Immersive training and role-play, with a facilitated debrief

Your staff rehearse the conversation in the headset, then take it off and talk it through with a facilitator.

The moment

A supervisor, half turned, and a crew member who says he is fine

A shift supervisor at a muster point has a crew member who is quieter than usual, a truck waiting, and a form that says fit for work. If she asks and he shrugs, the shift starts. If she asks the second question, the one nobody has taught her, she finds out what the form did not say. She has never practised the second question.

A supervisor wearing a headset sits half turned toward a simulated crew member in a high-visibility shirt, in a site office with a window onto the mine pit beyond. — Your supervisors practise the second question with a crew member who reacts to how it is asked.

A supervisor wearing a headset faces one crew member under a depot awning, the rest of the crew in hi-vis gathered behind them. — Your supervisors stand apart from the muster group and have the conversation before the shift starts.

A supervisor wearing a headset sits beside a simulated driver in a depot crib room, the driver quiet and holding a mug, practising a return-to-work conversation. — Your leaders sit down beside someone after an incident and learn to leave them room.

Practice, then debrief

PTR pairs the headset with a facilitator

Each VR scenario is paired with a live, human-led debrief. Google’s CHI 2024 team chose a live, facilitated group debrief after each scenario instead of an in-app discussion. Mayo Clinic combined VR immersion with small-group debriefing led by trained facilitators across 28 two-hour sessions over 4 months. PTR follows the same pattern: a safe environment, real pressure, the learner’s own choice, then reflect and repeat.

A crew member wearing the headset faces a translucent panel of choice buttons in a mine site crib room, lockers and desks blurred behind him. — Your crew make the choice in the crib room, then talk it through with a facilitator afterwards.

93%

Of Mater Education staff said they enjoyed the VR feedback-conversation simulation, in the program's own evaluation.

82%

Of QA testers rated the facilitated post-VR group discussion useful or very useful, in Google's peer-reviewed CHI 2024 case study (9 of 11 respondents).

6 to 8 months

How long Mayo Clinic's VR-plus-debrief empathy and upstander-behaviour gains stayed statistically significant, in a peer-reviewed controlled trial.

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Away from a desk

The same shape, away from a desk

The practice runs where the work happens: a site office, a muster point, a depot crib room, an aged-care office, a freight yard. The scenarios for justice, transport and aged care are on their own pages; three of them are below.

A seated worker faces two colleagues spaced apart in an open office, seen through the headset. — Your seated worker faces two colleagues in the office stand-up and practises speaking up.

A facilitator faces two young men spaced apart. A first person VR training scenario for justice and community services, seen through the headset. — Your facilitators face two young men in the program room and practise holding the line.

Three colleagues stand apart across a freight yard. A first person VR training scenario for transport and logistics, seen through the headset. — Your freight crews stand apart across the yard and practise the conversation before the shift.

Featured work

Mater Education, and two titles from the library

Mater Education used this pattern to help healthcare staff practise communication under pressure in a branched VR simulation of real hospital environments, delivered face to face to more than 60 staff across Mater’s Brisbane and regional campuses. The same shape runs through the library: practice, then a conversation about what happened, rather than a score or a scripted ending.

A clinician wearing a headset stands at a hospital bedside facing a simulated patient propped up on pillows, practising the bedside conversation in a ward that looks like the ward.

Read the Mater case study. Your clinicians rehearse the ward conversation in a recreation of their own hospital.

Inside the simulation: three executives sit at the far end of a boardroom table facing the viewer, one mid-sentence, two listening.

Mind Shift. Your leaders watch an idea get dismissed, then repeated back by someone else to a warmer reception.

A facilitator adjusts a headset for a seated learner in a workshop room.

Finding Common Ground. Your customer-facing staff live a two-part experience about discrimination, based on a real incident.

The mechanism

The debrief is the mechanism, not the headset

Fanning and Gaba identify debriefing as one of the most important elements in turning simulation into learning; it depends on a trained facilitator who runs a structured conversation afterwards. Google’s CHI 2024 authors warn that novelty can contribute to a positive response, and name headset discomfort for glasses wearers and the cost of scaling headsets and facilitators. Budget for the facilitator alongside the headset: the research and evidence page collects the published work.

A PTR facilitator stands beside a person wearing a headset as they raise their hands. — Your facilitator is the point: the person beside the headset turns the scenario into learning.

A facilitator and a colleague rehearse a feedback conversation. — Your facilitator and a colleague rehearse the feedback conversation before the group does.

Two colleagues wait for a briefing in a meeting room, seen through the headset. — Your group is briefed in the room before anyone puts on a headset.

"It's not just about seeing a different perspective - it's about feeling it. That's where real change begins."

Simon Lowe, CEO, People Tech Revolution

Quoted in Forbes, June 2025

Inside the headset

Practice, from inside the headset

The customer across a plain counter, the colleague across a bare table, the interviewer in a spare room: each one is in front of you, waiting for a reply, and answers what you say rather than what you meant to say.

A customer stands across a plain service counter. A first person VR training scenario for immersive training and roleplay, seen through the headset. — Your counter staff face the customer across the counter and practise the reply.

A colleague faces you across a bare table with a floating panel of replies in front of him, seen through the headset. — Your managers face the colleague across a bare table and practise the feedback.

An interviewer faces you across a spare room, seen through the headset. — Your candidates and your panels rehearse the interview from either side of the table.

In the room

Headset rehearsal in the room

Around the person in the headset there is a room: a kitchen bench, a clinic corridor, a library. The facilitator watches from there, sees the hesitation the headset cannot, and brings it to the debrief.

A woman wearing a headset pinches her fingers above a kitchen bench, herbs on the windowsill behind her. — Your kitchen staff rehearse above the bench they will work at.

A headset-wearing clinician gestures in a teal corridor. A first person VR training scenario for immersive training and roleplay, seen through the headset. — Your clinicians rehearse in the corridor, with a facilitator watching the hesitation.

A rehearsal in a library, a panel at hand. — Your staff who use a wheelchair rehearse from where they will be, not from a standing script.

Co-designed

Scenarios shaped with the people who will run them

A builder measures an unfinished room. A museum guide directs attention to a sculpture. A worker reaches for fire bay equipment. Each scenario was co-designed with the people who run it, in the room they run it in.