Black Friday and the end of year sales season mean a boost in revenues for retailers. However, they also have to deal with a massive increase in order picking and shipping. For this reason, many companies resort to hiring temporary workers. And this leads to a new issue: training them to follow the work procedures and policies. For active sportswear brand evo, an XR training program developed in collaboration with Pixvana is the winning solution.
XR Training Program for Seasonal Warehouse Workers: Quick and Effective
The temporary nature of their employment means that the company cannot spend a lot of time with training and onboarding. Thus, evo decided to partner with XR solutions developer Pixvana to create a quick and effective training program for their seasonal workers.
This approach has several benefits. One, proven by research, is that training by direct experience results in 75-90% better retention of the instructions. Another benefit is that experienced employees no longer need to stop doing their usual tasks to train new hires.
Also, as Spencer Earle, Director of Operations and Technology at evo pointed out in a press release: “Since we have multiple store locations, XR allows our employees to visit these locations and really get a feel for what evo is all about.”
SPIN: The XR Platform for Immersive Employee Training
evo’s XR training program was created using Pixvana’s SPIN Studio. The platform serves for creating and sharing augmented and virtual reality experiences for enterprise use. From sales training to employee onboarding, the XR platform offers high quality in terms of visuals, latency, and DOF.
XR experiences created with SPIN Studio are backed in the cloud and can be adapted to the needs of various industries and brand requirements.
The Pixvana Approach: a Step by Step Immersive Training Program
evo’s XR training program is presented by Jeff Covert, Distribution Center Manager at evo.
He welcomes new hires in the immersive environment and takes them step by step through their daily schedule. From clocking in to leaving their bags in the locker and entering the warehouse, seasonal employees learn everything they have to do once they walk through the door.
One of the employees who tested the new XR training program, Ashley Miller, said:
“After going through the XR training, I felt much more prepared and ready to pick and ship. After taking the headset off and entering the warehouse for the first time I felt like I’d been there before and was much more comfortable with my surroundings.”
Immersive Training – a Sustainable Solution for All Industries
Retailers are not alone in the need for a comprehensive and effective training program for new hires. And the issue is not limited only to seasonal workers during top sales seasons. In reality, all industries need an effective and flexible training solution to onboard new hires faster.
From warehouse workers to specialized professionals, companies need to offer them all the training they need to do their job properly without losing time. There is also the issue of manpower – employees need to away from their usual duties to train new hires. With some kind of XR training program, these issues would be solved.
More Than Seasonal Workers’ Training
For evo, the collaboration with Pixvana means that their seasonal workers will be more productive and will fit in with the permanent team. Also, according to Spencer Earle, “XR training offers the potential to do many things in addition to getting workers ready to have a productive first day on the floor.”
Thus, the company also offers empathy training and advice on how to deal with unhappy customers for the sales team.
