Novità
1) How can virtual reality make onboarding in a company more engaging compared to traditional methods?
VR shifts onboarding from “explaining” to experiencing: instead of telling you about the company, it lets you live it. New hires put on the headset and find themselves inside realistic scenarios where they can move around, look around, and interact with people and objects. This changes the newcomer’s mindset: from passive (slides/videos) to active (simulation, choice, action).
It also enables a learning by doing approach: the learner performs micro-actions that mirror real work, such as exploring spaces or checking procedures. This builds procedural memory, not just declarative knowledge. Mistakes can be made without risk and retried immediately until confidence is built – a priceless advantage for onboarding, as it speeds up operational autonomy and reduces performance anxiety.
Attention levels also differ: VR “prevents distraction” because immersion is total. Onboarding becomes a path of actions and decisions inside the company, not a list of facts about it. It is the right mode when we want to “be everywhere” (visit spaces not always accessible), “be ready” (train in procedures and choices), and “be anyone” (see through other eyes).
2) What advantages does VR offer in helping new hires understand corporate culture and core values?
Culture is observable behaviour in context. VR allows new hires to experience it first-hand through storyliving: they are placed inside situations where values drive choices and behaviours, making them tangible.
Micro-dilemmas can be simulated in VR: “Do I prioritise safety or speed?”, “How do I give feedback?”, “How do I manage a dissatisfied client?”. The consequences of choices (narrative or score-based) make values concrete.
VR also allows participants to live scenes in the first person and, in some cases, adopt the perspective of others (a colleague, a client, or a person with hearing impairment). This helps them feel the culture, not just understand it. Empathy is strengthened, making inclusive, respectful, and collaborative behaviours more natural.
Finally, VR provides excellent prompts for discussion with managers and HR: choices and response patterns can be reviewed, strengths and weaknesses identified, and values transformed into shared habits.
3) How can VR improve safety and knowledge retention for new employees?
One of immersive learning’s greatest strengths is its ability to create situational learning: not just listening, but direct experience of risky scenarios, procedures, and correct behaviours.
VR allows training in managing safety situations (for example, spotting a hazard in the office, responding to an emergency, following protocols) without exposing learners to real danger. It grants the “right to fail”: trying, making mistakes, retrying until mastery is achieved.
Immersive repetition enhances knowledge retention: information tied to emotions and context stays in long-term memory. A concept read in a manual is easily forgotten; a mistake made in VR and corrected is remembered.
Once created, a VR scenario is infinitely replicable, at any location, with absolute content consistency. Every new hire receives the same high-quality experience.
4) What added value does VR bring in creating empathy and a sense of belonging for new employees?
Here, a fundamental possibility of immersive learning comes into play: the ability to be anyone. It is not just about hearing “our values are inclusion, respect, collaboration”: in VR, newcomers can live these situations from the perspective of a colleague, a client, or a person with a disability.
This principle of embodiment – experiencing the world through a virtual body different from one’s own – goes beyond simple narration and fosters genuine empathy. For example, new hires might experience feedback both from the manager’s and the employee’s side, or feel the pressure of presenting in front of a virtual audience.
Such experiences create an immediate sense of what it means to “be part of this company”. VR also carries motivational value: it is perceived as innovative and stimulating. This enthusiasm in the first days strengthens intrinsic motivation to feel part of a modern, people-centred environment.
5) How can VR support a more inclusive, accessible, and scalable onboarding process?
VR is the perfect tool for combining personalisation with scalability. It allows new hires to step into the shoes of colleagues with different abilities (hearing, motor, cultural). This is not a theoretical lesson, but a transformative experience that directly fosters inclusive behaviours.
