The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is turning to virtual reality to assist in training employees on subjects such as management and customer service.

With the help of VR startup STRIVR Labs, the retailer expects to deploy VR training capability to more than 200 of its “Walmart Academy” training centers across the U.S. before the end of 2017. The company hopes that using Oculus Rift VR headsets and specialized immersive training programs will better prepare employees for situations that might arise during their jobs.

Potential situations that trainees will experience range from difficult management situations to the hectic rush of Black Friday crowds. While it is possible to talk an employee through something like what it feels like to be overwhelmed by crowded aisles and bodies pushing through narrow doorways, STRIVR believes that the immersive 360-video nature of VR will help give employees a closer experience to the real thing. The benefit of this training is that simulations are also safer and less expensive than live, in-person situations.

“There might be certain things that you don’t want to re-create [in a store] every day like a spill hazard or accident,” Tom Ward, vice president of central operations for Wal-Mart U.S. said during a tour of its Fayetteville training academy Wednesday, according to a story Thursday in Arkansas Online. “Maybe there’s a scenario around service where we want to show somebody exactly how to do something or how not to do it. We don’t want to disrupt the business in the store to constantly re-create that same scenario.”

Before forging a partnership with Walmart, STRIVR developed its VR training technology for use by sports teams. Using its VR training platform, the company said basketball players discovered up to a 20 percent faster reaction time when performing free throws. Detroit Pistons player Andre Drummond put the training system to use and discovered his own performance increase.

According to STRIVR the benefit of VR practice for sports was that players could be made to feel that they were immersed in a game, surrounded by all of the sights, sounds and distractions of the real thing. Recreating these experiences and then having the athletes perform led to apparent increases in skill and discipline.

Walmart expects to use this same immersive technique in order to better prepare employees for ordinary situations as well, such as workplace spills, blocked aisles or confused customers.

“When they said we were going to be using VR for training, I thought it was brilliant,” said Sean Gough, Academy facilitator at Walmart’s Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, store. “From cashier to lawn and garden, to electronics or fresh – there are just so many areas where I think this training would be so helpful.”

Gough also said the VR capability could give managers additional perspective on their jobs by transporting them to different stores. Because it is not always possible to transport an employee or manager between stores, virtual reality provides a method to bring the store “environment” to them.

The technology could enable managers at different stores to share knowledge about the success or failure of different in-store initiatives with employees and customers. With the use of VR to immerse managers in situations that reflect those changes, it could be used to deliver training where it’s needed with fewer moving parts involved.

Image: Wal-Mart