A Farmers Insurance Group claims representative enters a bathroom to investigate the severity of water damage in a customer’s home. He waves an electronic device over the walls, floor and cabinets, testing moisture levels. When it buzzes, he opens the cupboard under the sink, finding rot beneath a burst pipe. This may sound ordinary, but the worker is not in a house at all. Rather, he’s six floors up in Farmers’ headquarters office in Woodland Hills, wearing an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. The bathroom inspection is a demonstration of a digital program that has transformed how Farmers’ claims specialists are trained. “We can put you in 500 different scenarios. We couldn’t simulate that many experiences even if you shadowed a claims investigator for a year,” said Tim Murray, Farmers’ senior vice president in charge of claims shared services. “If we can shrink the time in which we can make an employee productive, that’s the value in this.” The home, auto and life insurance company began its virtual reality training initiative in 2017 in partnership with Talespin, an enterprise VR company in Culver City. Farmers now has VR training stations in its offices from L.A. to Kansas City, Mo. to Chicago. Based on the initiative’s success, Farmers has enlisted Talespin to create simulations that will help employees improve their interpersonal communication skills. The company announced this month the development of a virtual human training program for this purpose. “We can use (VR) to teach what language to use when negotiating. It has broader applications across the board,” said Murray. Proof of concept Talespin’s proof-of-concept scenario for “soft-skills” training helps managers learn how to appropriately tell an employee that their position has been terminated. In the program, users must break the bad news to a “virtual human” named Barry, an employee who has repeatedly exhibited disruptive behavior in the office. One series of communication choices leads to Barry waving his arms violently and swearing. Another leads to Barry’s silent, awkward collapse in a puddle of tears. If a user says just the right things, Barry will understand why he has been let go and thank the company for the opportunities provided him. “When you’re going through the scenario with Barry, it’s a different cognitive experience. By being immersed and having your auditory and visual systems focused in an alternate environment, you walk away feeling like you really went through it,” said Talespin Chief Operating Officer Stephan Fromkin. Farmers Insurance is one of myriad organizations leveraging VR to train its employees. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles uses it to teach medical procedures to residents. The Air Force uses it for flight training for pilots. Companies such as Interplay Learning in Texas offer catalogs of VR simulations for technical applications like heating, ventilation and air-conditioning services. “Virtual reality tricks your brain into creating a space. You now have that to map any information associated with that space,” said Doug Donovan, Interplay Learning’s co-founder and chief executive. “For something like technical learning, I can recall working on this piece of equipment and visualize what I was doing.” Donovan said the same rules apply to abstract or emotional learning processes such as communication. “You get so immersed in the environment that you forget you’re not dealing with reality,” he said. It doesn’t matter that the technology isn’t quite photorealistic — Fromkin said users mainly key into the avatar’s facial expressions, mannerisms and how accurately the lips and spoken dialogue are synchronized. “Emotional realism is more important than visual realism,” Fromkin said. Permission to fail According to Fromkin, VR is useful as a training environment for communication and other soft skills primarily because it provides the user with “permission to fail.” For most technical applications, people can train in the environment where they work. They can practice repairs on real, tangible equipment. This is rarely the case for interpersonal skills. “There is no safe space to make mistakes,” said Murray. “(VR provides) a place where you’re not actually affecting another human being. Once you set a (confrontational) reputation from a managerial perspective, it’s very difficult to ever change it.” Virtual reality, then, enables an important process of trial and error that helps users learn how to approach sensitive situations with empathy by highlighting best and worst practices and allowing these to play out as they might in the real world. Murray said VR serves to augment Farmers’ training regimen and won’t replace human trainers.
