Company wellness is important for the workforce who values their mental health and growth potential. When businesses choose to address wellness within the workspace, they’re able to provide their employees with the proper tools for improving their performance.
Here are 10 reasons you can use to convince your boss to invest in a VR headset for your company.
1 – Improves Focus
Your ability to focus is instrumental to your success in the workplace. The more time and concentration you’re able to devote to a task, the greater the quality of work you’ll produce. It allows you to not only complete tasks quicker, but ensure they’re error-free. VR is a great way to reset, focus, and quiet the mind. Immersion plays an important role in helping people stay focused on the task at hand. VR directs users’ full attention to the VR experience. In the average workday, there can be a lot of disruptions. VR helps users train their brain to tune out distractions which in turn creates better performance.
2 – Reduces Stress
Work is one of the top three sources of stress for Americans. In 2019, statistics show that 94% of American workers report experiencing stress at their workplace. Studies show that VR can reduce stress, leaving users with more positive mood states. VR can’t remove a potentially stressful environment, but it can help employees become more stress-resilient. VR reduces anxiety and stress by engaging you in virtual environments designed to lower your body’s stress responses.
3 – Improves Working Memory
The average person will forget 50% of new information given orally or visually within the first hour of hearing it. Within one day we have forgotten 70% of the details, and without repetition, we only retain 10% of the information after a month. Our brain retains information better when we have an emotional response to it.
When we are submerged in VR we are essentially rewiring our brain into thinking we’re in a real situation. This allows the emotional responses to heighten our brain’s capacity to remember things that have been learned. Because VR simulations are interactive, users are present and focus on the task at hand. Immersive learning is an efficient way of training and enhancing the process of learning. Therefore, if VR is used for training purposes it can be a quicker and more effective way of learning. So while it targets how we learn and process information, it makes the experiences unforgettable, so that forgetting it becomes almost impossible.
4 – Boosts Productivity
Stress and anxiety impact productivity levels. Over 50% of US workers are not mentally engaged in their work or their work relationships. VR can boost productivity in many ways. Through various training programs, VR can provide effective and time-efficient training for new and seasoned employees. With VR, employees can also facilitate meetings and presentations, organize data and files, improve collaboration, and manage physical and mental health at work. Whether you use VR apps that increase efficiency or apps that exercise mental health, both can help enhance company productivity.
5 – Reduces Absenteeism
Burnout is the result of heavy workloads, stressful meetings, and frustration within the workplace. Employees who are unfulfilled and unmotivated are less likely to want to show up to work. However, when employees have tools that can tackle stress, heavy workloads, and anxiety, they’re more likely to self-manage negative feelings. Healium provides an outlet for employees to self-regulate their emotional well-being. Nature-based escapes give employees a four-minute virtual vacation to the beach, the mountains, and more. By taking a virtual break, staff feel more present when returning to this reality.
6 – Improves Company Culture
Companies looking to implement the latest trends in the workplace are turning to virtual reality. Do you have workplace perks like an espresso machine, an office gym, and free snacks in the vending machine? Help your boss see how they can up the cool factor at the office by incorporating a virtual reality headset. Apps can be used by multiple staff and you can get competitive with apps like Beat Saber. Even adding augmented reality (AR) into the equation allows companies to create a sense of community even though they aren’t present in the office. VR can completely transform your idea of company culture for the better.
7 – Easy to Use and Setup: Employees Use it at Their Discretion and Frequency
VR headsets can be set up anywhere and used at any time of the day. This level of accessibility can be so important in any size office. When you need a quick break, you can use the VR headset for a physical workout, a mental health break, and more. It’s a wellness program for your office that’s never been easier to implement.
8 – Additional Apps Can Be Downloaded
Virtual reality headsets come with access to an expansive ecosystem of apps. Healium is just one app that you can download. By downloading additional apps, the VR headset becomes a multi-functional tool for your workspace.
Here are some of our favorite apps for VR:
Supernatural is an immersive, virtual reality fitness experience that combines music, coaches, and beautiful destinations into your own workout. Within the app, you can set up four profiles for individualized stats and workouts. If your office doesn’t have a gym to provide workout space, Supernatural is a great way to offer gym-like benefits to employees in a small space with just a VR headset!
Beat Saber is a fun, competitive game that’s easy to play during a quick 10-minute break. Slice through the music blocks on the beat on easy, normal, hard, expert, and expert plus levels. Just like an arcade, leave your name when you reach a new high score and keep it competitive around the office? Think you can beat Craig from Human Resources?
Spatial is a meeting space that brings people together via photo-realistic avatars. Using the built-in microphone on the VR headset, users can chat as if they’re on Zoom, but with the ability to move around the shared space, and interact with other attendees. It provides a distraction-free meeting zone that brings everyone together in one virtual space. Even those without a headset can join via the desktop version with a webcam.
Talespin hosts a variety of platforms that can be used for talent management, training, and collaboration. Using virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, Talespin provides tools that are shaping our workforce for the future. For example, their Propel platform uses object- and process-based learning modules. Learning modules built with Propel immerse learners in foundational knowledge and simulate complex tasks that are typically difficult to train and practice.
Of course, we have to give a recommendation for our own app! It can be used in two ways. One, use it without a wearable for a meditative, relaxing experience to calm your mind in our nature-based experiences. Tune into the scene all around you and listen to the story. The second way to use Healium is for human performance training. Using an EEG headband, integrate your brain waves directly into the VR experiences and see how your brain responds to the content. Use your feelings of focused calm to float up the side of the waterfall or make flurries fly in a magic snow globe. The VR environment will respond to your success for the focused calm protocol. That neurofeedback lets you know how the experience is working and helps build mental resilience.
9 – Improves Mood States
Healium has a published, peer-reviewed study about how VR can improve your mood state. Our library contains over 25 guided relaxation and meditation stories. Each story immerses you into a virtual world and guides you into “open eyes” meditation to achieve peace, all in as little as four minutes. If you can convince your boss to buy a headset, Healium will be a must-have app for the entire office to use.
10 – Low Cost for a Company Wellness Program
Most programs just have a one-time cost for the hardware such as the headset. Investing in a company subscription costs significantly less than purchasing for just an individual. Apps such as Healium pay off in the end with all the benefits that come as a package deal, available to everyone in the company.
Start the conversation with your boss by letting them know that you value wellness in your company the importance of providing tools and resources to employees. VR is a great way to decrease overall stress, anxiety, and increase collaboration. Companies might consider investing in a VR headset to try new ways to be organized and create a deeper community in the workplace. Talk to your boss and see how you can change your company culture!
