After the pandemic, the “great resignation” shook the world’s economic ecosystem. As professionals decided that they could remain productive in their homes, companies didn’t have any option but to relent. But some who are still stuck to their ways decided to call back their employees and then witnessed the highest employee turnover they could think of.
Many would say that not being willing to get out of their comfort zone and accept responsibilities is why employees quit. While there are always exceptions to the rule, the term “great resignation” became a buzzword because the reason behind these professionals leaving was beyond simply just “not getting out of their house to work”. Understanding these reasons and implementing VR technologies can help reduce employee turnover.
Why Do Employees Quit?
Every organization today, be it a giant multinational corporation or an emerging startup, is worried the most about one factor – unprecedentedly high attrition rates in employees. Why are employees quitting their jobs so fast and so often? Is the pay not good enough? Are they finding the office environment boring? Is the organization not providing them with enough growth opportunities?
What if we tell you that “low pay” might not even be one of the top reasons behind their resignation
? Here are a few key issues, most of them recurring, contributing to high attrition rates in 2022.
- Problems with the Management
Professionals work best in a friendly environment that strikes the perfect balance between work and socialization. Socialization works wonders to increase employee performance. If your professional has any issues, they can ask the management for help. However, as many companies are now grinding – talking to the management is ignored. At best, the management gives small feedback about the performance. And at worse, the management doesn’t even speak to the personnel.
It makes the professionals feel lost, and they start to have doubts about whether they’re performing correctly or not. This feeling snowballs into insecurities and then forces them to look for a way out of the company.
- Job doesn’t live up to the expectation.
The second biggest reason employees leave is that the job does not meet their expectations. They walk inside the company with an idea of their responsibilities but end up doing something they’re not bullish about. “Things will get better with time,” – they tell themselves. With that thought, they try to hold on to the job. But when the dissatisfaction rises, the pressure mounts, making them less productive.
Working under these conditions for the long term takes away their self-confidence and self-esteem. And since the company’s ecosystem makes them feel that way – they dub that ecosystem “toxic” and decide to leave.
- Lack of Empathy
The third and perhaps the biggest reason employees leave is a lack of empathy. There is a long-held belief that you must separate your professional from your personal ‘persona’. The issue with that sentiment is that it sidelines empathy – a bad decision because having empathy is one of the biggest requirements for acquiring new clients.
The lack of empathy doesn’t make professionals feel like they belong. Ultimately, the only way for them to feel like themselves is to leave the company.
These three issues are rooted in one aspect – employee training. If the employees are trained enough in soft skills and already have an idea of what the job entails, their expectations will adjust.
VR technology has, therefore, emerged as one of the biggest ways of reducing employee turnover – it retains them by training them.
5 Ways VR can help in Retaining Employees
While the COVID-19 pandemic jolted several small and large businesses in terms of inability to support employees, supply chain and logistics issues, and a huge fall in demand, it also paved the way for several new technologies to emerge. One such futuristic technology to have sealed its place more than ever before is Virtual Reality.
Virtual Reality or VR refers to the use of computer technology to create a simulated environment. The viewer is immersed in a three-dimensional experience where they can be shown and made to interact with visuals of choice. Visuals are not the limit, though. All five human senses can be simulated using VR, with the computer acting as a portal into new realms. This flexibility and impact make VR a vital tool in education, science, commerce, manufacturing, and other fields beyond entertainment.
Interestingly, VR has also found its place in the corporate world, boosting employee engagement, interaction, and thus retention. Here are five ways in which you can reduce employee withdrawals with the aid of VR technology:
VR training provides realistic job previews
As we already mentioned, dissatisfaction with job responsibilities is the second biggest reason employees leave. With VR training, you can organically train new hires to understand the job requirements. It will help them adjust their expectations, allowing them to perform more confidently and productively for your company.
Virtual reality training improves leadership soft skills and empathy.
VR training can consist of varying virtual environments in which you can test and train your employees in leadership, soft skills, and empathy. Create a scenario within the virtual and assess their behavior based on their decisions. Use that analysis as the foundation for their training, and you’ll have access to an empathetic workforce that can communicate better.
VR training shortens the time required to onboard new employees.
Orientation has perks, but it does not always provide your new employees with the right start. While you can “train your employees while they work,” don’t expect that training to be fruitful because you’d be compromising the essential tasks of the office. If you want your employees to start contributing quickly, tap into VR training. You’d be able to shorten the training time from hours to just 45 minutes.
VR training lowers safety risks.
Practice makes perfect. You need your employees to be mentally prepared to handle any situation. Repeatedly training in a simulated environment can provide your employees with the benefit of realistic training. It would make them decisive and always ready to tackle unexpected problems meticulously.
VR training produces more consistent training outcomes
If you want to make your employees more productive through training, training in a simulated environment is the best way to go about it. It exposes them to an immersive learning scenario in which they can repeatedly practice, which improves their recall capacity. That, in turn, leads to consistent training outcomes.
Conclusion
VR Training provides a simulated environment for your employees to train in. It gives them a better perspective of your company. As you can tune the training ecosystem to adjust their expectations and help them communicate better with the management, they will have fewer reasons to leave your organization. Virtual Intelligence is one of the most unconventional ways through which you can increase employee retention.
Compared to reading a bulky manual or watching an educative video, trainees can learn considerably faster using VR since it offers a hands-on experience. Additionally, VR opens the gates to interaction so that employees can work together in teams, checking and correcting errors in real time to save considerable time, effort, and costs later. For businesses and organizations looking to expand upskilling, reskilling and continued education, VR proves to be one of the most reliable and experimentative tools to leverage in 2022.
