VR Solutions for Learning and Development: Transforming Business Training

Virtual reality (VR) has been increasingly adopted by companies for employee development and corporate training, enabling businesses to deliver highly interactive and engaging learning experiences that retain personnel.

With this immersive training technology that relies on software and physical equipment like VR headsets, you can create realistic 3D environments with realistic characters and objects so your staff develops new competencies safely.

It’s in VR environments, through simulations, that employees can learn to interact with coworkers, clients, and partners without the risks or costs associated with making mistakes in the real world.

Take the example of customer service training. With VR role-playing, a particular type of VR simulation, your personnel can practice dealing with various customers and questions in multiple scenarios without the consequences they’d face in a real setting.

In this article, we’ll explore how VR improves workforce training, and we’ll discuss the benefits, use cases, and implementation of VR solutions for learning and development.

What is virtual reality in learning and development?

Virtual Reality (VR) in learning and development uses immersive simulations to create highly interactive training experiences, replicating complex or high-risk real-world scenarios in a controlled virtual environment. This innovative technology is transforming corporate Learning and Development (L&D) strategies by enabling businesses to deliver engaging, repeatable, and safe training that significantly improves knowledge retention and skill transfer.

By placing employees directly within a realistic 3D environment, VR moves beyond passive instruction to active learning. Staff can practice critical skills—from operating heavy machinery and performing emergency protocols to navigating difficult customer service or management conversations—without any risk to themselves, the business, or workplace relationships. This risk-free, hands-on practice is scalable across a global workforce, offering a consistent and cost-effective alternative to traditional methods.

Implementing VR requires specialized equipment and platforms. Common hardware includes dedicated VR headsets, such as Oculus for Business and HTC Vive. Content is often developed on platforms like Unity, which allow for the creation of realistic, motion-based, real-time 3D experiences.

Here is a chart of common VR tools and their uses in training programs:

Benefits of VR solutions for business training

According to PwC, VR training engages learners 3.75 times more than classroom training and keeps them focused four times more than eLearning courses. Increased learner engagement

VR training requires using VR headsets or glasses that keep distractions away from the (digital) environment and increase the learner’s attention. 

Learners are placed within the virtual environment and interact with digital characters and objects. That kind of learning is highly engaging.

Improved knowledge retention

For being interactive and resembling the real world, virtual reality in learning and development connects with your workforce emotionally. And that makes it easier to retain new knowledge and apply new skills and behaviors to real-life scenarios.

Safe and risk-free practice

In VR simulations, learners try out multiple scenarios in a controlled environment without harming the business or their relationships with coworkers. The virtual world is a setting where errors, essential for learning, don’t have real consequences. And that’s perfect for sales enablement and teaching safety protocols or emergency responses.

Scalability

VR solutions for learning and development are particularly useful for training teams across locations (without losing consistency). They’re available online and automated, allowing you to train a global workforce simultaneously, anytime, anywhere.

Cost efficiency

Besides being scalable, training staff in VR environments is significantly more cost-effective than traditional methods, especially when training involves expensive or high-risk equipment.

In VR simulations, your employees practice using virtual representations of real-life machinery and tools—such as complex medical equipment or heavy construction vehicles—without the risk of damage, wear and tear, or costly downtime. This eliminates expenses like renting or allocating real equipment for training purposes, paying for instructor travel time, renting training space, or building physical prototypes for learning.

By preventing damage to expensive, real-world assets and avoiding all associated logistics, VR training offers a clear financial advantage over traditional, hands-on instruction.

Core Benefits of VR Training

Real-world applications of VR in learning and development

Companies rely on immersive technologies for different types of corporate training. For instance, they use VR and AR in online learning and on-the-job training programs. But we’ll focus on the applications of VR to corporate training.

Onboarding 

Traditionally, onboarding training has been perceived by employees as a boring experience. But realistic 3D environments are highly engaging for familiarizing new hires not only with company-wide tools, policies, and procedures, but also with job-specific tools, guidelines, methods, and workflows. Plus, VR onboarding enables you to welcome a large number of staff at the same time.

Technical Skills 

Another area where you can apply VR to training is hard skill development. For instance, simulating clinical settings with VR is an engaging way of showing med students and student nurses what advanced life support maneuvers, such as a code blue or a cardiac arrest, look like in real life.

Soft Skills

VR simulations, and particularly role-play simulations, are great for leadership, management, communication, and emotional intelligence training. For instance, you can teach team leaders to negotiate and put that knowledge and skills into practice in numerous scenarios; or you can help them become more confident at public speaking by practicing in a realistic 3D setting; or you can train them to have difficult conversations with direct reports while actively listening to those team members’ concerns—all of this by interacting with virtual characters that resemble real people.

Safety 

VR training is a risk-free option to teach manufacturing and construction workers to follow safety procedures. But it’s also a highly engaging way of learning protocols for hazardous situations like fire drills and other emergency responses.

Sales enablement

With VR role-playing, sales reps practice their pitch skills in simulated dialogues. They don’t jeopardize deals or customer relationships—they just change the conversation flow whenever they answer wrong.

You can also use VR for product training. In that area, you provide realistic product views to staff, clients, or partners and simulate product functioning rather than using product specification sheets or 2D pictures. Sometimes, it’s much easier to demonstrate a product or understand how a disruptive tech product works using VR.

Steps to implement VR solutions in L&D

Ready to include virtual reality in learning and development programs at your company? The first step is to figure out where exactly within the organization VR simulations would make the most difference.

Step 1: Assess training needs

What are the training areas in which VR solutions could engage your learners more than traditional methods? Onboarding? Leadership training? Perhaps sales enablement?

If you’re unsure, it helps to go over the organizational challenges your company faces. Those will point you toward your training outcomes, which can be more clients, more innovation, or more efficient operations. 

But whatever your training outcomes are, assess your workforce’s knowledge and skill gaps, too (with, for instance, surveys or focus groups).

Related: How to Conduct a Training Needs Analysis

Step 2. Choose the right tools

Two of the most popular VR tools are HTC Vive (a VR headset) and Unity (a motion-based platform for creating real-time 3D experiences). With them, you can develop VR headset apps with highly realistic VR settings.

But you might choose a platform other than Unity if you only need to build 360-degree video simulations. In that case, you can use standard video and audio editing software, such as Adobe’s Premiere Pro. 

That doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t use specialized software for video stitching and spatial audio design. Such design simulates the sensation that sound comes from all directions and distances. And video stitching software allows you to combine multiple source fisheye videos into a single video that your learners will view on the VR headset.

Step 3. Develop custom content

When developing VR solutions for learning and development, you can go three ways: do it yourself, hire experienced freelancers to do it for you, or rely on a reputable agency.

But whatever option you choose, make sure that besides being well-structured, visually appealing, and easy to use, your VR simulations are customized to your learners’ competency level, your company, and the training goals.

Also, if possible, involve VR developers in the process. Besides having strong computer programming and UX/UI skills, these professionals specialize in VR and 3D modeling and rendering and will certainly make your VR simulations highly realistic.

Step 4. Pilot and iterate

Once you’ve developed the VR solution, consider it a pilot project before launching it companywide. 

At this point, you still need to test the solution with a small group of learners and refine it based on their feedback. The goal is to make sure that your learners can easily use the VR simulations you designed. 

Run usability tests with the small user group to discover what they think about the simulation structure and how realistic the VR environment is.

Tip: According to Jakob Nielsen, a worldwide usability expert, five users will allow you to identify 85% of the usability problems with your VR solution.

Did the usability testers find it intuitive? Effective? You don’t want learners to feel stuck in the training experience, confused about what to do next, or frustrated because the VR headset app didn’t respond. So, depending on the test results, you might need to restructure the dialogue tree or rewrite some questions and answers to make decision points clearer.

Ask the testers to go through each role-play simulation and rate the experience in terms of ease of use, ease of remembering what they learned, video and audio quality, speed, errors, and overall satisfaction.

Step 5. Launch and measure

After testing your pilot project with a small user group and refining it, it’s time to scale the VR solution to your full learner audience and track performance metrics.

This means collecting data about learners’ activity and results to make your VR simulations more engaging and effective. How many times did they interact with the VR simulations? And how did they do that? How did they navigate the dialogue tree? Did they make good decisions? And did they make it till the end?

Running post-training surveys and comparing pre- and post-training employee performance are a couple of options for learning measurement. And if you opt for the surveys, make sure to diversify the training evaluation questions by including multiple-choice, multiple-selection, and free-text questions that capture not only generic but also nuanced opinions.

Look for evidence of knowledge or skill gaps and geographical locations where you must promote the VR solutions more effectively.

Challenges and solutions for adopting VR in L&D 

Using virtual reality in learning and development has potential challenges. Luckily, you can take preventive action to make the adoption of VR more feasible.

Cost

You can capture fisheye videos with consumer VR cameras that cost hundreds of dollars or professional VR cameras that cost many thousands of dollars. But beware that usually consumer VR cameras don’t record stereoscopic (3D) videos, but rather monoscopic (2D) videos that, although being 360-degree videos, look flat when viewed in VR headsets.

VR cameras capture videos with overlapping fisheye lenses. But whereas consumer VR cameras usually have two side-by-side fisheye lenses (like Canon R5 C with an RF 2.5mm dual fisheye lens) or two back-to-back fisheye lenses (like Ricoh Theta Z1), professional VR cameras (like Insta360 Pro or Insta360 Pro 2) usually have more fisheye lenses (six, in this case), and that makes them more expensive.

Resistance to Change

If your learners are new hires, they’re likely used to doing their jobs the way they did before joining your company. And they’ll instinctively try to keep doing that and possibly get defensive if they feel that you’re questioning their expertise during training.

To help them break through the discomfort of following unknown practices, focus on understanding the root cause of the resistance. For this, you can utilize Root Cause Analysis (RCA) methods like the 5 Whys or the Fishbone Diagram to move beyond surface-level resistance and identify the fundamental drivers of the discomfort. Once the root cause is clear, you can more effectively address it. This should be coupled with clearly communicating the benefits of the new VR training and how it aligns with the company’s goals and their professional growth. You can also incorporate successful case studies and “lessons learned” from other organizations to demonstrate the positive impact of adopting new methods, making the transition feel less isolating and more like a shared path to success.

Here is how the 5 Whys method can be applied to this scenario:

• Start with the problem statement: Employees are resisting the adoption of new VR training.
• Ask “Why?” (1st Why): Why are employees resisting the new VR training?
  • Possible Answer: They feel their current expertise is being questioned, or they are uncomfortable with the new technology.
• Ask “Why?” (2nd Why): Why do they feel their expertise is being questioned?
  • Possible Answer: The training focuses heavily on mistakes or assumes a lack of knowledge, or the communication around the training was poor.
• Ask “Why?” (3rd Why): Why was the communication poor?
  • Possible Answer: The training was rolled out with a top-down mandate and did not clearly explain the personal benefits and alignment with professional growth.
• Continue asking “Why?” until the underlying cause—the root—is identified. This will help the reader structure a more targeted and effective plan to address the resistance, such as revising communication or restructuring the training content itself.

Some final considerations

VR training is highly interactive, highly realistic, and scalable, which appeals to employees and companies. It allows staff to learn by interacting with virtual environments, which includes looking up information and reading it, manipulating virtual objects (that seem real and respond realistically), listening to audio clips, or watching videos. And that media variety is highly engaging.

We need to accept that virtual reality is clearly more than a futuristic buzzword; it is a proven, transformative force for modern learning and development. By delivering highly engaging, realistic, and risk-free simulations, VR training overcomes the limitations of traditional methods, leading to improved knowledge retention and significant cost efficiencies—especially for high-risk or complex technical skills. From onboarding a global workforce to mastering critical soft skills, the applications are vast and scalable.

Ready to explore VR for your corporate training? Learn more about our VR solutions for learning and development and see how we can improve your workforce development strategy.