HR, what is your definition of real? And does it help stepping back and approximating it or augmenting it in any way? Will the approximate reality help you test strategies you think can better the experience of the jobseeker or the employee? Will augmenting the reality help you clarify things faster or provide information on assets that mean something to them?
The first, VR (virtual reality), has been in use for a long time, but it is only now with immersive displays and advanced tech that it has found more of a place in our everyday life than before. Deloitte estimates that by 2024, 25% of all HR meetings will have a virtual reality element to them. AR (augmented reality) has also revolutionized our understanding of the world, and it is more than just inserting bar codes into assets! The AR market is projected to hit a value of US$50 billion by the end of 2024.
There is a fundamental difference between VR and AR. While VR needs special headsets and immersion techniques, all VR’s younger sibling AR needs is a mobile phone, which is commonly available! Both brothers bring to the world of HR, employees and jobseekers a host of benefits we couldn’t have imagined just three decades ago. So overwhelming is the speed of tech!
In this tale of three brothers, VR and AR help their much older brother HR with some new moves that will help him stay relevant and employee and candidate-focused for years to come. Now how exactly do they help? Let’s see.
Learning and Development involves increasing the knowledge and accelerating the skilling of employees to improve their productivity and meet the goals of the business. Here is how VR can contribute to learning and development of employees:
Here is how AR can contribute to the learning and development goals in the company:
Whether you are talking to a jobseeker or analysing the fitness of an employee for internal mobility, the vetting process needs to be well-designed to ensure that you shortlist the absolute best for the job. Here is how VR can contribute to improving the vetting process:
And this is how AR can contribute to the vetting process:
How do you know that the candidate you have just selected and are going to onboard is truly ready for the challenge, even if they are the best fit for the job? How ready are they for the collaboration and cooperation that must exist in the workplace? This just one of the many problems VR and AR can solve in HR. Here is how VR can help you with the onboarding process:
And AR is not far behind either. This is how it can prove very useful:
A performance review done well is worth more than two employees in your company (both manager and subordinate)! It also commands the attention of decision-makers, who want to see the company flourish. Every stakeholder hopes for performance reviews where the employee wins. If everyone does well, the company does well too. Can VR and AR help HR here? Answer: Most definitely!
This is how VR can assist HR and team leads and managers with performance reviews:
And AR is no slouch either when it comes to enabling the process of a performance review:
The pandemic changed the workplace forever, though not everyone would agree. Social distancing built more barriers at the workplace than power distancing! Thankfully, when people got to work after the pandemic, they realized that a lot of the old remained.
The policies were the same, the quantum of work seemed to stay the same in some cases, and the work-life balance would hopefully get back to normal. But the most important thing that went missing and never really came back was the camaraderie that used to exist between people. Almost everyone had a work partner for that after-work walk the talk, but after the pandemic not so much.
Here is how VR can ameliorate the situation for employees:
Here is how AR can improve the camaraderie at the workplace:
Though these technologies hold great promise for the future, VR and HR and AR and HR don’t come together perfectly just yet. It can get a lot more immersive, there can be better content that is developed for VR and AR and there can also be new ways of thinking for how to integrate them into HR. Is your HR Team on the AR or VR bandwagon yet? What are the other things you think can be done to bring VR and AR into the workplace? Let us know in the comments below.