Q&A with Josh Bersin on post-pandemic employee experience

The conversations around employee experience have been turned up over the last 12 months. Without healthy, engaged, well-supported employees, companies can’t weather unpredictable times, and for that matter, they’re at risk even during the best of times.

But finding the right ways to support employees is evolving, both because of the nature of work today and the influx of Millenials and GenZ workers into the workforce. A LinkedIn Workplace Learning report found that 74% of talent developers planned to make changes to their L&D program to accommodate GenZ employees.

Those changes, and the evolving nature of L&D, were the subject of a recent conversation we had with analyst Josh Bersin. He shared how employee experience is shifting and what it will look like in the post-pandemic era.

Q: While the world certainly isn’t out of pandemic mode, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. What are you seeing and hearing from HR and learning leaders?

Employee experience is on everyone’s minds. It’s a gigantic topic that covers just about everything: working from home, going back-to-work, scheduling, tools, productivity, well-being, and, of course, training and education. These subjects became big because of the pandemic, but they’re going to remain important. After all, how we work and where we work has changed.

Digital tools are now everywhere. In fact, a recent Okta study found that larger companies deploy an average of 175 apps, and smaller companies average 73.

We’re going to have an incredible growth cycle ahead of us. I think virtual reality is going to be a huge part of that.

Josh Berlin

Global L&D Analyst

Then, of course, there’s the job market. We’re going to have an incredible growth cycle ahead of us. It’s going to be hard to hire, which will make reskilling and upskilling your employees really hot. I think VR is going to be a huge part of that.

Q: From your point of view, why is VR so important to employee experience, engagement, retention, and upskilling?

The VR experience is far more impactful and meaningful than you could probably imagine if you haven’t tried it. It’s much more cost-effective than flying people around the country to conduct training in classrooms, and you can’t simulate the real environment that way anyway. But more importantly, for employees, getting away from the office and into an immersive classroom can be highly enjoyable.

One thing for more traditional HR people to understand is that virtual worlds are mainstream for young people. It’s common for young people to live and work in virtual worlds, so VR is a proven way to get someone’s attention, engage them, and change how they think about the world. VR is a huge growth market.

Q: If you’re an HR leader, a learning leader, or a technology buyer, how should you think of an immersive learning platform fitting into your current tech stack?

The scale of learning with Immersive Learning is incredible. I think this is a platform that companies really need to take seriously.

Immersive learning is now a fundamental part of the tech stack. Walmart, Bank of America, JetBlue, and other enterprise businesses have all realized that immersive learning is a technology infrastructure that enables deep skills development on many topics in a cost-effective way.

Just as e-learning was enabled twenty years ago and became a standard, now, immersive learning will continue to grow. Any company with a reasonable training budget and looking at technology platforms ought to consider it — especially one with highly distributed employees and operational jobs where you can’t get people into the same room easily.

The scale of learning with immersive learning is incredible. I think this is a category of the platform space that companies really need to take seriously.

As the economy and hiring ramp back up post-pandemic, you can create an unforgettable employee experience with Strivr’s immersive learning platform.