When I was at school and university, I was never given access to Virtual Reality (VR) headsets as an aid to learning.
I do remember watching an episode of The Simpsons, where Lisa imagines using a VR headset to learn history.
When she puts it on, she is taken to Mongolia in 1200 AD and introduced to the founder and first khan of the Mongol Empire.
Via her VR headset, Genghis Khan turns round to speak to her and says: “Hello Lisa, I am Genghis Khan, you’ll go where I go, defile what I defile and eat who I eat.”
Lisa is left smiling at the wonders of educational VR.
I recently had my first experience of using a VR headset at Sandbox VR in London near Holborn underground to play the game, Deadwood Valley – where your city has been overtaken by zombies and you have to fight your way out.
As a Walking Dead fan, I was in my element. It was an immersive experience, having zombies running at you and shooting them down.
VR isn’t only being used for games. Just as Lisa Simpson predicted, it is also being used in teaching. Marrying VR with education could do something that I never thought was possible – make learning fun. Well, more fun than sitting in a classroom anyway.
When I wrote an article about St. James’s Place (SJP) expanding its VR adviser training with a course from the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), I could certainly see how VR and IFAs could integrate.
In September 2021, SJP became the first financial services provider to roll out VR technology for training and role-playing through its academy and across its business.
The firm is currently piloting two VR empathy and vulnerability face-to-face sessions, aimed at building vulnerable client support and soft skills for advisers in line with the Consumer Duty.
Also VR can enhance your ability to learn.
Recent research from PwC found that using virtual reality to train people was more effective than classroom and e-learning settings at teaching soft skills concepts.
The ‘v-learners’ felt 3.75 times more emotionally connected to the content than classroom learners, and 2.3 times more connected than e-learners.
I hope SJP’s pilot programmes become an established part of its adviser training, because I think it can be hugely advantageous to advisers.
VR could make both the Consumer Duty and regulation in general more engaging and enjoyable, a prospect that advisers likely never considered possible.
Maybe SJP could even go one step further and incorporate zombies into its training.
Advisers who take part in the course could be placed in a world overrun by zombies via VR, but it would not just be shooting the undead for 30 minutes.
When an adviser shoots a zombie, a question relating to the Consumer Duty or wider regulation could pop up, and if the adviser picks the right answer from a multiple-choice question, your shot could then put an end to the walking dead.
In all seriousness, though, this way of learning should be rolled out – not necessarily just for advisers, but for the wider public too. It could be really beneficial.
More adviser training sessions using a VR headset can really help the planner community, especially during a time when a large number predict regulation will increase.
In its ‘State of the Advice Nation’ report, published in February, The Lang Cat found that fear of further regulation was the main issue keeping 31% of advice business owners awake at night.
The report, which surveyed 400 members of the advice profession, revealed that advisers were particularly worried about the volume of new regulation and the pace at which it was coming at them.
So not only could VR help advisers brush up on their knowledge of regulation, but it could help them have a good night’s sleep at the same time.
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