7 Step Guide To Creating Your First VR Training Program

VR training puts employees inside the situation they are being trained for, so they practice the job instead of reading about it. Organizations adopt it for the work that is too dangerous, too expensive or too rare to rehearse any other way. What stops most first programs is not the technology or the budget. It is starting without knowing which decisions come first. 

This guide covers what VR training does well, the seven steps it takes to build your first program, ways to start without commissioning custom content, and what to measure once the program is live. It is written for the organization building its first program, so it assumes no prior VR experience on your team.

Key Points

• VR training places learners in true-to-life scenarios built around real job conditions, without exposing them to real-world risk.
• Building a first program takes seven steps, starting with a training needs analysis and ending with a pilot, a round of corrections and a measured rollout.
• VR works best inside a blended program, where it reinforces material delivered through eLearning and instructor-led training.
• Organizations that are not ready to commission custom content can start with off-the-shelf modules and add custom work later.

What VR Training Is, And Where It Earns Its Place

VR creates a world that is either loaded with pre-recorded video or fully simulated. By putting on a headset, learners are transported to a new location where they can look around themselves, walk up close to computer-generated objects, and interact with items and people.

Organizations typically use it in three areas. Leadership training builds skills in conflict resolution, coaching, budgeting and resource planning. Technical and operations training covers assembling products and operating complex machinery, with learners using hand-held controllers to pick up, push and manipulate virtual equipment. Safety training lets learners practice emergency protocols in a simulated environment that carries no real-world risk. The case for that third use is the easiest to put a number on: the National Safety Council puts the cost of a work injury in 2024 at $48,000 per medically consulted injury and $1,540,000 per death.

VR does not replace the rest of your training program. Its value lies in the way it turns existing training material into hands-on experience. That makes it strongest as a reinforcement layer inside a blended learning model, working alongside instructor-led training, eLearning and traditional study materials.

The published evidence supports the format, though more narrowly than the marketing around it suggests. PwC measured the same soft skills course in a classroom, in e-learning and in a headset, and found in its 2020 study that headset learners finished four times faster, or three times faster once the time to fit and explain the equipment to a first-time user is counted. Our VR training guide sets out the rest of the research.

The 7 Steps To Build Your VR Program

Now that you know what VR training is and the benefits that come with its use, here are the seven steps it takes to build a custom VR training program at your organization. The order matters, because each step narrows the decisions available in the next one.

Step 1: Identify Business Goals And Training Needs

The first step in planning your VR training program is to identify the business goals and training needs specific to your organization. Completing a training needs analysis surfaces your short- and long-term business goals, along with the performance outcomes you want.

This step accomplishes three things. It identifies the root causes of operational issues, it sets the foundation for generating solutions, and it establishes the critical metrics that have to be met for the program to succeed. A training program that aligns with an organization’s goals ensures that learners gain the skills and knowledge needed to excel in their role.

Define your learning objectives at this stage. Programs that leave them open invite unplanned material to creep into the scope halfway through development, which costs the team time and the organization budget.

Step 2: Ensure That VR Technology Is Optimal

When considering a new training program, organizations must determine which modality is optimal for their workforce. The right technology meets an organization’s training needs and capabilities while improving employee performance. VR is not always the solution, so other modalities need to be considered, including augmented reality, eLearning, or a blended approach.

Putting training content into a headset when that content does not call for interaction defeats the purpose of experiential learning. Take an existing eLearning module on personal protective equipment and drop it into VR unchanged, and the learner spends the first 20 minutes reading item descriptions before touching anything. Preparatory content belongs outside the headset. Inside it, learners should be identifying, selecting and physically putting on each item.

Within VR there is a second choice to make. 360º VR uses three degrees of freedom, so learners can look left and right, up and down, and pivot, but the recorded experience cannot be altered. It suits seated or stationary settings and gives learners an all-encompassing view of a situation. Full VR uses six degrees of freedom, requires a headset, and lets learners move through the environment and manipulate objects as they would real ones.

Step 3: Understand Your Internal Capabilities

Internal capabilities refer to the personnel and resources an organization already possesses. Identifying them tells you whether to develop in-house or outsource, and what resources the program will require either way. An organization that already employs instructional designers and holds the necessary equipment and software may not need an external vendor at all.

Involve your subject matter experts from the start, not once development is underway. SMEs are the people who know how many steps a process genuinely contains, and it is easy to underestimate that from the outside. Their absence during initial scoping is the most reliable way to produce a timeline that cannot hold and a program that leaves out something vital.

Step 4: Set A Realistic Budget

Setting a realistic budget for a training program is critical. Following a budget or financial plan helps organizations control spending, track expenses and make informed decisions. Whether you develop the program in-house or with an outside vendor, your organization needs to be certain it can cover the cost of building the training.

Four things drive that cost: the complexity of the program, the number of learners, the volume of 3D objects and animation involved, and the level of interactivity your instructional designers and XR developers have to build. Cost determines your level of customization, so settle the budget before the scope. Ready-made content sits at the lower end because the assets already exist. A program built from the ground up sits at the higher end and takes longer to produce, and it is the right choice when the detail of your own process is the point of the training.

Step 5: Develop Your Content And Training Materials

Once you know your goals, needs and budget, you can begin developing your content and training materials. At this stage you can lead the work with an external learning development partner, consult your existing development team, or hire internal personnel to take the project on.

Three things matter while content is being built. Make sure it is functional and clearly presented. Audit the materials you already have, including videos, scripts, posters and handouts. Confirm that your learners will understand the material and respond well to it. Check that the information gathered during discovery appears in the project outline and flowchart, because that is the first place misalignment between teams becomes visible.

Step 6: Run A Pilot Program

Once you have developed a training program, run it through a small pilot group. The pilot will reveal what works, what does not, and how the group reacts to your content and to the technology itself. Request direct feedback from learners through surveys or in person discussions, then make changes and improve the program before the official launch.

Keep sessions short while you are testing. Sessions are usually designed in short blocks, because longer stretches inside a headset can leave learners disoriented or uncomfortable. The causes are well understood: a mismatch between what the eyes and ears perceive and what the body experiences, continuous motion or rapid visual change, the cognitive load of constant decision-making, and the weight of the headset itself over time. Let the demands of the task set the length, and let the pilot tell you whether you got it right.

Step 7: Fine Tune, Then Roll Out

The final stage in building your VR training is to fine tune, then launch the program. After reviewing feedback from the pilot and making corrections, your program is set to go.

Your work is not over at launch, and you should measure the program’s results and effectiveness on a regular schedule. Three questions are worth returning to throughout the program’s lifespan. Is the program meeting the goals and metrics you set? Are learners retaining information? Are learners applying what they learned on the job, with performance to show for it?

Three Ways To Start Without Building From Scratch

Not every organization is ready to commission custom content, and that is not a reason to wait. Off-the-shelf VR content covers training that is common across an industry, such as pallet stacking or shipment loading, and it deploys without a development cycle. Three situations come up most often.

If you are undecided, start small. A ready-made module on a universal task lets you see how your workforce responds to the technology before you commit budget to custom development. It also gives your team a working reference point for what good looks like.

If you already run custom content, expand the library. Off-the-shelf modules add volume to a program that exists without pulling your development team onto new scope, and they keep a learning culture in motion between custom releases.

If you are working against a deadline, off-the-shelf content is the faster path. Custom development runs to several months depending on scope, while ready-made modules can be in front of learners within weeks of the decision.

How To Measure Whether It Worked

Metrics are quantifiable measures used to track learner activity and assess the value of a training program. Collecting them can be challenging, and they are the only evidence you will have that the investment did anything. VR programs produce three families of data, and an extended reality system is what brings them together in one place.

Usage data covers who is using the training, how often they use it, and how long a task takes them. It is the foundation the rest of the analytics sit on, and it tells a facilitator whether participation is where it needs to be.

Progress, completions and replays track the learner’s journey through the program. Progress lends accountability by showing which lessons are underway. Completions show how far along a learning track a learner is and that assigned modules are finished. Replays are the most diagnostic of the three, because a module that gets repeated points to content learners are struggling with.

Performance indicators are the data you cannot collect in a classroom. Decisions demonstrate a learner’s judgment, correct ones and incorrect ones alike. Timing records how long an action or module took, which can flag steps that need revisiting. Body movements, such as lifting a box or scanning an item, record what the learner physically did in a given situation.

Roundtable’s own pilot data shows what this looks like in practice. In a pilot for Cox Communications field technicians, 90% of learners reported that VR increased their understanding of policy and procedures for home installations. In a separate field safety pilot at the same company, 65% of participants said VR was a very effective way to learn safety content compared with other methods.

Summary

Completing the seven steps above keeps your VR program aligned with your training needs and useful to individual employees and to the organization as a whole. Start with the business problem, confirm that VR is the right answer, and be honest about what your team can build in-house. Set the budget before the scope, pilot the program with a small group, and keep measuring after launch.

If you would rather not build from scratch on the first attempt, off-the-shelf content is a legitimate starting point that leaves the custom route open. Talk to our team about which route fits your training needs.

Sources:

• National Safety Council, Injury Facts, Work Injury Costs, 2024
• PwC, Virtual Reality Soft Skills Training Efficacy Study, 2020