Sprouts uses VR to expedite onboarding & build culture at scale

Sprouts is a culture-driven, people-centered organization whose core values are espoused and reflected in every facet of the company’s culture and customer service approach. Before transitioning to virtual reality (VR) training, new Sprouts team members completed onboarding on-site and in-person through 4-hour cluster training session covering everything from customer service to food safety. This approach to employee onboarding was not only costly in terms of the travel and personnel costs required to sustain it, but also inconsistent as training content, quality, and oversight varied across locations, leading to varied performance from team members. As part of a new initiative to instill the Sprouts Sales Culture among all team members and in preparation for a rapid location and headcount expansion, Sprouts partnered with Strivr to create a custom immersive learning program that met the following business objectives:

To provide new hires with a realistic preview of what to expect before stepping into their new role and job site, Strivr’s team of immersive content specialists created 3 live action VR training courses. Production took place at a Sprouts grocery store over the course of 5 days using 360 video cameras, mics, and actors to deliver life-like visuals and sounds in an authentic VR environment.

Course 1: Sprouts Values
‍Course 1 focused on introducing learners to the Sprouts Sales Culture and and testing their conceptual understanding of each tenant.

Course 2: Selling Naturally

Course 2 focused on building customer service and sales skills by testing learners’ ability to embody and demonstrate the Sprouts Sales Culture in a series of simulated customer interactions.

Course 3: Food Safety Prioritization

Course 3 focused on introducing learners to proper food safety procedures, from basic hygiene and sanitation to identifying symptoms of food-borne illnesses and the bacteria that cause them. Learners were then prompted to complete a series of tasks in a simulated Sprouts deli counter environment to test their ability to prioritize food safety over competing tasks, identify food safety hazards, and understand the consequences of non-compliance.

Since deploying their VR training program, Sprouts has reduced new hire onboarding time by 81%, from 4 hours to 45 minutes, allowing the company to get new team members on the floor and contributing to the bottom line faster without sacrificing engagement or proficiency.

In fact, employee engagement has seen a dramatic increase. “[Team members] eagerly seek the training, whereas, in the past, they may have endured it,” said Dan Sanders, Sprouts Chief Operating Officer.

Employee retention of training content has also seen significant improvements. Compared to employees who trained under the old paradigm (in-person and on-site), VR learners were 16X more likely to remember all six Sprouts core values, outperforming even senior managers.

The company's VR training program was so successful among new hires that Sprouts decided to extend the program to tenured team members in every department to reinforce the importance of the Sprouts Sales Culture, core values, and customer service approach across the entire organization.