Growing up in the rural Midwest in the 1990s, I was lucky: My high school offered two computer science classes at a time when most schools had none. My friends and I spent dozens of hours in class trying to code our own version of the classic arcade game, Asteroids. It wasn’t polished, but it taught me a lesson that has held up for decades: People get better when given the opportunity to try, fail, fix, and try again until results improve.
Today, after 20-plus years in the learning technology industry, I’ve watched companies pour time and money into training that looks impressive but doesn’t translate into better decisions on the job. Slide decks. Videos. Quizzes. “Completion” metrics. Too often, it’s information without application—content without feedback loops.
Here’s the shift workplaces need to make: Stop treating learning like reading and start treating learning like rehearsal. The most effective training environments should feel less like a lecture and more like a well-designed game—where people learn through realistic scenarios, get immediate feedback, and progress as they demonstrate competence.
The game-design elements I grew up with are still pervasive in modern culture, with 60 percent of American adults playing video games each week. To close skill gaps faster, organizations should create virtual learning and development (L&D) environments built on adaptive simulations.
Progressively Challenging Scenarios
Much like video games, adaptive L&D simulations enable organizations to provide their employees with realistic, appropriate, and progressively more challenging workplace scenarios. Employees can repeat these hands-on sessions (or levels, in video game terms) if they struggle to learn new things or wish to refresh their knowledge. Or they can skip the sessions they’ve already mastered and move on to more advanced scenarios that enable them to acquire new knowledge and skills.
Scenario-based training can provide organizations with metrics that reveal how much—and how quickly—employees are learning. This real-time progress-tracking data shows organizations where skill gaps might exist, which skills gaps have been filled in, and whether acquired skills align with business objectives.
Safe Space to Learn
There’s another element of L&D gamification that does not get nearly enough attention but could have an even greater impact on skill development. Simulated game-like environments provide individuals with a psychologically safe space to learn new skills. It’s a place to try and keep trying—again and again, as often as they need, until they get it right.
Opportunity to Problem Solve
That was what was so special about my independent study class in high school. No one was expecting us to build a polished video game that we would sell at the video game store at the mall. The assignment from our teacher was to try to build something, to test ourselves, to figure it out. Though we got a grade at the end of the class, there was no real pressure on us, and the stakes were extremely low. It didn’t matter if the game worked (although it did, mostly). What mattered most was that we acquired new knowledge and skills, applied them to the next challenge, and kept trying until we got it right.
Perhaps as importantly, we weren’t only learning computer languages, programming techniques, and other technical skills. We were discovering how to solve problems, collaborate, and communicate. These were great lessons for 17-year-old me. These were lessons that helped me succeed in college, grad school, and my current career—lessons that have endured for a lifetime.
Multiple Benefits
Today, research studies show immersive learning has multiple benefits in the workplace. When individuals are immersed in a simulated L&D environment that incorporates proven learning principles, researchers at Trinity College Dublin have found that they gain confidence and improve their long-term knowledge retention. Together, these enhancements translate into more effective training and better on-the-job-performance.
My high school friends and I thought we were getting away with something because we got to use class time to build a video game. But as it turns out, these classes were the perfect—and perfectly safe—place to learn practical, durable skills that lasted me a lifetime. Organizations that offer similar immersive spaces for personalized training can help employees thrive on the job and in the world.