WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Sept. 21, 2022 – Novant Health announced today it is deploying innovative tools for leadership development and training with Moth+Flame, an award-winning virtual reality (VR) provider and technology studio.
Recently, clinical and nonclinical leaders and team members at Novant Health participated in the health system’s first-ever VR-based leadership development training using Moth+Flame’s Promise platform focused on having crucial, difficult conversations. Over the next several weeks, more than one hundred leaders and team members across administrative and clinical roles will participate in the VR learning experience.
“Health care is extremely personal and can sometimes require difficult conversations,” said Dr. Chere Gregory, senior vice president and chief health equity officer, Novant Health. “I’m proud to be part of an organization that is committed to investing in forward-thinking training and development, giving our team members the confidence and ability to have these needed conversations with fellow team members and/or their patients.”
Inspired by the book “Talking Taboo: Making the Most of Polarizing Discussions at Work,” by Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Chief Knowledge Officer Alex Alonso, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP, the VR immersive voice-activated learning experience is designed to help leaders approach sensitive issues with their teams.
“The book serves as the genesis for these VR learning units,” Alonso said. “With more units in development, people leaders will be able to practice implementing the lessons to mold their desired workplace culture while addressing myriad, and sometimes tricky employee relations issues.”
Learners apply empathetic listening techniques in a potentially polarizing discussion to understand and navigate the barriers and solutions to garnering inclusion and advancing communication in the workplace. Unlike most typical VR experiences, Moth+Flame leverages real people instead of virtual avatars, which helps provide a more realistic and meaningful experience for the end users. During the training session, Novant Health team members used VR headsets to immerse themselves in a scenario designed to prepare them to approach difficult conversations at work.
“At Novant Health, we continually look for solutions that combine our focus on purposeful innovation and human-centered care,” said Carmen Canales, senior vice president and chief people and belonging officer, Novant Health. “By partnering with Moth+Flame, we can provide our teams an effective and engaging professional development opportunity, give immediate feedback and allow them to succeed in their careers, as well as their personal lives.”
Moth+Flame’s virtual reality training fully immerses learners in a lifelike environment where learners are entirely focused on the content. Participants are separated from typical surroundings and the virtual environment becomes the learner's environment. This learning method results in a better experience than two-dimensional instructional designs because Moth+Flame’s use of natural language processing requires learners to use their voices to interact. Participants learn by doing rather than by dissociative clicking.
“Virtual reality is transforming corporate training by reducing training time and improving training results. We have seen that people leaders are more confident in the material they learned than traditional learning formats,” said Kevin Cornish, founder and CEO of Moth+Flame. “By training in a simulated lifelike environment, our product offers the best format for high-impact training. The data we measured with Novant Health shows a continued trend that virtual reality is proving to be one of the most effective tools for professional development.”
For more information about Moth + Flame, visit mothandflamevr.com.
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