Employee training is crucial for every credit union, particularly regarding member interactions. However, that doesn’t mean that the training itself has to be boring. Ent Credit Union has begun incorporating virtual reality into its training sessions and has found it to be more effective and enjoyable for their team members!

The Credit Union Connection Co-founder Sarah Snell Cooke sat down with the Founder and CEO of Aequilibrium Adrian Moise, as well as Ent Credit Union’s VP of Learning and Cultural Enrichment Lori Benton and Director of Learning Innovation Marnie Gerkhardt to discuss their new virtual reality training program. They also discussed how to make learning and training fun and where there is room for further innovation.

Read the full transcript below:

Disclosure: Transcript is automatically generated

Sarah Cooke 00:02

Hello and welcome to The Credit Union Connection. My name is Sarah Snell Cooke, and I am your host today. I am here, very lucky to be here with the folks from Aequilibrium and Ent Credit Union. From Aequilibrium, we have founder and CEO, Adrian Moise. Welcome

Adrian Moise 00:21
morning. Very nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Sarah Cooke 00:24
Yes, absolutely. And from Ent Credit Union in Colorado, we have Lori Benton, who is the Vice President of Learning and Cultural Enrichment. Welcome,

Lori Benton 00:35 Good morning.

Sarah Cooke 00:36
And Marnie, last but not least, Marnie Gerkhardt, Director of learning innovation from Ent Credit Union. Welcome.

Marnie Gerkhardt 00:43
Thank you. Such a pleasure to finally get to connect with you, Sarah. And

Sarah Cooke 00:48
so I'm going to give you each just like, a couple minutes, talk about your your background a little bit, and your organizations. I will go ahead and start with Lori, why don't you start?

Lori Benton 01:00

great. So I just finished my third year with Ent, and I'm a retired public educator coming out of quite the the fun space post COVID, and I'm excited that we get to work with ENT in all things learning. So my area of expertise is actually in the learning environment for basically students all the way to adults. And so I'm basically, we talked a lot about learning innovation when we came on board, and Marnie got to start in her position at the same time. So we had a great time coming up with all kinds of ways to innovate and remake learning and basically create an engaging environment for our employees. And

Sarah Cooke 01:37
great segueway to Marnie, why don't you go ahead and, brief intro of yourself.

01:42

Yes. Marnie Gerhardt, Ent Credit Union, Director of Learning & Innovation. I get to help build digital learning experiences for Ent. I've managed and built an external training program so we can create equal opportunities for everybody to be able to take part and all of the wonderful things happening, both inside and outside of credit unions. And as far as developing careers and prior to my time here, some of you may know that I spent some time at the Filene Research Institute, not only doing like event planning and community building, but also working with that innovation field. In the three years to bring ideas to life, it has been so much fun to bring the skills and talents that I've had from Filene and prior experiences to Ent where I get to, Lori lets me run wild, thank goodness, and encourages me to partner with wonderful companies like Aequilibrium, to play and to learn and to find out how we can really help credit unions improve the financial quality of life for people. It's wonderful.

Sarah Cooke 02:43
Yeah, it's not often you hear credit unions and run wild in the same sentence. Great. And Adrian, how about yourself?

Adrian Moise 02:54

So my name is Adrian Moise. I'm the founder and CEO of Aequilibrium. We are a technology company who focuses primarily on financial services, so providing both digital transformation and innovation services. I've been in tech for over 20 years, starting building immersive gaming experience and entertainment for Ubisoft. I helped Electronic Arts build the mobile gaming division. So we focus on digital transformation to help financial institutions become stronger, more resilient, differentiate and grow. But also on the aspect of innovation, so looking into how new technologies such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence can help create better experience for both members and for the credit union stuff? Yeah,

Sarah Cooke 03:44

and everybody in credit unions is talking to AI. It's great to see practical application as well. So Lori, I'm going to start with you. What was the issue that you were trying to solve when you were looking for a solution like Aequilibrium?

Lori Benton 03:59

I think it's not that we were trying to solve anything. We were just trying to make the learning better and deeper. And so when we talked about the value of virtual reality is that you can practice something without actually being in reality, right? So if I have someone that I'm trying to work with and train who is going to work with a member rather than putting them in an environment where they might not be able to meet expectations of maybe the training staff, or be able to put in a live environment and work with a member directly, we wanted to give them an opportunity to fail and learn without it being high stakes. And so the virtual reality is a nice way for us to do some quick training, get them in, have them practice, learn some of the techniques, learn some of the vocabulary, learn how to interact. And we were able to build it an escalated way, right? So you get the softballs that are easy, and then you get all the way to the fast pitch where it's like, okay, these are, these folks are really hard, and I don't, I don't know how to deal with that yet, and so it gives them a level of comfort with the content and with a member without it being high stakes. And so we were able to get higher engagement because it's also more fun. Let's be real, right? So the gamification of learning is just fun. And I mean, some of us are incredibly competitive, and so you want to get it right, but some of us aren't, and it's okay for us to go, Oh, I didn't know that, and click here and click here. So the idea really is to give us an opportunity to keep people engaged in learning and do it differently. And this generation, right, is so used to I think we have people are like, Oh, I have this headset. Oh, I've done VR before. Oh, I love this. And so it's just another way for us to continue to expand and meet people's learning needs in a very different way, and we call it differentiation, right? It's a differentiation model. Some people love to sit in a classroom, right and learn with an instructor and face to face with paper, but a lot of people don't anymore, and so this allows us the opportunity to differentiate their learning modality and also, obviously, make the learning stick. So we aren't really trying to solve a problem necessarily. We're just trying to expand what we offer and make it as effective as well as efficient as possible.

Sarah Cooke 06:07
And Adrian, so what I mean, Lori talked a little bit about some of these, but what are the benefits of a VR program versus traditional training?

Adrian Moise 06:17

That's a great question. So a few things, part of this industrial Metaverse city, seeing this as the continuation and evolution of the Internet and a multitrillion dollar opportunity. So bringing virtuality and artificial intelligence together, not only you create more immersive and personalized experiences, but what we're seeing, similar to what Lori mentioned, is there is this sense of fulfillment. Employees are more engaged and motivated. Not only you can deliver content effectively reducing time and cost for training, but also seeing employees are able to retain the information better with that. That means also they are more confident to apply the learning in the interactions with the members. So the member experience is also improving. And then when you also looking into the impact, there is this fear right now about how these technology will displace job instead, and is innovative organization who's using this technology to elevate and upskill the employees, so employees are more engaged. Retention is being improved. So there are several other benefits to using this immersive experience to elevate how employee onboarding and training is being delivered.

Sarah Cooke 07:35

No, absolutely. It sounds like so much fun, too. Like you said, gamification, it's like playing a game. So Marnie, what was important to you that be included in this, these training programs and the virtual reality opportunities,

Marnie Gerkhardt 07:52

this all was very serendipitous, and that Lori has me on this project, and also we are rethinking our frontline staff training at the same time, so I did a lot of listening sessions shortly after we concluded the testing of this. But it's really come to be that we have a really great technical training program. We have a wonderful ability to teach people the technical skills which are really hard to learn, right? But there's an opportunity to increase confidence all the time, right? Coming out, getting on the floor of a new, a new job, is always a little scary, even if you're the most confident person in the world. So for me, it was super important to see if we could measure an increase in confidence for these individuals who are the most important. They're touching members every single day, right? They are in front of people. And so how do we just help enhance a comfortability when they're having a conversation? Especially we all know this when it comes to money, our finances, the things sometimes we're scared to talk about. And so that was it for me. How do we increase confidence with these team members in front of our members, so that way they're not doing it, to Lori's point, in a higher stakes environment,

Sarah Cooke 09:05

yeah. And it gives the, the, once they're trained up, you know, they it gives the members also additional comments that the other person is confident, the person behind the behind the counter, or whatever. So, yeah, I think, I think that all sounds great. It makes a lot of sense. How did you work with and, and ensure that all their needs and the, in their issues or expansion of their training was fulfilled?

Adrian Moise 09:35

Is that question for me? Oh, sorry, yes. So we started by doing a discovery and planning sessions that help us to understand where the main needs are and how do they align with the organization goals. So this was not a marketing stand about look at us, we have headsets on the head, but we're looking into how to combine these two technology, virtuality and artificial intelligence to deliver personalized and immersive experiences at scale. So through this discovery and planning sessions, we got to learn more about two things. One is, what are, what is their focus at this time, and what are some of these activities that will align to the company objectives and goal? And second, we're also looking into what type of experience really lend themselves to get the most value from this virtual reality training. So for example, these folks from Stanford have coined this acronym called D.I.C.E., which stands for dangerous, impossible, counterproductive and expensive. And basically what a research show that when your training is checking one or multiple of these boxes, the benefit for VR training outpaces traditional training even further. So we did this join prioritization. We co created a curriculum of training that is not only important to the organization, but also creates the maximum impact when virtual reality is being applied.

Sarah Cooke 11:06

Yeah, fascinating stuff. And do you think, just to follow up on that, it can be a little scary, I assume, selling executives or CEOs on this is not scary, selling it to them, but for them to accept newer technology sometimes, how do you overcome that, that hump, that hurdle?

Adrian Moise 11:29

So we actually met with other organizations who are also forward thinking, and then they have periods of time, say, one day a month, when they want to look ahead three or five days, as opposed to doing with the day to day activities. And they always looking to understand what else is happening in the space. So if you have these kind of two horizon approach, not only to resolve the problems and the operational efficiencies, but also looking into what else would be these disruptors and, and is one of this organization who is looking ahead and trying to figure out how to create both the competitive advantage but also how to service their staff and the members better. And through you know, Marnie and Lori, we received buy in from their leadership team, we engaged some other members from other departments, from other departments, from the training department for the user experience department, and they have got by in also from the executive team.

Sarah Cooke 12:30

yeah, and from the executive team, as well as just investing in those frontline staff makes them feel better and more confident, not only with the member, but also in their job and that they're being invested in. So I think there's a lot of different benefits to this, it sounds like. So, Marnie, I'll start with you. Why did you select Aequilibrium and how has it been working with them? Oh

Marnie Gerkhardt 12:57

my gosh, it has been so much fun. I think the first meeting we had where we did the brainstorming session, I did it with a couple of other colleagues, and we just kept saying how much fun it was to use the tools that they had and how you could tell it was the method that they use. And I believe wholeheartedly in methods, especially when it comes to innovating. It sounds counterintuitive, but those of us who know it know that we need these tools and systems and processes to get us to the point we got to. So it was so wonderful to get to work with them, and then when they came and we did the testing, and they were recording the testing that we did with frontline staff, team members, the care and the, the patience that they had for the technology and the users, it was a really wonderful experience, not only virtually, as we were trying to make all these things happen throughout how many different time zones did we have, uh, trying to trying to get all these times together to plan everything. But then when they were here in housing, it was just a wonderful experience, and I could even tell that the new team members felt it too. They were just helpful, kind to consider it, and all of us were just trying to get to the same goal. It's truly amazing what magic can happen when everybody just wants to help. And I'm so grateful that in credit union land, you get to work with a lot of people, like the people at Aequilibrium for that. Thank you. Adrian,

Adrian Moise 14:23

so true. Was a pleasure.

Sarah Cooke 14:25
Lori, anything to add to that? Well,

Lori Benton 14:28

I think we just kind of fell into it, which was lovely. Aequilibrium was looking for a partner, and we're currently and is partnering with them on some of our other initiatives. And so we got to just have a conversation, and we got to actually just geek out on learning. So there's a lot of fun to, to be in a session and talk about the possibilities, right? And and Adrian and I both come from different backgrounds, but similar backgrounds as science people. And so it's a lot of fun to just talk about the value of hands on and the value of how we can take something that very traditional that has worked, but how do we make something even better? And how do you beta test that? And how do you, how do you grow it? And so we still have conversations regularly, Adrian and I do about what else, what's next, you know, how can we help other people? And so it's just been a great partnership. Awesome,

Sarah Cooke 15:17
awesome. And so, you know, we've kind of touched on a few of these along the way. And this question is open for everybody, what have been the results that you've seen?

Marnie Gerkhardt 15:29

I can start with having been sitting at, having sat in the room with everybody as we were testing. First and foremost, to our great surprise, I think it was like 75% of the testers that we used somewhere around there might not be getting those statistics perfect, but already had a VR headset at home. And I'm a gamer. I really like playing video games. I do not have a headset, granted, I'm on that Gen X side. So you know, I love technology and do the things, but I've got little kids and have other places spend my money right now. But it was really shocking to me, how many people we randomly selected. Half of the participants in the MSR class in February to participate, in more three quarters of them had a headset at home or like had one for their child and had played with it before. So the learning curve was actually not as difficult as we had originally anticipated. And then there was one, one thing I definitely have to share. The excitement, the, there, there was an air of, Wow. I can't believe that this new organization that I've just started working for wants to invest at this level with us. You could tell that they thought it said a lot about us as a company, that we were willing to try it, that we were willing to go there, and there was an added level of excitement about the company that they had just chosen to work for. And I didn't expect that. I don't think we saw that one coming, but it was really, really nice to see and hear and feel. And the fact that we, you know, wanted a lot of feedback about it, and they were open to sharing, it was just a really great start to employment.

Sarah Cooke 17:09

yeah. And, you know, building that brand, not only as a consumer financial services option, but also as an employer of choice, that's my big thing. Credit unions need to be an employer of choice too. So building that brand as a forward thinking, innovative company is certainly a good start to getting, getting those employees on board and keeping them hopefully. Lori, anything to add, as far as results that you've seen?

Lori Benton 17:35

I think for us, it just validated that people want things to look different, right? So it validated that there's the higher engagement. It validated that people that retain more information, I think, coming into the credit union space, having been in, you know, public education for so long, the concept of what I consider consumption learning is is very high here because of, it's efficient, right? So we you take you watch a video, or you read some text, and then you take a retention quiz and you move on. It's very much consumption, and it's not interactive. And I'm used to the expectation of interactive learning. And so whether it's virtual, interactive learning, or whether it's synchronous, asynchronous, pick whatever you want. It needs to be something where the learner is interacting with the content. I think that's what people are excited about, and that's what Marnie got to see in that excitement of yes, people are investing in us. It's not I'm just that kind of sit and get kind of thing that probably all of us sat through in school, right? And nothing says find, like a 90 minute lecture in physics. So I think what we're trying to do is just break that a little bit and it just that validated that people want it to look different. So no, right? We're beginning stages, right? Of all this, and so we're kind of, we're trying to see, okay, how do we, how do we leverage the cooperative nature of credit unions to work together to build maybe a repertoire of content, and how do we break it out of just maybe that sales and service mindset and break it up into other just things that we have to do as part of a business? So I think the, it validated that we should keep working on. It doesn't

Sarah Cooke 19:15

matter whether you're six or 26, fun is fun, you know?

Adrian Moise 19:17

I'll just build on Marnie and Lori said, so, yeah, so right, that people like both education, training are ready for disruption, because it's been so you know, the same type of methods to push content and training to people. So instead is, how about you are part of this training yourself, and it's a multi sensory experience that helps you build muscle memory and teach you critical thinking. So we came in looking into research that, from other example, VR show to provide four times faster results than classroom methods, or 52 reductions in cost, you know when 3000 learners went through the process. So we have some hypothesis about the impact that VR training will make for ENT, so we measure, for example, a 73% increase in confidence for training. 100% of the employees indicated they prefer VR training over role play, because you don't feel judged. You feel you can do it anytime you want, and you get a personalized experience. And then we also measure that 82% improve on information retention. So while this was just the start of what we hope to be a longer term growth and collaboration this area, and this also opening the door for other financial institutions to be part of this immersive experiences. We've been presenting this results that we had with Ent at another conference for the CUNA Conference in Washington, DC, to the World Credit Union that's coming up in Boston. And we're seeing a lot of interest in other institutions who are basically right now, saying now that pioneers like ENT have basically broke the ice, and then they show that this works. There is an interest from other organizations to build that collection of training materials that can be used by the credit unions like Lori said,

Sarah Cooke 21:16

Yeah, okay. And so as we're wrapping this up, I just want to ask you each for final thoughts on what you might suggest to other credit unions who are considering or reconsidering their training tactics. I'll go ahead and start with Marnie.

Marnie Gerkhardt 21:30

This might be expected, but you don't have to roll this out to the entire organization right away. You can start small. We started very small. We started with, you know, our February MSR class, and then on the back end, we opened it up for anybody who wanted to try it in our back office to just play, just to let people see what we were trying to do and to get some feedback. Start small. It does not have to be a complete turnover, and you don't have to do everything, you just have to find a spot where you can maybe measure some effectiveness and, and be open to the feedback that you're going to hear, which, again, kudos to Ent for being open to that feedback and for Aequilibrium, for listening and wanting to improve and grow.

Sarah Cooke 21:35

And Lori, you next.

Lori Benton 22:21

So I believe in try it and see if it works, and keep modifying and keep iterating. And so I think that might be a little bit different for credit unions or financial services in general. And I think especially in the technical space that's, that is high stakes, because it's the members money. So I encourage people to start in the not high stakes area, where you're working on skill development, that is about interacting with other people, and working on leadership skills, and working on some of that, where you break the mold a little bit and try and think outside the box. Not everything needs to be in person, right? So I think for us, it's try it and see what sticks leverage other credit unions around you and truly, truly the value of cooperative finance is cooperation amongst cooperatives, right? And that's one of our founding principles. So why not try it? So that's what we're hoping to do, is be able to leverage everybody else's brilliance too, as we continue to expand what we offer. And I think the difference between credit unions is that we do care about the member, right? It's not just about profit, and that's important for us to continue to remember. So how do we then work together? So that's just my, break the mold. Find it. I always say, wherever the box is, I'm going to push right up against it. I won't break it, but I'm going to push and try and expand that box. Great,

Sarah Cooke 23:40
awesome. And let's wrap it up with you. Adrian, final thoughts on what you might suggest for a credit union that's reconsidering their training tactics.

Adrian Moise 23:49

First, I'll like to thank Ent for the trust and the willingness to try new things that improve both the employee and the member experience, and especially for the support we got from Lori and Marnie on this, both the artificial intelligence and the industrial Metaverse are here to stay, and then organizations can start small, partner with an organization on what are the business goals, and find something that makes a meaningful impact, set up a goal and then create a proof of concept. Hypothesize, where do you think the maximum value will be coming from, and then measure and then improve, and then continue to sort of build on these learnings, to add values through this personalized training at scale that not only benefits the staff, but also it reflects into better results for the members.

Sarah Cooke 24:44
Yeah, awesome, excellent. Thank you all so much. Thank you, Marnie, Laurie and Adrian. I appreciate your time today. Have a great rest of your day.

Adrian Moise 24:53
Thank you. Thank you. It was nice being here. Bye.