Wal-Mart uses VR for employee promotion test

Wal-Mart is one of the best companies in the world based on total sales. It also has over 1.2 million employees in the United States alone. It is said that Wal-Mart has adopted a VR promotion test wearing a virtual reality headset for its personnel evaluation system. It is said that VR equipment has been introduced in stores across the U.S. and used for employee personnel evaluation and training.

Wal-Mart uses an Oculus Go headset to conduct this evaluation and training. Employees who wish to be promoted to middle managers, etc., are evaluated for their decision-making ability and leadership, such as answering questions about what work will be done on their own and what work will be assigned to colleagues in the space reproduced by Wal-Mart in the virtual reality space.

Although there are advantages and disadvantages to virtual reality testing, Wal-Mart says it is suitable for determining employee leadership maturity and attitude toward customer service. Equipment such as virtual reality headsets has already been introduced to all Wal-Mart stores in the United States, and as of February, 10,000 out of 1.2 million employees have undergone a virtual reality test.

STRIVR, a VR education startup, developed the virtual reality promotion test system. Since three years ago, the company has partnered with Wal-Mart to develop a variety of training programs. Virtual reality technology enables various situations to be reproduced in a 360-degree perspective, so it can be used for training in dealing with unusual situations, such as when customers rush to the store in large-scale sales situations such as Black Friday, in daily business education such as clothing classification. It is possible.

In addition to virtual reality, Wal-Mart is actively investing in technology recently. This year, it is also promoting the introduction of robots to clean the floor, manage display, and bring in products. Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillan said at the shareholders’ meeting that he doesn’t think technology will be the solution to all, and it’s always people who are responsible for Wal-Mart’s success and development. Technology is all about focusing on support for humans.

The newly introduced virtual reality promotion test is said to be only one of the evaluation data points. The final decision that governs personnel evaluation is that it is made by human recruiters. Related information can be found here .