Mondelez launches virtual virtual reality pilot project

Cadbury Dairy Milk-maker Mondelez India has started an immersive onboarding pilot project for new employees to give them a digital taste of their key locations in India, including the head office, the global R&D centre, innovation centres and manufacturing facilities.

The company sends Meta's Oculus Virtual Reality headsets home to its new employees for the first 2 -- 3 days to view pre-filmed tours of these offices, although the onboarding process may be longer, stretching to 90 days.

You can visit our SriCity plant, which is our biggest plant in India, our technical centre in Thane and our head office in Mumbai. The firm said it is experimenting with the initiative with 50 new hires and will scale it up across all new hires regardless of the role. She did not say how much money is being invested into the pilot.

The immersive experience tries to restore some of the pre-Covid experience in interacting with and inducting new hires, while the pandemic forced the organisation to experiment with virtual hiring and onboarding.

Vaid says that it will help employees experience the organisation in a consistent way regardless of their role, as several organisations have leaned more towards getting employees back to office as the Covid 19 infections have abated.

The onboarding process is segmented and defined by the nature of the role. The head office positions may have the chance to meet with the leadership. People even in frontline positions would get an opportunity to hear directly from the leaders and see the head office. When you are in certain roles, you are not able to connect with the big picture of what a plant looks like and what it feels like to work in one. It helps the company earn some brownie points with the younger and tech-savvy hires, especially since Mondelez is hiring for digital roles in e-commerce and analytics. She adds that it can also come in handy for deeper engagement in a virtual team concept.