More Than A Game: How Extended Reality Is Transforming Worker Training

VR glasses can test one's eyesight, and even customize your car-or at least so it seems-through immersive car testing. Extended reality, or ER, encompasses all virtual, augmented, and mixed reality technologies and is reshaping large swaths of our lives. In my house, my 11-year-old daughter defaults to her VR headset daily to game with her friends. But the real superpower of extended reality in the workplace is only now coming into its own: its ability to navigate and train a workforce in broad, efficient, and equitable ways.

In areas such as health care, manufacturing, and skilled trades, XR technology is increasingly used as an anytime, anywhere tool in offering trainings with simulation and developing skills. Above all, it addresses barriers that many of the workers face, such as a location challenge, needs for physical space, instructor time, and individualized attention, and availability of practice materials, especially expensive ones.

Training anywhere, on-demand

The skilled trades face a significant labor shortage. A recent report by McKinsey looks to that urgent challenge at filling the skills gap of trades. Simultaneously, hiring demand surges from new investments in infrastructure and green energy. XR-based training can especially contribute towards the need to rapidly upskill the workforce as well as workers of all ages and demographics. It delivers remote, as well as self-paced, training which appeals especially to the younger workforce which emphasizes flexibility. It could provide the scale necessary for these new industries by teaching many at one time, rather than just as many as can be packed into a classroom. Simulation models easily adapt to growth fields like clean energy. For example, there is Interplay Learning whose foundation is to provide hands-on training through virtual reality simulation in their HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and solar energy. The model this company uses will reduce physical barriers toward training, and it will be easy for workers in rural areas to get nationally accredited certification in fields with high demand. Companies that use the platform are said to benefit more with improved results on recruitment, retention, and individualized training for workers.

Emphasis on hard skills in the age of automation

It's obvious that as technology continues to advance into the age of automation, uniquely human skills will be all the more prized and that health care will become one of the great industries where communication and empathy can help intervene.

Health care education and training in XR will train workers on tasks of procedures while offering a virtual space to practice caregiving interactions. Mass General Brigham, a teaching hospital system in Greater Boston, has applied XR to its nursing education programs for years. The system has seen both improved knowledge retention by students and cost savings for educators, who can reduce equipment purchases and medical waste by offering trainees skill-building scenarios via XR. Their virtual "code cart," an online prototype of a portable storage cart that's used to provide life-saving supplies in emergency care situations, can be accessed by the public online as part of their NextUp: XR initiative. Solutions providers are also using XR to address health care training challenges.

For example, portfolio company Embodied Labs offers virtual reality simulations such that health care providers can experience what a person with vision loss might go through in navigating a visit to the doctor or a move into a residential community as a person who has started experiencing symptoms of Parkinson's. The company even offers end-of-life simulations to help hospice caregivers feel an empathy for what is happening to patients diagnosed with terminal conditions. "I was a little skeptical about it," one hospice professional says to NPR. "But when I went through it, I realized what a viable method it could be, for not only teaching but also helping people understand end of life better." Learning adaptable and within reach

No doubt, these traditional, in-person education and training systems aren't necessarily accessible to all the learners and workers who struggle with barriers to economic advancement; either because of lack of available transportation options to work and school or a learning style that needs a little more flexibility or self-pacing. But the investment up front to build an XR technology system can be a pretty high barrier, especially compared to more traditional forms of education and training. Those returns are pretty significant, though, providing opportunities for a much broader range of learners and workers.

In fact, three colleges in the Colorado Community College system took a very innovative approach to solving this problem-they partnered with Meta and my organization, Jobs for the Future, to pool resources to set up AR training programs for their learners.

The AR platform and curriculum, Meta Spark, offered every learner the opportunity to take a personalized learning trajectory leading to individual capstone projects at the end, where they applied AR to an industry of choice. Every campus could recruit a learner cohort, which was specialized including non-credit learners and English language learners, and provide relevant training to its student population. Like other emerging technologies like AI, XR has enormous potential to help learners, workers, educators, and employers-but also a risk of keeping many people and institutions outside the conversation.

That's why investments in policy-driven areas are crucial-for example, the Immersive Technology for the American Workforce Act that U.S. Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Tim Walberg introduced in 2023. No matter the size of the business, value is well on its way to skyrocketing in exploring and applying XR technology sooner rather than later for both workers and companies. Through partnership with this workforce, employers can take the lead in pushing XR beyond its gaming reputation into workforce.