chooses a response based on their behavior.

The activity is great for management and leaders. They need strong, soft skills and confidence to effectively lead their teams. In addition, managers can observe how employees react to their responses for the best learning outcomes.

The activity can even use actors at the office to make the experience more realistic.

Further, VR can help managers evaluate employees. It teaches them how to engage in the evaluation and ask the right questions. Then, managers can better allocate training resources and match skill profiles to jobs in the company.

Diversity and Inclusion Training

Diversity and inclusion training is a must for every business. Recognizing unconscious biases in the workplace and creating equitable systems is something you should already be doing. Using VR to train employees on the matter is excellent.

Here is one scenario. The employee sits at a conference table with other coworkers and observes their conversations. The employee notices one coworker make a derogatory comment toward another coworker. The employee in the simulation needs to decide how to respond to the comment.

The situation teaches employees empathy towards others. But, more importantly, it teaches how to develop racial awareness, and how to handle microaggressions.

Retail Training and Customer Service

Using a VR activity, retail employees can practice interacting with customers. For example, they can practice processing returns, answering customer questions, and handling upset customers virtually before taking on real customers.

The activity lets employees practice their customer service skills and not feel embarrassed to make mistakes. This also helps the reputation of the company. In addition, after the training, employees will feel more confident addressing customers on their first day on the job.

Any customer service skills are great to practice using VR. People can be rude! Learning how to listen actively, remain calm, and resolve problems under stress is vital. With VR, employees can practice these skills comfortably before being thrust in front of real customers.

Advantages of Using VR

Training employees with VR technology has several benefits for businesses. A comprehensive study by PwC in June 2021 showed employees were:

  • Four times faster to train than in the classroom
  • 275% more confident applying the new skills
  • Almost four times more emotionally connected to the content
  • Four times more focused than other e-learning peers

While these numbers may come as a surprise, they aren’t! Researchers have been publishing positive reports on VR training for years now.

A 2017 Stanford study found using VR technology makes people more empathetic to each other. The study let participants experience not being able to afford their home. They interacted with the environment to try to save their home but often ended up homeless.

It was so successful that they made a film about it called “Becoming Homeless.”

When meeting in person isn’t always possible, VR is an excellent solution to keep employees’ soft skills sharp. It’s practical but also cost-effective at scale. Larger companies will save money using VR for employee training.

The best benefit of using VR technology is eliminating the fear of making mistakes. The VR learning environment feels real but doesn’t have any consequences when employees mess up. As a result, no one is negatively affected by the training.

This makes learning outcomes much more substantial than in the classroom or through other e-learning platforms. And, as some of the topics using VR learning are sensitive, it’s an excellent way to ensure employees completely understand what employers expect of them.

Use VR Training In Your Business

After seeing these VR training examples, VR technology is the new normal for soft skills training. The benefits far outway the costs of using these simulations. VR training is quickly becoming the standard for businesses in any industry.

To get started with training solutions for your employees, call us at beLithe. We offer unique training and coaching tools to help your employees succeed at their maximum ability.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

March 25, 2021 by Chris Daily Leave a Comment

Agile Working is What Your Productivity Needs

Agile Working is What Your Productivity Needs

Have you heard about agile working? If you haven’t you need to take a look – read here to find out more about how your business can be more productive.

A recent study found that 70% of managers experienced increased productivity after making the switch to agile working.

So, what is agile working exactly?

It involves creating a workplace and following a set of principles and procedures to create an inspired and overall more productive organization.

This works by allowing employees to work in a variety of different locations with the main goal of achieving top-notch results efficiently and effectively. Disregarding the age-old theory of the more time you spend in the office or desk, the better the employee you are.

Instead, it is an approach focused on producing the best results possible; no matter where what, when, or how.

If you own a business or have a leadership role, it’s time to look into agile working and employ it in your workplace.

Not only will your employees respond to it, but the company as a whole will perform much better.

How productivity and agile working go hand in hand:

It’s a new way of working

What your company has to understand is that agile working can’t just be thrown into the work culture without the proper training and commitment.

A culture has to be created that encourages results and performance rather than where and how much time the employee took to complete something. All leadership in your company will need to embrace this kind of work and create a new mindset for your employees.

A recent study found that agile and flexible working will be used by 70% percent of organizations by 2020.  It’s not just a fad. This is a new way of working that applies to trust and responsibility to produce quality results.

It brings out the best in your employees

If your employees are given more flexible hours and overall better work-life balance, it will show in your results.

When your team is happy and able to work when they want, they will achieve much more and be a lot less drained, stressed, and tied down.

And, guess what? Your employees will still be able to communicate with each other through conference calls, and virtual technologies like Skype.

It will bring out the best in your employees and in return, bring out the best in your company’s productivity and results.

It focuses on high-quality results

Like we mentioned above, the old stigma of needing to be in the office to show you’re committed and doing your job is an idea of the past.

Agile working encourages all employees to do what makes them the most productive, whether it be working somewhere else for the day or coming into the office.

With all of the digital technologies out there and ways to connect to the cloud, employees will be encouraged to maintain and form stronger relationships with their clients and coworkers. With more freedom and time to work on client-based relationships, more productivity and business will occur.

While agile working still employs the same work and tasks, it gives the employees the opportunity to discover the most effective ways to produce high-quality results.

It motivates everyone

The whole point of agile working is to motivate your workforce. Agile working was created to allow employees to be the most innovative, inspired, and motivated versions of themselves.

And, what follows high levels of motivation? That’s right, increased productivity.

This type of culture gives employees the opportunity to relieve some stress, get the proper amount of sleep and work-life balance, so they will be happy and ready to perform every day.

Agile working is no longer just an idea people have discussed, it’s being used by big companies like Unilever and Google in the world today.

When employees go out looking for interviews and when employers go out recruiting, an agile and flexible work environment is going to be something that people look for.

Remember that agile working isn’t working completely from home, the employee is still expecting to come into the office. It’s rather giving the employee the trust to produce their best work in the way that works for them.

If some of the most successful companies in the world are using this tactic, why shouldn’t your company? What are you waiting for?

Visit beLithe to get starting with an agile transformation through training and guidance from our knowledgeable team.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

October 21, 2020 by Chris Daily 14 Comments

beLithe, where did you go?

As many of you already know, beLIthe, LLC is a small company.  In fact, we only have two employees.  As the Managing Director, I do it all.  Keep track of the books, invoice, sell, deliver, develop content, blah, blah, blah.  Alex, my son, works with me providing support, editing videos and podcasts, and developing my crazy software ideas.

So, being a small company, we can accomplish a lot, but struggle with doing more than one thing at a time.

On August 25th, I entered the ER at IU Methodist Hospital.  That started what turned into a perfect storm.  I had a heart attack!  The heart attack was so severe, that we were directed to The Heart Failure group.

Fast forward to October 3.  I woke up with new transplanted heart.  As word as spread, the outpouring of support has been overwhelming.  Down days have been often turned positive by a text or phone call.

My anticipated future is gone.  Yet, I am here because of the medical heroes at Methodist.  Check out this link.  Not best picture!

The future of beLithe is also obviously up in the air.

I would ask that you consider this one point:  Despite all the I have been through, I am determined to make this the best thing that has happened to me.  Caveat:  outside of my wife and three great kids.  I am considering this as a reboot of my body and mind.

I am planning on sharing my journey in an effort to help others.  I will draw clear lines so that those of you who are interested can follow.  Those of you who aren’t interested won’t be bothered.

More to come.  Thanks for your support.

Chris

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August 19, 2020 by Chris Daily Leave a Comment

Webinar Replay: Measuring Change

Yesterday, we wrapped up our #SlinkyThink Sessions Vol 022 | Measuring Change.  If you’re new to our #SlinkyThink webinars, our webinar replays are accessible for free at belithe.thinkific.com.

In this webinar, we appeal to our inner-beancounter.  We look at the different ways change can be measured.  A constant theme throughout many change management approaches, measuring success and failure is imperative to boosting momentum while demonstrating tangible results.   During the webinar, we took a look at:

  • why are measurements important,
  • what kind of measurements can we use,
  • what are some simple measurements you can capture now

Click here to check out the video replay.  If you’d prefer, you can breeze through the transcript by clicking here.

The topic for the next #SlinkyThink Session on July 28th is Leading Change by John Kotter.  We’re going to explore the human side of change management.  It’s the aspect that is often ignored when change is being forced on us.

Sign up now and save your seat. Click here to sign up.

STAY SAFE AND KEEP WASHING THOSE HANDS.

Chris

Chris Daily
beLithe | Managing Director
m: 317.989.8630 | o: 317.983.2459
www.beLithe.com
Connect via LinkedIn.

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August 17, 2020 by Chris Daily Leave a Comment

DTC Podcast: Brent Shopp of PurposeHQ

In the third episode of Death, Taxes, and Change, Brent Shopp of PurposeHQ takes us into the realm of talent optimization.

I really enjoyed my conversation with Brent.  As a co-founder and Purpose Maker at PurposeHQ, I have been working with Brent over the last 6 months on concepts that have resulted in beLithe’s new approach of Head, Heart, and Briefcase.  BTW, Brent suggested the HHB concept after listening to me whine about the struggles I was having.

Brent was Brent I got to know Jeremy at a healthcare startup where we worked together for a year in pretty trying circumstances.  Jeremy’s journey is intriguing to me as he didn’t start out in software development, but had to pivot when his first career didn’t work out for him.

Jeremy graduated from Purdue with a BS degree in Engineering.  After working in a couple of manufacturing companies, Jeremy made the leap into software development.  Jeremy decided that he didn’t love what he was doing, so he jumped into software development.  Teaching himself the basics, Jeremy’s journey has included working for a bitcoin startup, a healthcare startup, and consulting as an independent consultant.  His current stop is at Crowe as a team-lead.  Jeremy is one of the most gifted developers I have worked with.  His journey into leadership roles is one that I am going to pay close attention to.

I love talking to Jeremy. I always walk away from our conversations scratching my head amazed at the insights he provides.

You can get to Death, Taxes, and Change by clicking here for Apple Podcasts or here for Libsym .

I hope you enjoy the episode.

Chris

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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