Verizon Wireless- Simulation Gaming

For Lou Tedrick, SVP of Workforce Development, the challenge was how to engage the younger workforce in learning. This made her determine whether they were prepared to engage the incoming workforce that was due in another 5-8 years. The inspiration came from her two children -- 5 and 10 at the time -- playing video games like Zoo Tycoon and using critical thinking to keep customers coming in and out of the zoo. She asked her team to find a business need that would lineup with a 3D learning game, the marriage of the two initiatives came together, and an online Verizon Wireless store was created.




The online Verizon Wireless store consists of avatars that look like store managers, customers, and reps within the stores. Managers are faced with decisions they have to make if a customer comes in and asks questions. Based on the interaction, the situation may either be delegated to a rep or not; it's like a whole branching scenario. If the manager does an effective job, an online coach pops in and provides feedback based on how well they did. If they choose the wrong approach, the online coach will pop in and talk about the things they could have done differently.




The top end of the gamer age group is about 36 and the target audience falls into that age range -- the average age of the target audience is 29-33. The leaders of these folks did take part in the game simulation so they could coach to it, with their average age being about 39. This age group did struggle with the game technology and even though they liked it, they needed more hands instructions on how to manipulate the game. The gamer sweet spot is the front-line representatives because they are a younger group, but the store managers were also very excited about the simulation. If this tool were used with the front-line reps to teach them sales skills, it is probably be the more effective approach to this motive of learning.




When participating in the game, managers were taking the right path, but then going back and trialing the wrong path just to see what the reaction was. A lot of the feedback consisted of being able to do things like that within a safe environment. In this instance, it was taking some of the managers longer to complete because they were trying the various routes that were provided for them.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• CorpU
• Corporate
• Human
• Capital
• HR
• Training
• Learning
• Leadership
• Performance
• Measurement
• Lou
• Tedrick

[xXMasterOfVOODOOXx]

@SPEEDofS0UND I chose the bathrooms and put in a hamburger stand and saved enough money to buy the alligators... BTW this is my mother and I was the 10 year old she mentioned

[SPEEDofS0UND]

lol allegators or bathrooms... that's a nice metaphor

[mgrimes99]

I follow trends in this industry. This is very exciting! Michael