How A Government Agency Used InStage Simulations to Engage Employees in Communication Skills Training
Overview
The government agency faces a regular workload burden of training thousands of employees across many different sectors and departments. Traditional methods of communication training require physical training centers and live instructors to deliver content, so they ventured to adopt a novel approach using online simulations where employees engaged with digital avatars to complete communication skills training.
Client
Government Agency
Duration
5 months
Participants
850+
27%
Increase in skill self-assessment after one session
92%
Enjoyed the training experience
89%
Rated more effective than/about the same as traditional methods
Operation
InStage partnered with a government agency to provide state-of-the-art speaking simulations to over 850 employees in various departments. This innovation combined virtual avatars and data science to simulate the sensation of speaking in front of a live audience along with providing metrics relating to individual performance.
The objectives were to:
Determine whether participants feel like they are “in that place, doing that thing”.
Determine whether participants prefer virtual training over traditional training methods.
Determine if training skills are improved immediately following the simulation, and additionally measure retention levels in a thirty-day follow-up survey.
Each session involved the completion of a "training module," guided by an InStage staff member. Training modules included interview practice, self-introductions, business pitches, presentations, and freestyle presentations. The vast majority of participants chose a scenario for their session in which they had multiple experiences. Despite the familiarity of the scenario in a real-world setting, the average participant rated their skills in interviewing, making presentations, etc. as a 5.9 out of 10. This represented a clear need for skill development and provided the ideal group to test speaking simulations.
Following the session, the participants were provided with data reports that included a variety of metrics such as speaking pace, use of filler words, volume, etc. In order to assess this method of training, participants were asked to complete a pre-session, post-session, and 30-day follow-up survey.
Outcome
Participants were asked to rate their verbal communication skills immediately following their session and again at 30 days following their session. There was a 27% increase in the average skill self-assessment and 87% of participants only completed one session. Over 92% of participants said they enjoyed their training experience and the high positive response maintained in the follow-up survey.
Participants were asked a scenario-specific recall question to test their retention level from their experience. The retention level from the training sessions was strong in both the post-session survey and the follow-up survey 30 days later with over 80% answering correctly.
The effectiveness of InStage speaking simulations were rated by 89% of participants to be more effective than or about the same as traditional methods. Furthermore, when asked how likely they would be to recommend this training experience, participants strongly identified as promoters of InStage with an average score of 8.4.
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