Firing workers in Virtual Reality
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2020
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Virtual Reality is finding a surprising new application - training managers how to handle delicate situations such as dismissing employees or giving presentations.
Manuela Saragosa looks at how the technology is being used to play out scenarios such as consoling a sobbing staff member, or responding to a heckler in the audience, all while in the safe space of VR. Plus producer Josh Thorpe tries out Microsoft's latest augmented reality headset, the HoloLens 2.
The programme features interviews with Marianne Schmid Mast, professor of organisational behaviour at the University of Lausanne; Alexis Vartanian, chief technical officer at French VR company TechViz; and Microsoft director of communications Greg Sullivan.
Producer: Josh Thorpe
(Picture: Man wearing virtual reality headset; Credit: xubingruo/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. I'm Manuela Saragossa. Coming up, the technology |
| 0:08.4 | teaching managers how to sack people. We create what's called a doppelganger, an avatar that |
| 0:14.1 | looks exactly like you. We train half of the participants to fire an avatar and then the other group, they are trained to fire |
| 0:22.4 | themselves. Yes, the weird world of virtual reality is moving into the workplace. If you are |
| 0:28.7 | someone who works on an assembly line or uses tools in your job on a daily basis, now you have a tool |
| 0:34.0 | that you can use to help you do your job more efficiently, more expertly, |
| 0:38.8 | and learn faster. |
| 0:40.2 | But is it all just a gimmick? |
| 0:42.1 | That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:48.5 | I'm good. I'm good. How are you? You look great. New hairstyle, right? |
| 0:53.6 | Meet Barry. He's a slim, grey-haired office employee, well into his 60s. |
| 0:59.4 | He wears a pale blue shirt, no tie. And he looks tired. His face is etched with lines of exhaustion. |
| 1:06.0 | And today, well, today Barry's being fired from his job. |
| 1:10.0 | You're really firing me. |
| 1:11.9 | What am I going to do? |
| 1:13.6 | Let's just talk about this. |
| 1:15.1 | I can't believe this. |
| 1:18.9 | Oh, my God. |
| 1:21.2 | How can you... |
| 1:22.5 | I have 20 more years experience than anyone in there. |
| 1:26.6 | Have you looked at my sales numbers? How do you |
| 1:29.1 | justify this based on those numbers? No, it's not a good day for Barry. But then it's never a good |
... |
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