https://hros.

co/case‐study‐upload/how‐orange‐silicon‐valley‐uses‐virtual‐reality‐to‐improve‐employee‐
safety 

Read the case below and answer the following 

 Is VR a good training method? Why or why not? (consider what makes training more effective) 
 How is this an improvement over how OSV used to do fire emergency training? Can you think of 
other ways they could improve the training? Was this the best option? 
 Do you recommend the demo mode or the self‐navigation mode for training? Why? 
 Can VR be used to improve health and safety in the workplace other than virtual fire drills? Give 
some examples.  
 Could VR be helpful to human resources for something other than safety training? 

HOW ORANGE SILICON VALLEY USES VIRTUAL REALITY TO IMPROVE

EMPLOYEE SAFETY

Orange Silicon Valley is a research and innovation laboratory of Orange Group, a

French Telecom Operator, which is a leading network operator for mobile, broadband
internet, and fixed line telecommunications in 30 countries and territories. We are a
global community of 161,000 people, reflecting the wonderfully varied markets we
serve.

The importance of Orange Silicon Valley is to be Orange’s Bay Area presence and to
understand technology trends and solutions. Through research, development, and
strategic analysis, we actively participate in the disruptive innovations that are
changing the way we work.

Our capacity to contribute and engage with the Silicon Valley ecosystem is a way to
foster innovation and seek out disruption within our organization. We cross disciplines
in our different verticals such as Virtual Reality and Human Resources. We believe
that innovation comes from people who don’t know what they can’t do.

Why We Did It
Technology can dramatically improve employees experience. Employees’ workflows
and workplaces are constantly being reshaped. Emergency evacuation is a part of this
experience. Being aware of and learning procedures is not always easy and efficient.

Since Orange Silicon Valley’s fire emergency training happens once a year, new
employees or employees who are not in the office on that specific day miss the
training. For employees who do attend training, instructions can be hard to remember
due to a lack of immersion and focus.

Virtual Reality can help organizations increase both user engagement and focus
through better efficiency and flexibility. The core function of our case study is to
assess the way virtual reality enhances employees experiences when they have to learn
the emergency procedure.

Virtual reality training also gives employees an alternative to the physical drill that
happens once a year. As portability is the next new capability, using VR is a way to
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verify the state of the technology and understand how we can change the way we
communicate and collaborate, and redefine the future of digital workplace.

Why did we consider VR as a solution for a fire emergency training?

 Some employees miss the emergency training or don’t have the opportunity to
do it during onboarding
 Few people read our 22-page fire emergency procedure, which explains where
they have to go and what they should and should not do
 Emergency staff (volunteers) have difficulties remembering exactly what they
have to do
 Not everyone is aware of both the east and west building exit routes, or where
the meeting point is on the street

With VR comes an active learning thanks to the immersive environment provided into
it. It can helps workforce to be more flexible, resulting in greater autonomy and
productivity.

What We Did
We identified key parts of employee onboarding training related to our emergency
procedure.

 Thanks to Virtual Reality training, employees can know exactly how to get to
the company gathering point outside of the building.
 Orange Silicon Valley’s legacy HR procedure is a 22-pages document that
explains the evacuation procedure and duties related to it. This is long, and not
all employees read it.

We tried to solve these problems by building an expansive virtual reality environment

to help our employees learn the exit route to get to our emergency gathering point
outside of the building by themselves.
We created a VR environment consisting of our building’s 11th floor (open to the
public), 10th floor (open space), and street level by iterating with Uinnova
Technology, a startup we are working with.

How we did it
We chose to implement our project by working with Uinnova Technology. Uinnova
solution is a 3D visualization platform that helps users build 3D simulation scenes,
develop applications and integrate their IoT data and system. By bringing advanced
interactive 3D capabilities to current and legacy User Interaction, Uinnova seeks to
improve user experience by working on specific use cases with companies.

We chose to implement our project through an agile framework. The goal is to build,
try, and correct the virtual reality environment until we deliver a version compliant
with HR needs.
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# STEP 1: BUILDI NG THE VI RTUAL REALIT Y ENVIR ONMENT

Here are the technical steps we took to design our office:

1. Figure out what part of the building/street level we needed to provide in order to
let the employee walk (or run) to our company gathering point
2. Provide the floor plan and pictures to build the environment virtually
(navigation points)
3. Provide pictures of the fire emergency path’s points of interest, such as exit
signs, fire extinguishers, and stairwells
4. Provide the exact location of our points of interest and furniture on the floor
plan
5. Use a 360° camera to implement a video for the fire emergency route
From a Human Resources perspective, part of the fire emergency procedure had to be
designed at each point of interest and some of the navigation points. For example, a
popup appears when an employee sees a fire extinguisher or moves to a specific
location where unique instructions are needed.

We divided our work in three parts, floor by floor, to provide a fully immersive
environment that complies with our Human Resources needs. To do so, we reviewed
the fire procedure with our HR department to figure out which parts of the exit path are
the most important during the process.

To help our HR department save time during the onboarding process, we needed to
replicate the possibility of walking freely in the space to get familiar with the floor as
well as provide a quick, automatic, and safe VR training. For each floor, we provided
two different demonstrations.
1. We implemented a demo point where the system will take employees to the
meeting point automatically. For this procedure, employees just have to put on
the VR headset and sit down. For this model, we tried to be as close to the
onboarding process as possible in order to deliver the right exit path.
2. We implemented a self-navigation model that requires employees to navigate
themselves and see the exit sign and fire extinguisher. In this navigation model,
employees have to use the remotes and stand up while virtually moving through
the space. This second mode enables us to provide a quiz mode later on that
requires employees to figure out where to go on their own and demonstrate their
knowledge of the procedure.

11th floor section

On our 11th floor, which is open to the public, we highlighted the kitchen, the lunch
area, and the data center first, since these zones are more risky than conference rooms
for instance, due to electricity, servers, etc. We designed a starting point by default in
the bistro since this point is far away from stairs.
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Also, we prioritized the most populated zones on the 11th floor. If a fire happens, the
probability of having employees in the “bistro” or in the west lobby is higher than
somewhere else. We also focused on the front desk space, since it is close to our four
elevators. One of the rules we emphasize during the onboarding process is taking the
stairs instead of using the elevators.

11th floor starting point

On the picture herein above, the red fire pop-up enables a virtual fire and triggers a
recorded fire drill to increase the immersive experience. The white arrow pop-up next
to the fire pop-up allows the user to switch between different demo modes. The white
menu on the right enables the HR department to record user actions into the immersive
environment. Such records can be shown to the trainee.

11th floor elevators

On the picture herein above, the white pop-up “Do not use elevators. Move in an
orderly fashion toward the stairs” is a copy past of the emergency procedure. Every
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employee can read this guideline through the legacy procedure. Our purpose is to use
the virtual environment to improve the learning experience.
10th floor section

On our 10th floor, we designed our open space and our lobby by paying close attention
to the “default starting point”, right in the center of the open space. The two different
modes also work for this floor, and we added a virtual fire on one side to see how
employees react to it.

10th floor starting point

On the picture herein above, the demo mode enables user to play an automated
recorded path from the demo list. Such a mode enables the user to have an overview of
the exit path without using actively the remote and the VR headset. The drill mode
adds virtual fires and an audio fire alarm in the self-navigation model in order to
emphasize the sense of urgency.

Stairs section

The stairs on both sides are important to emphasize since everyone in the building has
to use them in emergency situations. The automatic mode teleports employees directly
to the first floor (instead of doing 9 flights of stairs in VR mode);

Stairs on 10th floor

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On the picture herein above, we added all the building floors so that the user can click
to be teleported at specific locations. The other floors are empty, but we designed this
feature since our building manager is interested in sharing our demo with the HR
departments of the other companies in the building.

Street level section

The first floor and the street level are an important part of the piece since employees
have to go to the gathering point. We had a specific request from our HR coordinator
who is in charge of taking attendance at the gathering point. She brought our attention
to the difficulties in showing people exactly where they need to go once they are on the
street, so we used additional resources to design arrows and signs to show people
exactly where to go.

Street level close to the company gathering point

On the picture herein above, the green arrow indicates the path to follow to get to the
company gathering point. The yellow arrow indicates the exact location of the
gathering point. Those features have been added to help our users to visualize clearly
where to go.
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Gathering point
The trainee’s goal is to reach the point where employees meet in the VR environment
in order to get used to taking the right path and be more efficient on the day of an
emergency.

Key Takeaways
Cybersickness

One of the major takeaways is the cybersickness our employees experience when they
are exposed to a virtual reality environment. Virtual Reality sickness is different from
motion sickness in that it can be caused by the visually-induced perception of self-
motion; real self-motion is not needed.

There are many factors that can cause cybersickness and there is no foolproof method
for eliminating the problem. However, we identified patterns that we emphasized to
our vendor to change the way we organized the immersive environment:

 Graphic quality is essential to having a good experience

 An immersive environment without bugs is fundamental (e.g. going through the
walls, teleporting to a different floor very quickly)
 A slower flying mode helps postpone the dizzy feeling but does not eliminate it
 A furnished environment helps give a better sense of where we are so that the
brain can focus on the immersive environment instead of what’s around

Gendered bias

Our office is divided between the east and west side, and the same goes for our
restrooms. Women use the west side stairs more frequently because their restrooms are
on that side. Men use the east side stairs more frequently for the same reason.

If a fire emergency happens, the east side will be more crowded than the west since
there are more men than women who work in the office. VR training helped us to
understand this bias so that we can anticipate how to organize the emergency team in
case of a real emergency. Another part of the training can help people in charge be
prepared to regulate the traffic on the east side.