Abstract:

Due to the rapid change of labor market and careers, people need to reshape their skills and competencies. World Economy Forum has calculated that new technology will be transforming over 1 billion jobs worldwide in the next decade and there is a tremendous need to reskilling the workforce. Until now, further vocational training of the workforce has happened in educational institutions. Now, in greater extend, companies to name some Google, Apple, Hilton, and especially start-ups are training their own workforce. So, what is the role of higher education in the future? How companies and higher education institutions could work in co-operation to reskill and train the workforce using new technology?

Virtual Technology (VR) is one of the emerging technologies that is changing the training landscapes both in companies and in educational institutions. The former research has shown VR’s potential in the educational domains especially in medicine, aviation, arts, and entertainment but its full potential in vocational further education and to the process by which collaborating higher education and companies design, develop and create VR-based training materials have not been researched in an adequate extent.

In this paper, we discuss how companies in the health care and hospitality industry and higher education can collaboratively develop, produce and test training materials created using VR technology. Our objective is to understand VR’s potential as a tool for further vocational training and create the model and process of how to create training material in collaboration using the living lab method. We have chosen our example industries health care and hospitality because they offer suitable entry-level positions to immigrants with a lack of language skills. The other challenge is that the immigrants' professional background is quite motley. The health care and hospitality industries are suffering from labor shortages and at the same time, we are facing the challenge of inadequate employment of immigrants.

Keywords:

Virtual Reality, further vocational training, immigrants, living lab.