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KFC Has A VR Job Training Simulator For New Employees

The only way to escape this training room is learn how to fry chicken.

We’ve seen brands like UPS integrate VR into training facilities and Walmart drop staff into Black Friday VR shopping simulators. Both powerful examples of employee training tools, VR can not only be be safer but also expedite the entire learning process in a fun way. The potential is endless and we’re always on the lookout for the next VR training use case.

Well we may have just found it. In probably one of the most unexpected uses of VR to train employees, this VR experience willhave you frying chicken with the one and only Colonel Sanders.

Yes that’s right, KFC has an employee training VR experience—and it looks creepy AF.

According to the Eater, KFC is putting their workers through a bizarre training simulator that they describe as “a creepy BioShock-esque virtual reality ‘escape room’ replete with narration from an omnipresent, mildly demonic-sounding Colonel Sanders.”

Allegedly KFC is incorporating the Oculus Rift VR experience into its employee training program to show trainees how to make its signature Original Recipe fried chicken. Sounds normal enough. But instead of placing you in a sterile kitchen environment, you’re transported into a claustrophobic room filled with framed chicken paintings, a robot servant dangling tentacle arms, and a sinister Colonel Sanders that shouts at you through a speaker. “Will you escape or be trapped with me forever,” says Colonel Sanders after you finish step four of the chicken training process.

Dubbed The Hard Way: A Virtual Reality Training Experience, KFC notes that this VR simulator takes workers through the chicken cooking in just 10 minutes, as opposed to the 25 minutes it takes IRL.

You can watch the full gameplay below.

Whether an actual training simulator or just another marketing tactic like their normcore fashion line that targets a younger consumer, it’s not entirely clear yet. What I do know is that when I finally try this VR experience myself, i’ll either be balled up in the corner of my bedroom sobbing, or we’re having fried chicken for dinner at my house.

Image Credit: KFC

About the Scout

Jonathan Nafarrete

Jonathan Nafarrete is the co-founder of VRScout.

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