When some Walmart store workers want to apply for a higher-paying management role, the company fits them with a $250 virtual reality headset to see if they are the right candidate for the job. The country’s largest private employer is using a VR skills assessment as part of the selection process to find new middle managers, watching how workers respond in virtual reality to an angry shopper, a messy aisle or an underperforming worker.
VR training is becoming more common in a variety of industries to educate a large number of workers quickly or assess the technical ability of high-skilled workers like electricians or pilots. But Walmart’s use of the technology to gauge a worker’s strengths, weaknesses and potential is significant, writes The Wall Street Journal (July 1, 2019), because it pushes VR evaluation out to a massive hourly workforce and in some cases helps determine who gets raises and who gets demoted.
Walmart hopes the technology will limit bias inherent in many traditional hiring decisions, increase diversity and reduce turnover among its 1.5 million U.S. employees in a tight labor market. It started using VR training broadly last year, adding headsets in the backrooms of all 4,600 U.S. stores to train workers how to stock shelves or use new online pickup machines. The VR assessments have been given to over 10,000 workers so far as part of a new store management structure rolling out to some stores that reduces the number of managers. Use of VR reflects broader efforts by employers to quickly, but fairly gauge workers’ abilities as jobs change due to automation and other factors.
Classroom discussion questions
- What is the strength of this VR approach?
- What are the potential downsides of this technology in employee promotion?